The four absence-related alert groups must be assigned to an absence type (or defined reason) for it to be included in the alert, using the Absence Type Setup section. This can be done at a global, template or user level.
Absence created of a certain length
This alert sends the day after an absence is created with a certain length. The booking maybe for the past or future.
The length can be set to use calendar days or working days. Working days looks at the duration field in the absence. E.g. two weeks off on an M-F rota is 10 days; calendar days looks at the length from start to end of the absence, so will consider non-working days.
Note that it does not send for absences that are edited to meet the criteria.
If the absence is an open record
This alert sends when the scheduled tasks run in the system, updating open absences to the current day, for absences that reach the length specified on the alert. (It used to look at days since the creation of the absence, regardless of the start date).
Note for testing: the alerts must be run for the last modified date, so even if you’re extending an absence in the past or future, the modified date will be today.
These also have the option for calendar vs working days. Picking working days will send when the duration of the absence reaches the total stated; picking calendar days will send when the number of days between the start and today (inclusive) reaches the threshold.
Occurrences of absence in the last twelve months
This alert sends the day after an absence is booked which takes the number of occurrences of a certain absence type within the last 12 months to the threshold.
There is an option to use linked absences, which counts any absences that have been linked as one occurrence instead of multiple. This is useful if e.g. two sickness absences were recorded for the same period of illness.
Now, if there are multiple absence types associated with this alert group, each one contributes an occurrence. E.g. if this is attached to Paid sickness and Unpaid sickness and one occurrence of each is recorded already, another occurrence of either will trigger the “three occurrences” alert.
Days since record created with status
This alert sends x days after an absence is created* with a certain status. The most common use for this is with the status Pending, to alert an admin to a request which has been left unactioned for several days.
These now send a day sooner than they previously did. E.g. if an absence is booked pending on Monday and the absence type has this alert set up to trigger 3 days later, it will send on Thursday.
*It uses creation date, not modification date. If you set up an alert for Authorised status for 3 days, but it takes 5 days for a record to move from Pending to Authorised, no alert will ever send for this absence.
Remaining entitlement
A summary of the user's entitlement info, which sends x days before the end of the year. If running for 2 days until a Jan 1st holiday year start, it will be 30th Dec.
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