Send your first leave request
Where to start it, what can push back, and what happens to your balance
This walks through booking time off as the employee, not the admin — from the form to the balance change once it's decided.
Start the request
Go to My leave in the sidebar (under Leave Management) — /requests, visible to
every role. The page is titled Request Time Off; your current balances sit at the
top of the leave-type list so you know what's available before you pick one.
Pick a type and dates
Choose a leave type — the dropdown shows days left for each, or no limit for types that aren't balance-tracked. Pick a start date; the end date is optional and defaults to "just that one day" if left blank. For a single day, a booking-increment chooser appears (Full day, Half day, and any hourly options the policy allows) so you can book part of a day; it collapses to whole days once the range is longer. Reason and a file attachment (a sick note, say) are optional; an attachment is visible only to you, admins, and whoever approves the request.
What can push back
Click Check (dry-run) before submitting — same validation as a real request, no request created. For the default Vacation policy, that includes:
- 2 days' notice — book at least two days out, or it's rejected.
- 15 days max per request — split anything longer.
- A replacement — Vacation requires naming someone to cover for you in the optional-looking Replacement field, or the dry-run flags it.
- Available balance — the dry-run shows the balance each affected year would be left with.
Sick leave skips almost all of this: no notice period, no replacement, no upper limit on a single request (see below).
How your days get counted
A request isn't just the calendar span — each day is checked against your own work schedule (non-working days aren't charged) and, unless the policy says otherwise, your holiday calendar. See How leave works in SquadBear for the full model.
Who approves it, and what happens to your balance
Submitting reserves the days from your balance right away — the dry-run's "balance after" already reflects them, before anyone has said yes. Vacation routes to your manager first (whoever is set as your manager on your profile, not necessarily someone with the "manager" role); requests over 5 days also need an admin's sign-off after that. Your manager sees it under Leave Management → Approvals, and in their dashboard's Approval Inbox. Approved reserved days become used days; rejected ones release back to your balance untouched. You can edit or cancel a pending request, and cancel an approved one — but a rejected request is final.
Sick leave is different
Sick leave auto-approves the instant you submit it — no manager step — and isn't balance-tracked, so there's no cap to run out of. The dashboard shows "no limit" rather than a day count.
Worked example
Aleksandra wants the last week of July off — Monday 27 to Friday 31, five working days, no holiday in the way. She opens My leave, picks Vacation, sets the dates, and names a colleague as her Replacement. Check comes back clean: 5 working days, balance after still comfortably positive. She submits; it goes to her manager, who sees it in their Approval Inbox that day. Approved, her 5 reserved days become used days — no admin step, since 5 days doesn't cross the threshold that would add one.