Just a note that sub-categories are not more verbosely marked all across application UI. We now explicitly say what kind of sub-category is set and not just say "other".

Should we rename Non-working to Other?

Jacek,

Here's a stab at answering your questions

What you've described is absolutely ok. All sensible approaches, and absolutely meets our needs.

To your question of how to expose sub types, I think it would be sufficient to simply expose by adding a descriptive sub type text beside days marked as non working in any detail reports that are generated (detail meaning reports that list up each specific day) If you have reports that count stats, I don't think it's necessary to do "sub-stats". So if a report said 12 Non-working days total, absolutely acceptable that user would have to run a more detailed report to find out what those non-working days actually consisted of.

Summary looks good, but last point you've got absolutely wrong: I should be thanking you. :)
cheers,
Paul

Hi Paul,

Again thank you for the feedback.

I'm glad that current vacation workflow works fine for your team. We will add additional explanation to the Settings page to make it clear that users can exceed vacation limit with clear notification about that fact.

I like the "Public Holiday" option. It is very common case and clearly describes its purpose.

I also like the "Non-working" idea for other types of absence.
I just want to make sure it covers your needs in the right way. Please note that marking day as "non-working" reduces 'planned' value for week/month (in the same way as 'vacation' does).
Is this OK for your setup? Will it work fine for all kinds of non-working options like paid leave (funeral, paternity, etc.), unpaid leave, company event, etc?
'Planned' values are not a strict limitation. It is just a useful information for users how much they should work in a week/month.

New 'Public holiday' would work in the same way (reduce 'planned' values).
'Sick' is the only option which does not reduce 'planned'. I can elaborate why we chose this way if you like.

Wrt sub-type or non-working description, let me discuss that topic with the team on our weekly planning meeting on Tuesday.
Description or sub-types list should not be a problem if that is only additional text associated with the 'non-working' event. However it might be difficult to make this sub-type a separate item in the reports.
How would you like to use this sub-type/description? Where would you like to see it?

In summary:
* we will add 'Public holiday" option
* we will add description or subtypes list to the 'Non-working' (implementation and UX details TBD)

Currently the time off selection list always contains currently selected value (if day is set as 'sick' then 'sick' is still on the list). We can remove this one item as it does not make any sense. That way our new extended list will still have 4 items.

Thank you,
Jacek

Hi Jacek,

understand your concerns completely. I think the existing setup isn't that far off actually. Especially since you pointed out that marking more days than allowed on vacation gives a warning - not prevents using it. This makes a big difference !! (you've clearly thought this through :)

So with this new insight, I will ask my employees to mark all days off as vacation, issuing a special instruction that they need to understand that days off over and above limit should a) be approved in advance and b) their salary will be reduced.

So:
'Sick' is fine as is.
'Working' - just sets back to working if you've made a mistake, so that's fine.
'Vacation' = employee taking the day off & with my new insights I can make due with this...

That leaves 'Non-working' which could still be a few other things:
- Public holiday,
- Paid leave (as opposed to vacation days, where I'll dock pay)
- Courses maybe
- Idle time (consultant who might not have a customer project to book against.
- etc.

But all of the above could also be covered by me setting up special Project/Accounts (though a bit messy). So there is a possible workaround for me here as well. Weakness here would be that users may still use Non-working in some way I don't understand or agree with.

So in a final summary, based on your comments + a re-think I might suggest just 2 simple enhancements as a compromise:

1) Add a single new category "Public Holiday"
2) Keep Non-working, but when choosing this give user option to choose a sub-type of non-working: Company event, Training, Paid Leave, Unpaid Leave, Other (specify).
If the first values in picklist were sysadmin configurable that would be great. If this is difficult, maybe don't even have a picklist but prompt the user to at least describe what this Non-working is all about....

What do you think? Still too complex? If so, I fully understand.
Look forward to your feedback & keep up good work with great product.

cheers,
Paul

Hello Paul,

Thank you for the feedback.

We love to hear what our customers say but we don't want to blindly implement all the requested features to not pollute the UI. So let's discuss your requirements :)

In general, what we would like to avoid is having too many items on the selection list. Too long list would be confusing.
If possible we would love to avoid a configuration too. We like the 'less is better' approach and simple configuration style like in iOS (as opposed to Android).

On the other hand we understand your point and would like to improve what we have now. Would you be able to answer following questions?
It could be great to add/rename/remove some items from the absence list, keep it short and make more useful at the same time.

1. Currently our 'non-working' category is aimed to cover mostly public holidays. It reduces the total/planned number of hours for a week and month. What about renaming that to 'Public holiday' to make it less ambiguous?

2. Unpaid leave. Currently it is still possible to use 'Vacation' if the quota is exceeded. It is clearly marked in the report how many vacation days were used.
Is it obvious for users to decide if they want a 'vacation' or 'unpaid'?
Do we need both of them? If we do then should we block 'vacation' option if quota is reached and allow for 'unpaid'?

3. Paid leave. Does it cover also 'vacation'? Should we rename 'vacation' to 'paid leave' or do we need both of them?

4. What about 'sick leave'? Does it work fine?

Again, many thanks for your feedback.

Cheers,
Jacek