Startup and implementation for tenant admins
Welcome to absentify, your smart vacation planner!
This startup guide will help you successfully complete the initial setup. By the end, you'll have a good understanding of the basics and be ready to start tracking your team's absences.
Register your company
Input company details
Set business hours
Select a platform
Add departments
Add public holidays
Customize absences
Add users
We're happy you've decided to use absentify for managing your company's leave! To start you'll need to register your company from our website by clicking Sign up.
Since absentify is integrated within Microsoft 365, you'll need a Microsoft e-mail address before moving forward.
Click on Continue with Microsoft.
You'll then be prompted to log in to your microsoft account.
Once you've logged in, you'll be given the option to either register a company or join a company.
Click on Register a new company.
Start by adding your company details to fill out your profile.
Click on Settings > General.
From this page your can edit the following:
Company name
Default time zone: the time zone from which your company will operate. Please note that if some of your employees work in a different time zone, they have the option to edit this from their profile under My Preferences.
Default date format: preferred date format. Each user can edit this under their own My Preferences if desired.
Default time format: preferred time format. Each user can edit this under their own My Preferences if desired.
Default week start: the first day of the week displayed for your company's users.
You can easily configure your operating hours under Settings > General > Business hours. These hours will set the basis for the employee's schedules.
From the General page, click on View & edit to specify both the day and time window within which you'd like to schedule you employees.
Here you'll have the option to change the start and end of the shift for each weekday as well as if the user's absences should be deducted as either a full or half day.
If you want employees to have the option to book absences for half days, you must select the boxes for both the morning and afternoon shift.
Once you're happy with your selected business hours, click Save to save your changes. Remember, these won't be permanent; adjustments can be made at any time!
By default, the user is assigned the company's working hours, but if the user has a different work schedule, these can easily be customized.
You can edit a separate work schedule for each user under Settings > Users > Schedule.
Click on View and edit under the user's active schedule and make any desired changes including the date when the new schedule should begin. As of that date, the user's calendar will be updated with their new schedule, instead of that from the company.
Visit our article on setting up a user's schedule for more information.
Once you've registered your company, you can either continue to use absentify from your search engine, or access it through the Teams app.
It's easy to install the absentify app on your Microsoft Teams account! Simply go to Microsoft Teams > Apps > search for absentify > click Add. It will be installed automatically so you can start using absentify from your teams account.
If you are not already logged into your microsoft account, you will be prompted to do so. After which, you will be automatically redirected to the absentify dashboard.
By adding departments, you can make sure your employee's time off is organized and easy to track for each individual department. The departments you create should correspond to your real company structure.
Don't forget that for each department you need a manager who will approve the department members' absences.
Start by navigating to Settings > Departments.
You'll be prompted to fill out the following:
Name: name of the department
Manager: until you've invited your users, you can set yourself as the manager and edit this afterwards if need be
Approval process: select the order in which the time off requests will be sent to the managers if the department is to have more than one
Maximum absent: the maximum number of users within the departments that can be absent at once
Allowance (days:) the default vacation allowance for members of the department (this can always be changed later in the user's details)
Once you're happy with your changes, click Save.
To make any changes to a department, go to Settings > Departments and click the pencil icon next to the respective department for "Edit".
From here you can make any changes to the department, including changing the approving manager by selecting a user from those available in the dropdown list.
To learn more about what other department modifications are possible, read our helpdesk article Managing departments!
Does your team have days off on public holidays? If so, then we can add all these days directly to the calendar and assign them individually to each employee.
Remember that these public holidays will not be deducted from the user's yearly vacation quota.
Navigate to Public holidays
Start by going to Settings > Public holidays > Add public holiday.
Select the country
Name the holiday and choose your desired country from the dropdown menu.
Select the region of said country
After choosing the country, you'll be prompted to select the region.
Click Save to save your changes
Your new public holiday will now appear in the main holiday list.
For companies with users that have varying language settings, the public holidays will be automatically updated to correspond to the user's customised language!
Please note that this does not apply to the language in which the public holiday calendar was named or any added dates, since these setting can only be created/updated by an admin.
absentify allows its admins and department managers to create group requests which is great if your company offers company-wide time off such as for winter holidays. This saves your approvers the hassle of having to process each individual request, when they can approve the group request in one easy click!
For more info on public holidays and group holidays, read our helpdesk article Public holidays to learn more.
Allowances and leave types should be added before inviting your staff so that their yearly quotas are already setup before inviting them to the app.
Start by navigating to Settings > Allowances > New allowance.
From here you can customize the allowance type according to the following settings:
Name: Name the allowance type
Allowance in Days or Hours: From the dropdown menu you can select the absence unit of the allowance. The yearly contingent will need to be entered in the form of the unit chosen.
Maximum Carrover: If a user has any leftover allowance at the end of the fiscal year, you can set the maximum that can be carried over into the following fiscal year.
Ignore Limit: Activate this toggle if users are allowed to take more leave than is allocated. By keeping the toggle deactivated, once users hit the set limit, they can no longer request time off for this type.
Default allowance for current and next year: Set how many days each user is to receive as their yearly quota during your organizations current and next fiscal year.
The chosen time unit cannot be edited later. Make sure you enter the correct time unit in either days or hours!
Click Save to save your changes.
absentify also offers admins the option to set up a default allowance per user as well as remove certain allowance from a user's quota.Read more about default allowances here.
Now that you've created a new allowance quota, you can easily customize each leave type and select from which allowance quota the time-off should be deducted, or create a new leave type all together. The following section will give readers a brief overview on creating leave types. For a more in-depth explanation, visit our article on creating and editing leave types.
Go to Settings > Leave Types and select the leave type you'd like to edit by clicking the pencil icon, or click Add a new leave type.
Edit the iCal synchronization settings to your choosing.
If the leave type should deduct from an allowance type, activate the toggle for Deduct from allowance and select the corresponding allowance.
Please be advised that by selecting an allowance type with a different leave duration unit as the one specified in the leave type, the duration unit will be automatically updated to the corresponding allowance unit.
Decide whether or not set user schedules or holidays should be considered in the calculation of allowances.
Finish setting up your leave type by editing the privacy features and click save to save your changes. For a more extensive explanation of adding leave types, click here: Creating and editing leave types.
Once you've setup departments, allowances, leave types and public holidays, it's time to start to build your team by registering your employees. First, go to Settings > Users
You'll be given two options on how you'd like to add your users whether it be one at a time or a bulk import by uploading the data from an Excel Spreadsheet.
Click on the plus sign for Invite a new user.
The Invite a new user form will be displayed automatically where you'll be prompted to add the details of the employee. These include:
Name
E-mail: this will need to be a microsoft email address
Departments(s:) select one or more department that they are a member of
Public holidays: select one or more public holidays that will show up on their calendar
Employment start date: specify when the user had/has their first working day
Annual allowance: the annual vacation quota (current year) that you'd like to set for the user
The allowance(s) for the current fiscal year will be automatically calculated pro rata based off of the employee's start date and the department they are assigned to. Please check these allowance values to make sure they are correct or edit the user's allowance later by editing the user's allowance..
Note: if you manually adjust the allowance, it won't update if you later change the department or start date. Any further adjustments must be made manually.
The new user will be automatically set to inactive until you decide to activate them. This is done under Settings > Users > Edit > Activate user. By flipping the toggle ON, absentify will send the user an invitation link via E-Mail. Before activating this feature, make sure the user's profile is completely set up!
If you are going to import your users via an excel export, we recommend first activating the Teams and Entra ID Groups synchronization under Settings > Microsoft. For more info on setting up this feature, visit Teams and Active Directory Groups Synchronization.
Click on Import users.
You'll be prompted to download an Excel template. Click Download.
The spreadsheet has three different sheets to fill out your company information.
To learn more about this step, read our support article on adding users via import. Or, for more info on the individual permissions per user, read our Permissions per user article.
Now that your company's absence manager is all set up, read our Quickstart guide for admins and learn how to start using absentify to track and manage staff leave!
For further assistance, feel free to contact absentify support. If you have suggestions for new features, please leave recommendations on the absentify roadmap. We're here to help you make the most out of absentify!
Here are some helpful resources for your staff to help them start tracking leave:
Quickstart guide for employees
Quickstart guide for managers
This startup guide will help you successfully complete the initial setup. By the end, you'll have a good understanding of the basics and be ready to start tracking your team's absences.
Jump to:
Register your company
Input company details
Set business hours
Select a platform
Add departments
Add public holidays
Customize absences
Add users
Register your company
We're happy you've decided to use absentify for managing your company's leave! To start you'll need to register your company from our website by clicking Sign up.
Since absentify is integrated within Microsoft 365, you'll need a Microsoft e-mail address before moving forward.
Click on Continue with Microsoft.
You'll then be prompted to log in to your microsoft account.
Once you've logged in, you'll be given the option to either register a company or join a company.
Click on Register a new company.
Input your company's details
Start by adding your company details to fill out your profile.
Click on Settings > General.
From this page your can edit the following:
Company name
Default time zone: the time zone from which your company will operate. Please note that if some of your employees work in a different time zone, they have the option to edit this from their profile under My Preferences.
Default date format: preferred date format. Each user can edit this under their own My Preferences if desired.
Default time format: preferred time format. Each user can edit this under their own My Preferences if desired.
Default week start: the first day of the week displayed for your company's users.
Set your business hours
You can easily configure your operating hours under Settings > General > Business hours. These hours will set the basis for the employee's schedules.
From the General page, click on View & edit to specify both the day and time window within which you'd like to schedule you employees.
Here you'll have the option to change the start and end of the shift for each weekday as well as if the user's absences should be deducted as either a full or half day.
If you want employees to have the option to book absences for half days, you must select the boxes for both the morning and afternoon shift.
Once you're happy with your selected business hours, click Save to save your changes. Remember, these won't be permanent; adjustments can be made at any time!
By default, the user is assigned the company's working hours, but if the user has a different work schedule, these can easily be customized.
You can edit a separate work schedule for each user under Settings > Users > Schedule.
Click on View and edit under the user's active schedule and make any desired changes including the date when the new schedule should begin. As of that date, the user's calendar will be updated with their new schedule, instead of that from the company.
Visit our article on setting up a user's schedule for more information.
Select a platform
Once you've registered your company, you can either continue to use absentify from your search engine, or access it through the Teams app.
Download absentify on the Teams app
It's easy to install the absentify app on your Microsoft Teams account! Simply go to Microsoft Teams > Apps > search for absentify > click Add. It will be installed automatically so you can start using absentify from your teams account.
If you are not already logged into your microsoft account, you will be prompted to do so. After which, you will be automatically redirected to the absentify dashboard.
Add departments
By adding departments, you can make sure your employee's time off is organized and easy to track for each individual department. The departments you create should correspond to your real company structure.
Hint:
Don't forget that for each department you need a manager who will approve the department members' absences.
Start by navigating to Settings > Departments.
You'll be prompted to fill out the following:
Name: name of the department
Manager: until you've invited your users, you can set yourself as the manager and edit this afterwards if need be
Approval process: select the order in which the time off requests will be sent to the managers if the department is to have more than one
Maximum absent: the maximum number of users within the departments that can be absent at once
Allowance (days:) the default vacation allowance for members of the department (this can always be changed later in the user's details)
Once you're happy with your changes, click Save.
To make any changes to a department, go to Settings > Departments and click the pencil icon next to the respective department for "Edit".
From here you can make any changes to the department, including changing the approving manager by selecting a user from those available in the dropdown list.
To learn more about what other department modifications are possible, read our helpdesk article Managing departments!
Add public holidays
Does your team have days off on public holidays? If so, then we can add all these days directly to the calendar and assign them individually to each employee.
Hint:
Remember that these public holidays will not be deducted from the user's yearly vacation quota.
Navigate to Public holidays
Start by going to Settings > Public holidays > Add public holiday.
Select the country
Name the holiday and choose your desired country from the dropdown menu.
Select the region of said country
After choosing the country, you'll be prompted to select the region.
Click Save to save your changes
Your new public holiday will now appear in the main holiday list.
For companies with users that have varying language settings, the public holidays will be automatically updated to correspond to the user's customised language!
Please note that this does not apply to the language in which the public holiday calendar was named or any added dates, since these setting can only be created/updated by an admin.
Creating group holidays
absentify allows its admins and department managers to create group requests which is great if your company offers company-wide time off such as for winter holidays. This saves your approvers the hassle of having to process each individual request, when they can approve the group request in one easy click!
For more info on public holidays and group holidays, read our helpdesk article Public holidays to learn more.
Customize absences
Allowances and leave types should be added before inviting your staff so that their yearly quotas are already setup before inviting them to the app.
Create an allowance type
Start by navigating to Settings > Allowances > New allowance.
From here you can customize the allowance type according to the following settings:
Name: Name the allowance type
Allowance in Days or Hours: From the dropdown menu you can select the absence unit of the allowance. The yearly contingent will need to be entered in the form of the unit chosen.
Maximum Carrover: If a user has any leftover allowance at the end of the fiscal year, you can set the maximum that can be carried over into the following fiscal year.
Ignore Limit: Activate this toggle if users are allowed to take more leave than is allocated. By keeping the toggle deactivated, once users hit the set limit, they can no longer request time off for this type.
Default allowance for current and next year: Set how many days each user is to receive as their yearly quota during your organizations current and next fiscal year.
The chosen time unit cannot be edited later. Make sure you enter the correct time unit in either days or hours!
Click Save to save your changes.
Setting up a default allowance
absentify also offers admins the option to set up a default allowance per user as well as remove certain allowance from a user's quota.Read more about default allowances here.
Add a leave type
Now that you've created a new allowance quota, you can easily customize each leave type and select from which allowance quota the time-off should be deducted, or create a new leave type all together. The following section will give readers a brief overview on creating leave types. For a more in-depth explanation, visit our article on creating and editing leave types.
Go to Settings > Leave Types and select the leave type you'd like to edit by clicking the pencil icon, or click Add a new leave type.
Edit the iCal synchronization settings to your choosing.
If the leave type should deduct from an allowance type, activate the toggle for Deduct from allowance and select the corresponding allowance.
Please be advised that by selecting an allowance type with a different leave duration unit as the one specified in the leave type, the duration unit will be automatically updated to the corresponding allowance unit.
Decide whether or not set user schedules or holidays should be considered in the calculation of allowances.
Finish setting up your leave type by editing the privacy features and click save to save your changes. For a more extensive explanation of adding leave types, click here: Creating and editing leave types.
Add users
Once you've setup departments, allowances, leave types and public holidays, it's time to start to build your team by registering your employees. First, go to Settings > Users
You'll be given two options on how you'd like to add your users whether it be one at a time or a bulk import by uploading the data from an Excel Spreadsheet.
Individually
Click on the plus sign for Invite a new user.
The Invite a new user form will be displayed automatically where you'll be prompted to add the details of the employee. These include:
Name
E-mail: this will need to be a microsoft email address
Departments(s:) select one or more department that they are a member of
Public holidays: select one or more public holidays that will show up on their calendar
Employment start date: specify when the user had/has their first working day
Annual allowance: the annual vacation quota (current year) that you'd like to set for the user
Pro-Rata calculation
The allowance(s) for the current fiscal year will be automatically calculated pro rata based off of the employee's start date and the department they are assigned to. Please check these allowance values to make sure they are correct or edit the user's allowance later by editing the user's allowance..
Note: if you manually adjust the allowance, it won't update if you later change the department or start date. Any further adjustments must be made manually.
The new user will be automatically set to inactive until you decide to activate them. This is done under Settings > Users > Edit > Activate user. By flipping the toggle ON, absentify will send the user an invitation link via E-Mail. Before activating this feature, make sure the user's profile is completely set up!
via import
If you are going to import your users via an excel export, we recommend first activating the Teams and Entra ID Groups synchronization under Settings > Microsoft. For more info on setting up this feature, visit Teams and Active Directory Groups Synchronization.
Click on Import users.
You'll be prompted to download an Excel template. Click Download.
The spreadsheet has three different sheets to fill out your company information.
To learn more about this step, read our support article on adding users via import. Or, for more info on the individual permissions per user, read our Permissions per user article.
Start using absentify
Now that your company's absence manager is all set up, read our Quickstart guide for admins and learn how to start using absentify to track and manage staff leave!
Need help?
For further assistance, feel free to contact absentify support. If you have suggestions for new features, please leave recommendations on the absentify roadmap. We're here to help you make the most out of absentify!
Related:
Here are some helpful resources for your staff to help them start tracking leave:
Quickstart guide for employees
Quickstart guide for managers
Updated on: 17/11/2024
Thank you!