Setup Considerations: Absence Balances
You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of absence balances 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
Absence balances are the difference between the time off a worker accrues and uses at a specified time.
Business Benefits
Workday absence balances functionality enables you to:
- Optimize performance for time off transactions and reports.
- View a worker's current balance, project future balances, and configure the accrual rate.
- Accurately estimate a worker's unused time off when reviewing a time off request.
- Automatically recalculate a worker's balance when you view their existing balance.
- Improve efficiency by scheduling when you store your time off plan balances.
Use Cases
You can configure absence balances to track and manage time off units for different scenarios, including:
- Worker transfers from 1 locale to another where there's a difference in annual leave regulations.
- Changes in accrual rates. Example: A length of service award.
- Midterm terminations or hires.
- Using balances in eligibility criteria by creating a calculation that references a time off plan balance. You can then use the calculation in a value comparison calculation.
Questions to Consider
Questions | Considerations |
|---|---|
What balances do you want to track? | Workday enables you to plan resources and budget correctly by tracking:
|
When do you want to calculate absence balances? | Workday stores balances on the third Sunday of every month at 01:00:00 in your local time zone. You can store balance values and accrual amounts by manually scheduling processes for time off plans and business requirements. |
How do you want to manage balances for terminated workers? | You can configure the Termination business process that enables you to either forfeit or pay out balances. |
When do you want to prorate absence balances? | You can prorate balances that workers receive if their accrual value changes as a result of a change job event. The change could be due to a worker gaining or losing eligibility to the accrual itself within a period, or calculations within the accrual resolving differently. You can prorate the accrual:
|
Who do you want to be able to view absence balances? | You can hide certain balance types from employees. Example: Sick leave. Managers or administrators can view these balances on reports. |
Recommendations
Workday recommends:
- Optimizing performance by scheduling processes to store absence balances regularly. When you store balances regularly, Workday uses the stored balances and accrual amounts as the starting point for subsequent dynamic calculations instead of starting over from a worker's initial processing period. Workday dynamically calculates the balances and accrual amounts on reports based on the rules that you set on the time off plan.
- Tracking balances on time off plans that have a definable accrual. When you have a time off plan with an unlimited or always unpaid balance, create an accrual that uses zero as the calculation.
To avoid confusion, Workday recommends that you hide balances on:
- Accrue-as-you-go time off plans, when the balance is zero.
- Time off plans that don’t have accruals.
Requirements
Don't edit past period schedules because it causes errors in your balance calculations.
Limitations
- Workday doesn’t support transferring negative time off balances.
- You can only transfer balances for worker-based time off plans.
- For performance reasons, we recommend that you don't complete bulk job changes that include balance transfers.
Tenant Setup
To improve performance when generating payslips and storing absence balances, select these check boxes on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Payroll
task:
- Following Pay Complete
- Only for Workers With Check Payments or Payslip Printing Enabled
Security
Configure these security domains in the Time Off and Leave functional area:
Domains | Considerations |
|---|---|
Set Up: Time Off (Calculations - Absence Specific)
| Users can create absence balance calculations. |
Worker Data: Time Off (Time Off Balances)
| Users can override time off plan balances. |
Process: Calculated Balances (Run)
| Users can:
|
Business Processes
Business Processes | Considerations |
|---|---|
Change Job
| To transfer time off balances, add the Maintain Time Off Plan Transfer Balance action step. |
Change Job
| To change future time off requests to another plan when worker eligibility changes, add the Update Time Off Requests action step. |
Change Job
| To prorate balances that workers receive when their eligibility for accruals changes, add the Automated Accrual Adjustment service step. This setting enables Workday to review the Front-Loaded or As Of Date settings on the accrual before making the adjustment. |
Termination
| To cancel any remaining balance on termination for a one-time time off adjustment, add the Adjust Time Off Balances service step. |
Reporting
Reports or Dashboards | Considerations |
|---|---|
All Absence Balances
View Absence Balance | View absence balances and where they are in use based on your tenant configuration. |
All Calculated Balance Recalculation Changes
| View worker calculations to confirm how changes to balances impact on their balances. |
Calculated Balances for Organization (by Worker)
| View calculated balances and accruals for an organization by worker for the calculated run date. The report displays workers who have a difference between their previous:
This report doesn't support intersection security groups. |
Carryover Balances for Organization (by Carryover Date)
Carryover Balances for Organization (by Worker) | View when carryover expires for workers or organizations to plan for resource allocation or budgetary requirements. |
Time Off Results Detail
Time Off Results Summary | View balances for specific time off plans to plan your resources correctly. |
View Override Balances for Organization
| Use this report to view all workers with a time off plan balance override by organization.
Unlike the Maintain Time Off Plan Override Balances task, however, this report doesn’t split the total balance units by associated balance period when workers have overrides for more than 1 period.Workday uses contextual role-based security on the Unit of Time field to determine whether to display a row for the worker.Example: When workers with the Absence Partner role run the report, they can see data for other workers in their organization, but not for workers in organizations that also have an assigned Absence Partner role. |
View Schedules for Time Off Calculated Balance Process
| View time off plan schedules and access tasks to change or cancel them. |
Integrations
Web Services | Considerations |
|---|---|
Get Carryover Override
| View a worker's carryover expiration or limit override for their eligible time off plan. |
Get Override Balances
| Set time off plan override balances for an employee and their time off plan. |
Get Time Off Plan Balances
| View dynamic time off plan balances by worker and time off plan. |
Put Override Balance
| Load absence balance information into Workday from an external source. |
Connections and Touchpoints
Features | Considerations |
|---|---|
Workday Payroll | You can display absence balances on payslips. |
Carryover | You can include absence balances in calculations to define your carryover limit. |
Time Off | You can use absence balances to determine whether a time off request is paid or unpaid. |