100% QuebecTime off and absences
Reading an employee's availability
What the employee declares from their phone, the three places planning flags it to you, and why availability never refuses a shift.
“I can't do Tuesdays”, “never after 3 p.m. on Fridays”, “away from the 3rd to the 10th”. An employee declares these constraints from their app, and planning reads them again on every shift you create.
The thing to understand before anything else: it blocks nothing. A shift placed outside declared availability is FLAGGED, and you decide. It is the only workable setting, and this article explains why.
- Who declares
- The employee, from the mobile app
- Effect on planning
- A warning, never a refusal
- With nothing declared
- Available at all times
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What the employee declares
Two things, and they do not say the same thing.
The typical week first: for each of the seven days, available or not, and if so, within which time window. “All day” is the default; “Unavailable” closes the whole day.
Then the unavailability periods: a start and end date, with a free-text note. That is where planned vacation, an exam session or shared custody live. The employee can also leave a general note for management.
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The moment you create a shift
The schedule form compares as you fill it in. When it falls outside availability, a panel appears: “Outside declared availability”, with the exact reason.
Three possible reasons, and the distinction is useful. “This weekday is declared unavailable” covers the whole typical week. “The shift falls outside the time window declared for that day” means the day is fine but the hour is not. “Declared unavailability period” quotes the employee's note, when they left one.
Under the panel, one sentence sums up the whole mechanism: “The employee declared this from their phone. You can save anyway.”
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In a bulk creation
Bulk creation produces a preview before writing anything, and every proposed schedule carries a status: OK, Conflict or Error. Availability that is not respected shows up as a Conflict.
Conflicts are EXCLUDED by default: the batch is created without them, and you tick one by one those to create anyway. A checkbox also lets you include them all at once when you already know the constraint no longer holds.
It is the same principle as in the form, at the scale of a week or a month: we show you, you rule.
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On the employee's record
The employee record carries a “Declared availability” panel, READ-ONLY: you never key in someone else's availability on their behalf.
The seven days show as tiles: the time window for open days, a greyed “Unavailable” for the others. Dated periods follow, with their notes, and the last-updated date closes the panel.
When nothing has been declared, the panel says so plainly: “Nothing declared: available at all times.”
Declaring nothing is not a declaration
An employee who has entered nothing is treated as available at all times, and their schedule raises no warning. Nobody should have to fill in a form to become schedulable, and silence never reads as a refusal.
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Why it does not block
It is tempting to have the app refuse the shift outright. That would be a mistake, and it turns against you quickly.
You know the real constraint behind the declaration; the app does not. A “never on Tuesdays” left over from the autumn term, an obstacle the person has since resolved, an emergency you already discussed with them face to face: in every one of those cases an automatic refusal would be wrong.
And above all: availability that refuses a shift pushes planning OUTSIDE the app, onto a scrap of paper or into a text message. The information is then lost rather than gained, and the schedule stops being what counts. Flagging keeps everyone in the same tool.
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Turning the feature on or off
Settings, General tab, “Availability (mobile app)” section. Two settings only.
The switch: unchecked, the screen no longer exists for employees, and declarations already made stay readable on the records, they are not erased.
“Notify management of a change” sends a badge and a notification to administrators and supervisors when someone updates their availability. Useful in a team that builds the schedule a week ahead; noisy in a team of fifty people who adjust often.
What to remember
Availability is not a time-off request
A declared unavailability period creates no absence on the schedule and touches no bank. If the employee wants vacation posted and paid, they file a time-off request, and it goes through your approval.
Entering availability makes the account active
It is a write, in the billing sense: in the month an employee updates their availability, their account counts as active. Looking at their schedule, on the other hand, never costs anything.
Go further
Approving a time-off request
An employee requests vacation from their phone: what the decision card shows you, what approving writes to the schedule, and the rules that frame how requests are filed.
LireBuilding an employee's schedule
Placing a shift on a site: who, where, when, with which breaks, and reading the total paid hours before saving, not after.
LireApproving a shift swap
Two employees sort it out between themselves from their phones: where the swap lands, what you see before ruling, and the settings that decide whether you get a say.
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