3 must-have features of employee time off tracking software

If you’re looking for employee time off tracking software, it’s probably because you want a better system than having to update a spreadsheet every time someone takes a day off.

As you look up various options, you’ll run into HR tools that also handle recruiting, onboarding, performance management, and other stuff. But for most of us who just want to manage annual leave a bit better, those big HR tools are going to be overkill.

So, if you simply want a faster and easier way to track your team’s time off requests and leave balances, here are the must-have software features you need:

Must-have feature #1: You need to easily see when (and why) someone’s off.
Must-have feature #2: You need to track how much holiday everyone on your team has taken, and you need that info at a moment’s notice.
Must-have feature #3: You need to give your team an easy way to submit time off requests, so you don’t have to deal with loose notes, emails getting lost in your inbox, and text messages.

We’ll show you how these features work in Timetastic — our employee time off tracking software — and how it makes it easy for you to track time off and keep accurate records. You can start your one-month free trial today.

Must-have feature #1: Quickly see who’s off and why they’re off

The first must-have feature of employee time off tracking software is that it tells you when and why someone’s off from work. Timetastic tells you this automatically in various ways, so you never have to worry about tracking the info down.

You can see who’s off by checking out your team’s Wallchart. Your Wallchart tells you who’s off and why they’re off.
You can have your Timetastic account synced to your work calendar. You can sync your Timetastic account to any calendar that works off of a WebCal feed, like Google Calendar, iCal, and Outlook.
And you can get updates sent to you via email, Slack, or MS Teams. These updates tell you who’s off for the day and who has time off coming up in the week.

Your Wallchart tells you everything you need to know

Wallchart in Timetastic: Every team members time off can be easily seen in one place

Your Wallchart is a company-wide time off calendar that’s automatically updated for you. When someone has time off, your Wallchart updates with descriptive colour-coded icons that tell you when and why they’re off.

By just looking at your Wallchart, you quickly see your leave calendar for the entire month.

Sync your Wallchart to your preferred work calendar

You can sync your Timetastic account with your work calendar — whether that’s Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, or iCal.

Syncing your Wallchart with your Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar example.

You don’t have to sync your whole company’s time off calendar, though. You can just choose to sync your own personal leave, your department’s leave, or even specific employees from your team. Whatever you prefer.

Once you’ve done this, the info you need the most is in your preferred work calendar. So, after syncing Timetastic with your Google Calendar, you can just fire it up in your browser and see who on your team is off for the day.

Getting time off updates sent to you

Timetastic will also send you daily or weekly Absence Summaries via email, Slack, or MS teams.

Who's Off This Week: With Timetastic, you can easily get an overview of everyone who is going to be off for the week sent via email, Slack, or MS teams.

These Absence Summaries tell you who’s off for the day, and who has time off coming up in the week.

This means you don’t even need to check your Wallchart or calendar — you can just open your email and see who has the day off. You’re always in the know, never out of the loop.

Must-have feature #2: Easily track how much leave everyone has taken throughout the year

Instead of manually adding up the days your employees have taken off — and separating those days into different buckets, such as one for holiday leave and one for sick leave — Timetastic’s tracking software breaks it all down for you.

When you log in and go to your Wallchart, you’ll see a badge next to every employee's name. That’s how much annual leave they have left to use for the year. Simple.

Annual leave remaining per each Customer Service team member

When you click on a specific employee name, you get their individual leave breakdown, telling you how much holiday they get each year, how much they’ve taken, how much they have left to take. Also, how much non-deductible leave (like sick leave) they have left to use.

Timetastic Wallchart example: See when someone is off and why.

And if you want to analyse your team’s time off trends as a whole, you can do that in Timetastic, with our Absence Insights page:

Absence Insights: Your organisation's absence data, at a glance

With Absence Insights, you can see how much leave your entire team has taken. And you get a breakdown of what kind of leave they take the most, as well as when throughout the year most of your employees take time off.

This is helpful and insightful information that, without software, you’d need to track down and compile on your own. But with Timetastic, it’s all given to you automatically, so you can quickly make informed decisions based on accurate data.

Bonus feature: Help your team avoid burnout

There’s another helpful feature on your Absence Insights page—your Burnout Board.

Burnout Board in Timetastic: See who might be overworking or in need of a break.

Because Timetastic tracks your team’s time off records automatically, it already knows when someone might be overworked or in need of a break. And when you look at your Burnout Board, you see which employees haven’t taken a holiday recently.

You’ll also get this information emailed to you once a quarter:

The Fire Wire: Your Quarterly Burnout Board Update

Must-have feature #3: Give your team an easy way to request time off

There are loads of ways your staff could submit time off requests: email, paper form, text message, post-it note, or a face-to-face chat. Problem is: all of these methods get messy pretty quickly. And things get even messier when you use a random mix of them all.

Timetastic gets rid of all that hassle. Your team can use Timetastic to choose the dates they want, and submit a request straight to you (or whoever’s reviewing holiday requests).

Everyone has the freedom to use their web browser or their Timetastic mobile app — whenever they want. Every team member can easily submit requests while on-the-go or away from their desk.

Here’s how it looks on a browser:

And here’s how it looks on the Timetastic mobile app:

When people want to put in a new holiday request, they simply pick the dates they want, mark what type of leave they’re taking, and submit their request.

That request then gets directed to you (or whoever’s in charge of approving their leave) via Slack, MS Teams, or email.

Sophie Jones has requested time off: Mon 16th August through Fri 20th August

You can choose right then and there whether you approve or decline the request.

By handling your team’s time off requests, all key info is kept within Timetastic.

So when a request gets approved, your team member’s annual leave balance is updated, as well as your company’s Wallchart, along with any work calendars you’ve connected to your account. That keeps everything up-to-date and completely accurate with zero effort.

Bonus feature: Easily export your data (if you want to)

If you need to get your team’s annual leave data out of Timetastic — to share with payroll, or someone who isn’t in your organisation — you can easily export and share all of your data as an Excel file.

Next steps: Start your free one-month trial of Timetastic

Timetastic is an employee time off tracking software that helps you spend less time worrying about tracking your team’s time off requests and updating your company calendar.

With Timetastic, you can:

Track who’s off from work (and why).
Get time off updates sent directly to you (and synced with your work calendar).
Look up how much annual leave someone has left to use for the year.
See who may be overdue for a holiday (so you can prevent burnout).
And much more.

Start your free Timetastic trial today.

For more helpful advice about managing employee leave, check out: