WinCapWEB Employee Self Service- Leave Request Web Approvals
WinCap Set Up
In order to setup and use Leave Request approvals on WinCapWEB, the approvals module needs to be activated. Once activated in WinCap, three tables will become active: Approver, Approval Level, and Approval Process. The three tables will need to be setup with all applicable attendance approvers; levels and processes in order for Supervisors to be able to manage their employee’s leave requests onWinCapWEB. This document reviews the initial setup of each table in WinCap.
- ApproverTable (File/Administration/Approver Maintenance)
Each supervisor that will need access to manage leave requests on WinCapWEBwill be required to be setup as an approver in WinCap. Access theapprover table under file/administration/approver maintenance. In order to create a new approver record, select the “” icon and the table will become active in modify mode. An employee search will appear where the applicable employee will need to be selected. The approver must be an employee of the district and have an active position in order to be assigned to the table. Similar to WinCap user profiles, the supervisor’s status will inactivate when the position is no longer active in WinCap.
Once the supervisor’s name is selected from the employee search, the approver table will default in the employee’s primary position, employee number, and will automatically assign an approver ID. The approver ID will be the same as the supervisor’s employee number; once the record is saved a sequence of “01” will be added to the end of the approver ID. An optional additional description field has been provided if a site wishes to display an additional description for the approver in WinCapWEBand on the history of each transaction. If the field is left blank the supervisor’s position code description will be the only approver description displayed.
Navigate to the applicable tab for attendance approvals: “Attendance View Restrictions.” Under this tab enable the “attendance approver” box. This tab is comprised of the three district tables that are available in the user profile to limit the views of an approver. If the approver has already been set up with view restrictions in their WinCapuser profile and these restrictions should be copied over, there is an option off of the blue options button (BOB) to automatically populate the restrictions from the User Profile. Once selected, any restrictions that existed will populate into the applicable fields. The Approver table and the WinCap User Profile do not stay in Sync with each other. It is important to note that if changes are made to a user, that the changes are first made in the WinCap user profile and then populated into the approver’s record after each modification.
Other applicable fields that can be used to restrict an approver view for leave requests are attendance group bargaining unit and attendance group tables. The next field, “Backup Approver”, within the approver table allows a site to define another approver as a backup for the supervisor. In order to place another approver in this field, the approver record must be created first. The backup approver will assume any restricted view access when reviewing or approving leave requests as the backup to an approver. The last field, “Supervisor Code” is only applicable to sites that are using WinCapWEBEmployee Self Service Leave Requests in conjunction with WinCapWEBTimesheets. Once the approver record is complete, make sure to save the record.
- Approver Level Table (File/Administration/Approval Level Maintenance)
The next table that will need to be established is the Approver Level Table. Based on site preference, the approver level table can be as descriptive as defining each level with a position such as “Head Custodian” or can be more ambiguous such as “Lowest Level Supervisor.” The approval levels will have the applicable approvers assigned to the level and then will be used to define a hierarchy in the approval process. Please keep in mind when developing approver levels and approval processes that only one approval process can be assigned to an attendance code within an attendance group. If one attendance group is used for multiple groups of employees, more vague levels/ processes may need to be created to allow for the definition within the attendance group table.
In order to create an approver level, access the approver level table through file, administration, approval level maintenance and select the ““icon to add a new level. The Approver Level table will become active in modify mode and allow for each field to be edited. The “Code” and “Description” are both user defined fields that can be updated with whatever the site prefers. The Code field is limited to 6 characters. Once the code and description have been added, the “usage” type will need to be defined. For Leave Request Approvals, “attendance” is the applicable usage type. In order to assign approver records to an approval level the magnify glass must be selected on the table.
Once the magnify glass is selected, an approver search will appear where the applicable supervisors should be selected. The approver search allows for multiple supervisors to be selected at once if more than one approver should be assigned to a level. Select the appropriate approvers and then “ok” when complete.
The approver level table will populate with all of the selected approvers. Once the table is complete, the user should select “save.” If an approver was added in error or someone must be removed from the level, the approver should be selected in the listing and the trash can icon should be selected to remove the approver from the level.
- Approval Process Table (File/ Administration/ Approval Process Maintenance)
The Approval Process Table is the last table that will need to be built within WinCap in order for users to be able to manage leave requests on WinCapWEB. The approval process table allows the site to define the approval hierarchy by inserting the applicable approval levels in the order that should be used. The first approval level that displays at the top of the approval process list once completed will be considered the final approval level, descending down the approval hierarchy to the employee. The approval process also allows a site to define specific rules for each level such as when an approver should be next in line for approval or up until what level an approver can cancel/withdraw or modify a leave request. Additional expression builder fields have been provided which are used to limit which leave requests will appear at a supervisor’s level and require their attention. The expression builder will not remove the supervisor’s access to applicable attendance codes but will not display the requests for approval for the attendance codes if the approval level is limited by the code.
In order to create an approval process, access the approval process table through file, administration, approval process maintenance and select the “ “icon to add a new process. The Approval Process table will become active in modify mode and allow for each field to be edited. The “Code” and “Description” are both user defined fields that can be updated with whatever the site prefers. The Code field is limited to 6 characters. Once the code and description have added, the “usage” type will need to be defined. For Leave Request Approvals, “attendance” is the applicable usage type.
The first approval level to default in automatically to the approval process table is the “employee/requisitioner.” This level will define the employees that have access to WinCapWEBto submit their own leave requests. The two applicable fields that may be modified on the employee/requisitioner level are “can cancel/withdraw until approved by” and “can modify until approved by.” If restrictions should need to be set for this level, the applicable approval level can be placed into the fields by selecting the magnify glass and selecting the approval level. No records will be found until another level is assigned within the approval process. Once more levels are defined, the employee restriction fields will then display those levels when the magnify glass is selected.
In order to define more approval levels on the approval process table, select the next blank line in the approval process table. In the approval level field listed as “blank” select the magnify glass and select the next applicable level that should be listed. The order of the approver’s can be re-sequenced after but the next approver should be the highest level approver for the approval process. Each approval level added to the approval process after that will be listed below this approver and will follow that sequence in the order of approving.
Once the approval level is selected the approver information will default in. Prior to defining the restriction fields, continue to add the remaining approver levels to the approval process. This will allow for all applicable levels to be selected when defining the restrictions at each level. In order to define more approval levels, again select the blank line below the employee/requisitioner level and select the appropriate approval level from the magnify glass.
If levels are added to the approval process and happen to be out of the approval level order, the order can be re-sequenced by selecting the blue options button (BOB) and selecting the option to “resequence approval levels.”
All of the approval levels will display and the user will be able to select the box to the left of the approval level to drag the level where it belongs. Once listed in the appropriate order, select ok and the approval process will be re-ordered.
When all of the approval levels are displayed in the proper order on the approval process, the restriction fields should then be updated with any applicable information. You will want to select the approval level to be updated from the listing and then update the fields for each level.
Employee Level restrictions that can be defined are “can cancel/withdraw until approved by” and “can modify until approved by.” For each of these fields, if an approver is defined the employee will lose their ability to update the leave request after the approver has completed their approval. This approver must be listed as approving the request in order for the withdraw or modify options to be disabled. In the example below as soon as the transportation clerk approves an employee’s leave request the employee is no longer able to withdraw/cancel or modify the leave request on WinCapWEB.
Supervisor Level restrictions that can be defined are “can approve only when previously approved by,” “can cancel/withdraw until approved by,” “can modify until approved by,” and expression builders. The first field “can approve only when previously approved by” will restrict which requests will allow a supervisor from approving. If the approver defined has not approved the request then that approver will not be able to approve the request and skip that approver’s level. The next field “can cancel/withdraw until approved by” will restrict an approver’s ability to cancel a request for an employee. The next field, “can modify until approved by” allows a site to restrict when a request can be modified. If a higher level approver is defined in this field, the lower level approver will not be able to make any edits to a request that has been previously approved by a higher level. The last restriction field available is the attendance where clause/expression builder field. These fields can be used if a site has a specific scenario where a particular expression can be built to limit what particular level is responsible for approving attendance codes. (Please note that if a restriction is put on a top level approver, the leave request will never reach approval level 1 in WinCap).
On each Approval Level are two additional options to define which approval will trigger an email to the employee regarding their leave request and also if a backup approver will receive the scheduled email regarding outstanding approvals. The option to “send email to the employee when approved at this level” should be selected on for any level that should generate an email to the employee indicating that their leave request has been approved. The option to “send email to backup approver(s)” should be selected for any level where a backup approver should be notified of outstanding approvals. Both the actual approver and the backup approver will receive the same email indicating there are outstanding leave requests requiring their approval.
- Attendance Group- Defining the Approval Process (Manage/ Employee Attendance/ Tables/ Attendance Groups/ Attendance Code Details Tab)
For each applicable attendance group/attendance code that has been established as “Requests required,” the applicable approval process must be attached within the attendance group table. Each attendance code has a field titled “approval process” which allows for one approval process to be defined. For any request that is entered by an employee within that attendance group against that attendance code, the attached approval process will be followed. Please note that if multiple approval processes were created and employees follow the same attendance group, the approval process may need to be condensed to more ambiguous levels and titles in order to assign the appropriate process. The other option is to break out the one attendance group into more diverse attendance groups.
In order to assign an approval process to an attendance group, navigate to the applicable attendance group and select the attendance code details tab. Select the applicable attendance code to be reviewed. The code should be flagged as “requests required” if activated for Leave Requests. Update the approval process by selecting modify, clicking the magnify glass and selecting the appropriate approval process. The next field that may be selected if applicable is if a site will require an employee approval. If a site wishes to have an employee approval on all leave requests submitted, the “EE Approval Required” box must be selected on the attendance code. When an employee submits a leave request their approval is automatically attached to the leave request. If a supervisor submits a leave request on behalf of the employee, the request must be approved by the employee in order for it to move up the hierarchy of approvals. The “EE Approval Required” flag is required in order for an approver to refer a request back to the employee level.
- WinCap User Profile
When an employee’s leave request is fully approved through WinCapWEB, the attendance transaction will be in WinCap at a level 1. In order for the employee’s leave request to post and be charged against the available balance, the attendance transaction must be posted. The attendance transaction may be posted by calling up a routine in WinCap or by completing an attendance import from SubFinder, AESOP etc. In order for a user to be able to post transactions in WinCap they will need to be set up with the appropriate WinCap security.
Any user responsible for posting attendance transaction will require access to “transactions for requests” and “can post requests if approved at level” and the approved level should be atleast 1. Changes to attendance transactions within WinCap are only permitted to those users who are a part of the approval process. If a change is made out on WinCapWEB the approvals are removed and the leave request is sent back through the approval process. If the attendance poster for your site is not a part of the attendance approval process and will need to make changes or be able to cancel transactions they should be defined as a “Superuser.” The user profile must have “transactions for requests,” “can cancel/withdraw requests approved up to level – 1” and “Can post request if approved at level-9.” If any corrections need to be made without re-approval from the employee or supervisor, with this security, the user will be able to cancel the leave request and add a transaction that is directly posted.
In order for the attendance poster to post the employee leave requests they will need to access “mass post pending request as taken or cancelled” (manage/employee attendance/mass post pending request as taken or cancelled). A prompt will appear where they will need to input the date range that should be scanned for requests and approval level 1. After selecting update a selection grid will appear where all transactions will be selected to be posted.