Availability & Leave
Know who can work before you build the schedule.
Availability and leave belong in the planning flow, not in scattered messages.
Employees say when they can work and request time off in one place. Managers review and decide. Planners see the result while the schedule is still being built, instead of after it is published.
30 days · Up to 4 employees · No credit card · Personal onboarding
Stop planning from messages and memory
The information exists. It is just never in the same place as the schedule.
Availability arrives in a group chat. A holiday request comes by email. Someone mentions a doctor appointment in the corridor. A note ends up on the desk. Then the planner tries to remember who cannot work next Tuesday.
Where it usually lives
- Availability in a group chat
- Holiday requests by email
- A note left on the desk
- A verbal promise from three weeks ago
- A spreadsheet only one person maintains
1. Employee input
Availability and leave requests are submitted in Timento instead of sent as a message.
2. Manager review
Requests arrive in one place with the dates and context needed to decide.
3. Planning visibility
Approved leave and known availability are visible while the week is being built.
4. Better schedule
Fewer surprises, fewer corrections after publishing, fewer repeat conversations.
The goal is not more administration. The goal is that the schedule reflects the team you actually have.
Two different things
Availability is not the same as leave.
They are often mixed together, and that is exactly why planning goes wrong. Timento keeps them separate, because they answer different questions.
Availability
When someone can normally work
Employee input about working availability. It is context for the planner, not a request that needs a decision.
- Communicated by the employee
- Describes normal working availability
- Used as planning context
- Kept current by the employee
Leave
A request for time away
A specific request for dates away from work. It follows a review flow and ends in an approval or a rejection.
- Submitted with dates and context
- Reviewed by a manager
- Approved or rejected
- Approved leave is visible in planning
Availability tells you who could be planned. Approved leave tells you who must not be planned. Keeping the two apart is what makes both usable.
Employee availability
The people who know their availability best are the people who have it.
Employees indicate when they can work in the same place where they check their schedule, so the planner is not collecting it by hand every week.
Submitted by the employee
Availability is entered by the person it belongs to, in the Employee Portal, not retyped from a message by a manager.
Visible while planning
Planners see who is available before the shifts are placed, instead of discovering it afterwards.
Kept current
When something changes, the employee updates it once and everyone works from the same picture.
One source
No parallel spreadsheet, no separate availability list, no reconstruction from chat history.
Where this matters most
- Part-time teams
- Students with changing timetables
- Seasonal staff
- Flexible and on-call teams
- People working across departments
Availability is planning information, not a promise of hours. The manager still decides what gets planned.
Leave workflow
One route for every leave request.
From the moment an employee submits it to the moment the planner sees the result, a leave request follows the same path.
- 01
Employee submits
The employee submits a leave request in the Employee Portal, with the dates and any context that helps the decision.
- 02
Manager reviews
The request arrives where the manager already works, next to the schedule it affects, rather than in an inbox.
- 03
Approve or reject
The manager decides. The employee is informed of the result instead of asking again a week later.
- 04
Planning sees the result
Approved leave is part of the planning picture while the schedule is being built.
Timento supports the request, the review, the decision and the planning visibility. It does not calculate statutory entitlements and it does not process payroll.
Connected to Smart Scheduling
A schedule should not start from an empty grid.
By the time the week is planned, Timento already holds the employee context that decides what a realistic schedule looks like.
Availability
Who has indicated they can work, and when.
Approved leave
Who is away, so nobody is planned into time that has already been agreed.
Contract hours
How planned hours compare with what someone is contracted to work.
Roles and skills
Who is set up for the work, so coverage means qualified coverage.
Timento does not build the schedule for you from availability. It gives the planner the context to build a better one, faster.
Explore Smart SchedulingFewer conflicts before publishing
Catch it in the plan, not on the day.
Conflict Detection flags issues while the schedule is still a draft, so a mistake stays a planning problem instead of becoming an employee problem.
- Someone planned during approved leave
- A shift that does not match known availability
- Overlapping shifts for the same person
- Planned hours running past contract hours
- Shifts left without qualified coverage
Conflict Detection supports the planner with signals on the information Timento holds. It is a review aid, not a guarantee that every labour rule is automatically enforced.
Open Shifts and availability
When a shift still needs coverage.
Availability tells you who could take the work. Open Shifts is how the work is offered without a round of phone calls.
Publish the gap
An uncovered shift is published to the team instead of solved through individual messages.
Employees respond
Employees who can take the shift can respond from the Employee Portal.
The manager decides
Nothing is assigned automatically. The manager confirms who takes the shift.
Open Shifts makes an opportunity visible. It is not a marketplace and it does not auto-assign anyone.
Shift Swaps
Employees can arrange a change, managers keep the decision.
Sometimes the answer is not leave and not an open shift, but two colleagues who can trade. That still belongs in the same structured flow.
- 1Employees agree a swap
- 2The request goes to the manager
- 3The manager approves or rejects
- 4The schedule reflects the result
A swap only takes effect once it is approved. Timento does not arrange replacements automatically.
Employee self-service
Fewer interruptions, better information.
Most availability and leave traffic is routine. When it runs through a structured flow instead of direct messages, the manager gets time back and the employee gets a clear answer.
- See my schedule and my hours
- Submit and update availability
- Request leave and see the decision
- Respond to Open Shifts
- Propose a shift swap for approval
Routine workforce information moves into one flow instead of repeating itself across chats, calls and corridor conversations.
See the Employee PortalManager visibility
See what needs a decision without hunting for it.
The manager question is simple: what is waiting for me, and what does it do to the plan.
Pending requests
Leave requests waiting for a decision are visible instead of buried in an inbox.
Planning impact
A request is reviewed next to the period it affects, so the effect on coverage is clear.
A clear result
Once decided, the outcome is communicated and reflected in planning, without a follow-up message.
This is operational visibility for the manager who plans the work, not a separate absence analytics product.
Leave types and balances
Honest about where the line sits.
Leave in Timento is operational: requests, review, decisions and the planning consequence. It is deliberately not a statutory leave engine.
What Timento supports
- Leave requests submitted by employees
- Manager review with approval or rejection
- Approved leave visible while planning
- Where balances are used, they stay visible next to the request instead of in a separate file
- Hours and absence context flowing on to payroll-ready reporting
What Timento does not claim
- Statutory entitlement calculation per country
- Automatic accrual or leave banking
- Payroll leave accounting
- Legal compliance guarantees for national leave law
If you need statutory leave administration, keep the system that does it. Timento covers the operational side and connects to reporting where supported.
Why availability matters
Every sector has its own availability problem.
The pattern is the same, the reason is different.
- HospitalityPart-time teams and service crews that change from week to week.
- RestaurantsEvening and weekend availability decides whether a service is covered.
- RetailWeekend and evening availability across a student and part-time team.
- ProductionShift coverage where planned absence has to be known well in advance.
- EventsTemporary and flexible crews whose availability changes per project.
- RecreationSeasonal and weekend staff with availability that follows the season.
- Facility ServicesRecurring site coverage where one absence affects a customer contract.
When memory stops being a system
With five people you remember. With thirty you do not.
Structured availability and leave is rarely the first thing a small team needs. It becomes essential exactly when the manager stops being able to hold it all in their head.
Small team
Memory still works
A handful of people, one planner, and everyone knows who is off next week.
Growing team
Memory starts leaking
More people, more requests, more messages, and the first shift planned into somebody's approved holiday.
Structured
A flow instead of a memory
Availability and leave live in one place, and the schedule reads from it every week.
Across multiple sites, managers work with the leave and availability context of the teams they are responsible for.
Appropriate information
A planner needs the impact, not the diagnosis.
Leave information should stay operational. What matters for planning is the dates, the status and the effect on coverage.
- Dates and duration of the request
- Status: submitted, approved or rejected
- The effect on coverage for that period
- Access that follows the role someone holds
Timento is not designed to collect sensitive medical detail as part of a leave request. Handling of personal data follows our privacy policy.
People to Plan
One connected flow, from employee input to a published schedule.
Availability & Leave is the link between People Management and Smart Scheduling. Everything downstream gets more accurate because of it.
- Employee
- Availability / Leave request
- Manager review
- Planning context
- Schedule
- Publish & Notify
Each step feeds the next. That is the difference between a schedule that is built from data and a schedule that is built from memory.
System boundaries
What this is, and what it is not.
Being clear about the edges is part of being useful.
Timento is
- An operational availability and leave flow
- Planning context for Smart Scheduling
- A structured request and approval route
- A connection between People Management and the schedule
- A source of hours and absence context for payroll-ready reporting
Timento is not
- A full HRIS
- A benefits platform
- A statutory leave calculator
- A payroll entitlement engine
- A medical or occupational health record
Timento covers the workforce operations layer and connects to the systems around it where supported.
Questions & answers
Availability and leave, answered
How employee availability and leave requests become planning input in Timento.
What is the difference between availability and leave in Timento?
Availability is employee input about when someone can normally work. It is planning context, not a request. Leave is a specific request for time away that a manager approves or rejects, and approved leave is visible while the schedule is built. Timento keeps the two separate on purpose.
How do employees submit their availability?
Employees indicate when they can work in the Employee Portal, in the same place where they check their schedule. Because the person it belongs to enters it, the planner does not have to collect availability from messages every week.
How does a leave request work?
The employee submits the request with dates and context, the manager reviews it next to the schedule it affects, and the request is approved or rejected. Once approved, the leave is part of the planning picture instead of a surprise on the day.
Does Timento warn me if I plan someone during approved leave?
Conflict Detection flags issues while the schedule is still a draft, including shifts that clash with approved leave, overlapping shifts and planned hours running past contract hours. It is a review aid based on the information Timento holds, not a guarantee that every labour rule is enforced automatically.
Does Timento track leave balances and statutory entitlement?
Where balances are used, they stay visible next to the request rather than in a separate file. Timento does not calculate statutory entitlement per country, does not run accrual or leave banking, and does not do payroll leave accounting. It covers the operational request, approval and planning flow.
What happens when a shift still needs coverage?
The shift can be published as an Open Shift so employees who can take it are able to respond, or two colleagues can propose a Shift Swap. Nothing is assigned automatically, and the manager confirms the result.
What information does a manager see in a leave request?
What matters for planning: the dates, the status and the effect on coverage. Timento is not designed to collect sensitive medical detail as part of a leave request, and access follows the role someone holds.
Is this a replacement for our HR system?
No. Timento is the workforce operations layer around availability, leave requests and scheduling, with hours and absence context flowing on to payroll-ready reporting. It is not an HRIS, a benefits platform or a statutory leave calculator.
Fewer scheduling surprises. Fewer repeat conversations.
Try Timento for 30 days with up to four employees and see what changes when availability and leave arrive in the plan instead of in your inbox.
30 days · Up to 4 employees · No credit card · Personal onboarding