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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-04-17
Setup Considerations: Absence Tables

Setup Considerations: Absence Tables

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of absence tables functionality. 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

You can use absence tables to group related time offs. Workers requesting absence that spans different time off plans can request a single time off type. Workday automatically selects the appropriate time off for each portion of the absence.

Business Benefits

Absence tables increase efficiency by:
  • Reducing the number of time off requests a worker needs to make.
  • Consolidating the number of times off types a worker can select from.
  • Reducing multiple time off request approvals for managers.

Use Cases

You can use absence tables to manage absences that have different pay rates over their duration, such as:
  • Parental leave.
  • Sick leave.
You can also create an absence table to manage time off requests that span multiple time off plans. Example: When you create an absence table that includes floating holiday and vacation time off plans, workers requesting time off don't have to specify a plan.
Users can request time off against absence tables on mobile. Workday supports absence tables on Android, iPad, and iPhone, enabling you to manage time off requests that span multiple absence tiers.

Questions to Consider

Question
Considerations
How do you use multiple time off plans to manage 1 absence type?
You can create an absence table for the absence type. You can then set up absence tiers using new or existing time off plans to manage the absence type.
How do you set up time off plans that workers can use when they exhaust the balance of another time off plan?
You can create an absence table with a tier for each time off plan. You can assign a higher priority to the time off plan that you want the worker to use first. The request moves to the next tier with available balance when it exhausts the balance of the current tier.
How do you manage absences that have varying pay rates over time?
You can create an absence table with a tier for each rate of pay. You can then configure your payroll to apply the appropriate rate of pay to each time off tier.
How do you manage waiting periods for sickness?
You can set up waiting period tiers with quantity-per-occurrence calculations to ensure that a certain quantity of time off units for sickness is unpaid or at a different pay rate whenever there's a new absence occurrence.
How do you manage future time off requests using absence tiers?
Tier reevaluation enables Workday assess new time off requests and ensure that tier balances reduce chronologically. Workday runs a reevaluation job that automatically identifies and corrects future-dated absence-table event records, based on newly entered, or the correction of existing, absence table events. Workday uses the balances of tier time off plans in priority order of the absence table tiers.
The reevaluation job triggers when the
Request Time Off
 and
Correct Time Off
 business processes complete and in response to time off events against absence tables where there are future-approved absence table events. These time off events include:
  • Requests and corrections against an absence table.
  • Corrections against a standard time off that's on an absence table.
  • Cancellations.
  • Deny requests.
When you set up absence tables, you should consider the effective dates of absence table objects. Absence tables don't have effective dates. However, tier time off plans set up within an absence table include effective-dated time off plans and time off events. The effective date of these objects can impact when related tiers become effective and available for use in absence requests and balance visibility.
Which absence types do you want to group in an absence table?
You can group absence types that use the same unit. To request an absence based on an absence table, a worker must be eligible for at least 1 tier plan. When a worker is eligible for some but not all tiers, Workday deducts time off from tiers they’re eligible for.
How do you want to alert workers when they enter an invalid request?
You can create validation messages that display when workers attempt to enter an absence that doesn’t meet your configurations. You can add these validations to your absence tables:
  • Increments
  • Maximum
  • Minimum
You can prevent workers requesting unpaid absence by setting the
Maximum Unpaid Time Off Units Allowed
 validation on each time off tier.
How do workers enter time off requests for all days of the week?
Absence tables use the
Days to Include
 configuration on each tier time off plan. Example: You set
Days to Include
 to Monday to Friday on tier 1 but to all days on tier 2. Time off requests that include Saturday use the balance from tier 2.

Recommendations

Workday recommends that you always enable Workday to identify and correct absence events automatically. So, for all new absence tables that you create, the
Enable Reevaluation
 check box is selected by default.
Set the
Daily Quantity Default
 in the time off plan of the first tier to the value that you want to use in the absence table. The remaining tiers in your absence table use this value automatically.
Lower limits and the
Maximum Unpaid Time Off Units Allowed
 validation ensure that workers exhaust the balance of one time off plan before using another, except when you configure
Quantity per Occurrence
 values.
As a best practice, select time off plans that use the same period schedule and balance period. Not doing so can lead to unexpected results, such as deductions being taken from lower-priority tiers first. To prevent unpredictable deduction sequencing, avoid mixing period schedules (Example: Monthly and Yearly).
If adding quantity-per-occurrence calculations on existing absence tables that aren't already enabled for absence occurrences, add the calculations before enabling the tables for occurrences. This approach helps avoid unnecessary recalculation of new occurrences.
Adding quantity-per-occurrence values on absence tables that already have related time off entries doesn't change the existing tier splitting. Workday only applies the values to new time off entries against the absence table, or when running table reevaluation.

Requirements

Set up or reuse existing time off plans for each tier of your absence table. Each time off plan must:
  • Track balances.
  • Use the same time unit.

Limitations

  • You can't add intermittent time offs to an absence table. Intermittent time offs subtract from the leave balance without having the employee on a leave through the
    Request Leave of Absence
     business process. When creating or editing absence tables, Workday provides a validation that prevents you adding intermittent time offs. When creating or editing leave types, Workday provides a validation that prevents you adding time offs as intermittent time offs if they're already in use on an absence table.
  • Validations for an individual time off don't display when you use that time off in an absence table, except for the
    Maximum Unpaid Time Off Units Allowed
     validation.
  • Period-based calculations aren’t available for validations on absence tables.
  • You can't use effective dates with absence tables. You can enter effective dates on tier time off plans.
  • Workers can't request against a time off type after you add it to an absence table. Their subsequent time off requests are against the absence table. You can override the tier order of absence requests.
  • Workday doesn't support accrual expiration in absence tables.

Tenant Setup

Access the
Edit Tenant Setup - HCM
 task to enable quantity per occurrence on absence table tiers.

Security

Users with security enabled for the
Set Up: Time Off (Calculations - Absence Specific)
 domain in the Time Off and Leave functional area can view, edit, and create absence tables.

Business Processes

You can update entry condition rules that you use for business process validations to include the
Absence Table or Time Off for Time Off Event
 report field.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
All Absence Tables
View all absence tables in your tenant and their related time off plans.
Absence Tier Time Off Entry Details
View absence tier usage by worker time off requests. You can also use the report to confirm that tier priority is working correctly. The report indicates reevaluated events.
View Absence Table
View detailed information for a specific absence table, including its related absence table tiers and validations.
You can add the
Time Off/Absence Table
 report field from the
Coordinated Time Off Entry
 business object to your existing custom reports to view absence table usage.

Integrations

You can use these web services to add, adjust, or bulk upload time off requests to absence tables:
  • Adjust Time Off
  • Enter Time Off
  • Import Time Off Request Event Batch

Connections and Touchpoints

Product
Touchpoint
Payroll
Create separate earnings and deductions for each time off plan that you use in your absence table.
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.