How do I set up first and second leave approvers?

1 min read By TimeOff Support

If a leave request needs approval from two people in sequence, use a Two-tier approval policy.

One approval stage is the employee’s normal manager — their department approver or Direct Supervisor. The policy adds another nominated reviewer, such as HR, Finance or a team lead.

How do I set it up?

Go to:

Settings → Employee policies → Two-tier approval

Create a policy and select the person who should act as the additional reviewer.

Then use Approval mode to choose the approval order:

  • HR review before manager — the nominated reviewer, such as HR, reviews the request first. If approved, it then goes to the employee’s normal manager.
  • Final approval (after the manager) — the employee’s normal manager reviews the request first. If approved, it then goes to the nominated reviewer for final approval.

You can limit the policy to selected employees, departments, locations or leave types.

Save the policy when the scope and approval order are correct.

Who is the employee’s normal manager?

TimeOff.Management uses the employee’s normal approval setup:

  • their Direct Supervisors, if one or more are assigned — any assigned Direct Supervisor can action the request; otherwise
  • their department approver (and Secondary Approver, if configured).

If one or more Direct Supervisors are assigned, they handle the manager approval stage instead of the normal department approval route. If no Direct Supervisor is assigned, the employee’s department approver setup is used.

Is a Secondary approver the same as a second approval stage?

No.

A Secondary approver is an alternative approver at the same stage. Either the main or secondary approver can approve or decline the request.

Use Two-tier approval when approval must happen in two separate stages.

What if auto-approval is also enabled?

Check your Auto-approval policies if you require two manual approvals.

Auto-approval can affect the normal approval process. In particular, if Skip two-tier screening is enabled, the two-tier screening step can be bypassed.

For the full policy options, see Two-tier approval.