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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-06-12
Setup Considerations: Absence Calendar Experience

Setup Considerations: Absence Calendar Experience

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of the Absence Calendar Experience. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

The Absence Calendar Experience simplifies absence requests by merging the tasks for requesting and managing time off and leave of absence on desktop and mobile.

Business Benefits

You can request and view your absence and balances from wherever you are in Workday. On desktop, you can request absence on a micro calendar that keeps you in the context of the page you're working on. On mobile, you can use a single calendar to request time off and leave of absence.
You can:
  • Quickly create and view requests for time off and leave of absence in a unified task. When requesting and correcting absence on behalf of other workers, you have the same familiar experience as requesting or correcting absence for yourself.
  • Easily view balances as of the current date or as of the end of the calendar year.
  • View absence table tier time off balances.
  • Use a date-range option to make long-duration requests easier.
The Absence Calendar Experience supports:
  • Absence type grouping, making it easy for you to identify the type of absence you want to request.
  • Display of instructional information that you can configure as help text on:
    • Absence business processes. Example: You can include links to absence policies for your organization.
    • The
      Manage Absence
      calendar.
The Absence Calendar Experience tasks display:
  • The worker's available balance, which includes accrued and future requests, and the remaining balance after you submit the request.
  • Team absence information, which helps self-service users make informed requests. Workers can access a list view of the upcoming time off or leave of absence of their team members. The calendar uses different colors to highlight the status of each request and team absence information.

Use Cases

Administrators and managers can:
  • Rescind leave events from the calendar.
  • Request time off and leave on behalf of a worker that they support.
  • Correct or edit time off requests on behalf of a worker.
    Workday doesn't support corrections or edits of leave of absence requests by managers or workers. However, administrators can correct leave of absence requests for workers as a related action on the request.
Managers can:
  • Drill into approved absence requests for members of their team.
  • Edit time off events directly from a team absence calendar.
Workers can:
  • Request time off and leave.
  • Correct or edit approved time off.
  • Cancel time off and leave.
  • Edit the position, quantity, reason, and type for individual time off entries within a time off request.
  • Add additional information and supporting data and attachments for absence requests.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
Who do you want to be able to enter time off or leaves of absence for workers?
With the Absence Calendar Experience, managers and workers can submit and correct absence requests. You can enter absence requests for your workers when your policies require that an absence administrator or manager enter time off or leaves for workers. Consider whether other organizations, such as Payroll, have sufficient access to enter time off or leave for workers.
Who do you want to be able to view time off and leave events within an organization?
With the
Configure Team Absence
task, you can enable other roles or teams to view absence requests on the
Team Absence Calendar
.
After you terminate workers, do you want to enable managers or Absence administrators to manage their absence history?
With the Absence Calendar Experience, you can enable managers and Absence administrators to edit time off and enter time off and leave requests from the Worker profiles of the terminated workers as
Time and Absence
related actions. Manager and administrator access is based on membership of security groups on the business process security profile for these initiating actions:
  • Edit Time Off for a Worker
    (on the
    Correct Time Off
    business process).
  • Request Leave for a Worker
    (on the
    Request Leave of Absence
    business process).
  • Request Time Off for a Worker
    (on the
    Request Time Off
    business process).

Requirements

To use the Absence Calendar Experience, provide access to the initiating actions described in the Business Processes section. Add the security groups that have permission to start each of the initiating actions.

Limitations

On mobile, you can't request absence (either time off or leave of absence) on behalf of another worker. However, you can request absence for yourself.
You can’t configure QuickTips using the Guidance Workspace for the
Request Absence
task, as it isn’t currently supported. See FAQ: Guidance Workspace for the tasks that QuickTips currently supports.

Tenant Setup

Use the
Edit Tenant Setup - HCM
task to configure the tenant-wide
Balances as of date in the New Absence Calendar Experience
option.

Security

If you've configured segmented security for time off and leave types in your tenant, verify the configurations for the security segments to ensure that they support your Absence Calendar Experience configuration. These segments define the time offs or leave types that users can select when requesting or entering absence. See:
Grant access to security groups on the initiating actions that use the tasks for managing and requesting absence on the security policies for these business processes:
  • Correct Time Off
  • Request Leave of Absence
  • Request Time Off

Business Processes

Business Processes
Considerations
Correct Time Off
Enables you to edit your time off or edit time off on behalf of a worker you support. The initiating actions for the Absence Calendar Experience include:
  • Edit Time Off for a Worker
  • Edit Request Time Off for Self
Request Leave of Absence
Enables you to enter leave of absence requests for yourself or on behalf of a worker you support. The initiating actions for the Absence Calendar Experience include:
  • Request Leave for a Worker
  • Request Leave for Self
Request Return from Leave of Absence
Enables you to request a return from leave of absence for yourself or on behalf of a worker you support. The initiating actions for the Absence Calendar Experience include:
  • Request Return from Leave of Absence
  • Return Worker from Leave
Request Time Off
Enables you to request time off for yourself or on behalf of a worker you support. The initiating actions for the Absence Calendar Experience include:
  • Request Time Off for a Worker
  • Request Time Off for Self

Reporting

Reports or Dashboards
Considerations
Manage Absence
Use to view another worker's absence calendar, review and edit their absence, or request absence on their behalf.
Team Absence Calendar
Use to analyze absence requests so that you can better manage team resources.

Connections and Touchpoints

Touchpoint
Consideration
People Experience
You can configure Absence-related cards on the Home page to include tasks based on security-group access to the initiating actions on the Correct Time Off, Request Leave of Absence, and Request Time Off business process security policies. When users have access to the initiating actions, we display links to these tasks and reports:
  • Manage Absence
    (on the Upcoming Time Off card on desktop and mobile).
  • Manage Absence
    with the
    View Teams
    button (on the Upcoming Team Absences card).
  • Team Absence Calendar
    (on the View Upcoming Team Absences card for employee self-service).
  • Team Absence Calendar
    (on the View Upcoming Team Absences card for managers).
Platform and Product Extensions
  • For events related to time off and leave of absence, you can replace the
    Absence
    label of the report fields on these business objects with
    Time Off
    or
    Leave
    :
    • Leave Request Event
    • Leave Return Event
    • Time Off Event
    • Time Off Request Event
    • Worker Business Process
    Either:
    • Select the
      Enable Time Off and Leave Label for Absence Events
      check box in the
      Time Off
      section of the
      Edit Tenant Setup - HCM
      task to revert the automatic label change.
    • Review and manually replace the
      Absence
      label of report fields on the relevant business objects with
      Time Off
      or
      Leave
      .
  • When you use alerts to prompt users to specific tasks, consider revising your alert configuration to point to the
    Request Absence
    task and
    Manage Absence
    report.
Time Tracking
In Time Tracking, users can access Absence-related menus from the
Actions
button on the
Enter My Time
report and
Enter Time for Worker
task based on:
  • Security-group access to the initiating actions on the Request Time Off business process security policy.
  • Whether the time off configurations have the
    Time Tracking and Time Off
    entry option.
You can configure the Absence card on the
Time and Scheduling Hub
to include tasks based on security-group access to the initiating actions on the Correct Time Off, Request Leave of Absence, and Request Time Off business process security policies.
When users have access to the initiating actions, we display the:
  • Manage Absence
    report.
  • Request Absence
    task.
The
Return Worker from Leave
initiating action is available for all configurations.
Workday Assistant
Workday displays a
Manage Absence
link that you can use to correct time off using Workday Assistant.
Workday HCM
The
Change Job business
process includes an
Update Time Off Request
subprocess that creates inbox tasks for assigned users to encourage them to take action on ineligible time offs. You can configure the subprocess as an Action step on the business process. Workday highlights ineligible time offs in red on the calendar. Workday displays a
Manage Absence
button on the inbox task to initiate the
Update Time Off Request
subprocess.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.