How do time off and the crew board work?

Under Time off, anyone on your staff asks for paid time off, a sick day or part of a day, from the desk or from field mode on the tablet. Their line manager, the project manager or supervisor on a job they work, or your admin or a manager decides it. Nobody approves their own time off, an admin included. Whoever decides it can also call someone in sick on their behalf. The kind of leave and the note are seen only by the person and the people who decide it; the rest of the crew never sees them.

Balances come from your time-off policy, set by your admin for each kind of leave: a set number of hours each year, or hours earned for every hour worked (finished shifts only), up to a yearly cap. Unused hours carry into the next year up to the carry-over limit, and that rolls forward year by year. An approval that would take someone past what they have left is refused unless your admin allows a negative balance. A kind of leave set to not tracked is never counted.

Once whole-day leave is approved, the person drops off that job's Dispatch board for those days, and nobody can hand them a check or open one in their name. Part of a day shows on the board as a note, not a block. If someone clocks in on a day they have off, the clock tells them first and lets them go ahead; the punch is kept and a note goes on their time off, so whoever approved it sees it. When you approve leave, the request shows the checks and scheduled work they were carrying on those days, with a link to hand each one over on Dispatch.

The crew board, under People & crew, is for your admin, managers and project managers. Each person gets a row and each week a column: booked on a job, double-booked on two at once, out for the whole week, partly out, or free. A booking comes from a work authorization, a job booking, scheduled work in their name, or an open check. A project manager sees everyone, but only the names of jobs they run; another job shows as another job.

The second header row counts open seats: for each job's request for so many people of one discipline, the people of that discipline booked on that job fill it, and what is left is open. Set open seats under Crew board → Open seats. Click a free week to issue a work authorization for that week, hand the person a check this week, or book them on a job they are already crew on.