Holiday Types

Flowtly Editorial Team5 min

Holiday Types in Flowtly allow you to configure and manage the different categories of leave available to your employees. Each holiday type represents a distinct form of absence, such as annual leave, sick leave, parental leave, or unpaid time off. By defining these types, you establish a structured leave policy that is consistently applied across your organization.

Each holiday type can be customized with specific rules, including whether it requires approval, whether it deducts from an employee's leave balance, and how it appears in scheduling and reporting views. This flexibility allows you to model your organization's leave policies accurately, regardless of complexity or regional requirements.

Properly configured holiday types are essential for accurate leave tracking, payroll calculations, and compliance reporting. When employees request time off, they select from the available holiday types, and the system automatically applies the correct rules and deductions. This eliminates manual tracking and reduces the risk of policy misapplication.

Repeating requests

A holiday type can allow employees to request a repeating absence — "every Tuesday", "every second Friday", "the 10th of each month" — rather than filing the same request week after week. This is set per type, with Repeating request can be created for this type, and it is off by default for every type.

Turn it on only for the types where a repeat makes sense. A regular weekly delegation or a fixed remote-work day is the case it was built for; a repeating sick leave is not.

When it is on, an employee filing a request for that type sees an extra Repeat option where they choose the frequency, the day it falls on, and when the series ends — on a date, after a number of occurrences, or never. Managers can always create a repeating absence for someone, on any type, regardless of this setting.

Two things worth knowing before you switch it on:

  • A repeating request creates a rule, not a single request. Flowtly then books each occurrence automatically as it comes due. The rule states where it ends, so a series cannot run indefinitely by accident.
  • Approval is granted once, for the series — not for each occurrence. If the type also requires approval, turning this on means the individual dates will not each pass an approver. Consider that before enabling it on a type whose whole purpose is per-request sign-off.

An absence booked from a rule gets the same payroll treatment as any other absence of its type: when your organization has mapped a custom type to a payroll code, the occurrences carry that code just as a request filed by hand would.

Deleting a rule stops future occurrences and leaves absences already booked in place; they remain real leave and are removed separately if that is what you want.

Setting the type to inactive pauses a series that is already running. Retiring a type withdraws it completely: nobody can start a new repeating absence on it, an existing rule cannot be switched onto it, and a rule already running on it stops booking occurrences for as long as the type stays retired. The rule itself is not deleted — it stays on the employee's record, paused.

Switching the type back on resumes the series from that point. The occurrences that fell while the type was retired are not booked afterwards: withdrawing the type is what stopped them, and offering it again does not go back and fill them in. Absences booked before the type was retired are untouched — they remain real leave, counted against the employee's time, shown on the planner and included in exports.

Delete the rule to end a series for good. That is what ends it permanently, whether or not its type is still offered, and it can be done by the person the rule is for as well as by a manager. Absences already booked stay where they are, as above. A retired type's rules can no longer be edited, so while a type is retired, deleting is the only change available.

Example use cases

  • Annual Leave Configuration: Set up a standard annual leave type with a defined entitlement per employee, automatic balance tracking, and manager approval requirements.
  • Sick Leave Tracking: Create a sick leave type that records absences without deducting from annual leave balances, supporting accurate health-related absence reporting.
  • Parental Leave: Define parental leave types that comply with local labor regulations, including extended duration and specific approval workflows.
  • Unpaid Leave: Configure an unpaid leave type for situations where employees need time off beyond their paid entitlement, ensuring payroll adjustments are handled correctly.
  • Public Holidays: Set up a public holiday type to mark organization-wide days off that do not affect individual leave balances.

Connection map

Refers toUses upDerived fromPlanned vs actual
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
holiday-request made against holiday-type. holiday-request filed on behalf of person. holiday-request draws down leave-entitlement. holiday-request becomes once approved absence. leave-entitlement held by person. bank-holiday applies as absence. holiday-request draws down granted-allowance. granted-allowance granted against holiday-type. granted-allowance held by person. granted-allowance granted vs accrued leave-entitlement. recurrence-rule allowed by holiday-type. recurrence-rule requested by person. recurrence-rule books each occurrence as absence. absence reduces capacity.made againstfiled on behalf ofdraws downbecomes once approvedheld byapplies asdraws downgranted againstheld bygranted vs accruedallowed byrequested bybooks each occurrence asreducesHHoliday request — A request for time off, submitted for approval. Usually the employee files it; an administrator or HR manager may file one on that person's behalf, and it still goes to that person's approvers. Approving it is what turns it into leave the rest of the system counts.Holiday requestHHoliday type — The kind of leave a request is made against, e.g. annual leave or unpaid. It is either one of the twelve types Flowtly has built in, turned on under a name the organisation chooses, or a type the organisation created itself. Only a built-in type carries behaviour tied to its kind; a created type is a name, an icon and a colour with its own settings.Holiday typePPerson — An employee. The central record the rest of the workforce data hangs off — profile, documents, leave, benefits, rates.PersonEEntitlement — How much leave a person has for the leave year. A request draws it down; the balance is what remains.EntitlementAAbsence — Time off that counts. It arrives either from an approved request or recorded directly by a manager, which needs no approval. It removes hours from a person's week before any booking is counted against it.AbsenceBBank holiday — A public, company-wide non-working day. It applies to everyone rather than being requested by anyone.Bank holidayGGranted allowance — A number of days set for a person against one holiday type, effective from a date. It is granted rather than accrued, so a request against that type draws it down instead of the leave entitlement.Granted allowanceRRecurring request — A repeat an employee asks for once -- every Tuesday, the 10th of each month -- instead of filing the same request each time. It states where it ends, and Flowtly books each occurrence from it as that date comes due.Recurring requestCCapacity — A person's contracted week, less absence. Bookings are measured against their own contracted week, so 20 hours fills 83% of a 0.6 FTE and not 50%. Labels describe the visible period, show a range when contracts change, and identify assumed capacity.Capacity

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