Approve requests
Approvals is one list of every request that waits for your decision. It holds leave requests, shift fixes (requests to add a clock-out that someone missed) and shift swaps (two people who agreed to swap shifts). This page shows who sees which requests, how to decide them, and what each decision changes.
Before you start
- You need the Manager, Admin, or Owner role. Only these roles see My team in the menu.
- A manager sees only the people they manage. Kelola works this out from your company's org structure. If your company has no org structure and no Line manager set, a manager has no team, so they see no one else's requests. Owners and admins still see every request. See Build your org structure.
Open Approvals
Go to My team → Approvals. You can also select Approvals at the top of My team → Team overview.
The page has up to three lists:
- Leave requests: each card shows the person, the leave type, the first and last day, and the number of days.
- Attendance corrections: these are shift fixes. Each card shows the person, their clock-in after In, the clock-out they asked for after Out, and their reason.
- Shift swaps: each card shows the person who asked and the colleague who accepted, for example "Ana ⇄ Ben". Under it, it shows which shift the colleague takes and, in a trade, which shift comes back. A swap shows here only after the colleague accepts it. See Schedule shifts.
A list appears only when it has requests in it. When nothing waits for you, the page says You're all caught up.
Check who sees which requests
What you see depends on your role:
- An Owner or Admin sees every pending request in the company, including their own. They decide everyone else's requests. Their own request follows the rule in the note below.
- A Manager sees requests from their direct reports. These are the people they manage in the org structure.
Kelola finds each person's manager like this:
- The manager is whoever holds the position directly above the person's position in Settings → Org structure.
- If no one holds that position, Kelola moves up to the next position that someone holds.
- If several people hold that position, they are co-managers. Any of them can decide the request.
- If no filled position sits above the person, Kelola uses the Line manager on their employee record. You can also set it in the Reports to column on Settings → Roles & access. This is only a fallback. It never replaces the org structure.
Only employees with the Active status can be managers. A manager who is not active manages no one. A Suspended person still counts as a report, so their manager still sees and decides the requests they sent before the suspension. If the person who asked is Offboarded, only an owner or admin sees their pending requests.
A manager needs the Manager role to use Approvals. If a person's manager has the Employee role, an owner or admin decides instead.
- If another active owner or admin, or your own manager, can decide it, your request shows here without Approve and Reject. The card says This is your own request. Another approver decides it.
- If nobody else can decide it, for example because you are the only owner and there is no admin, you decide it yourself. The card says so, and the audit log marks your decision Self-approved.
Approve or reject a request
- Go to My team → Approvals.
- Find the request under Leave requests, Attendance corrections or Shift swaps.
- Check the card. For leave, check the leave type, the dates, and the number of days. For an attendance correction, compare the clock-out they asked for with their clock-in, and read their reason. For a shift swap, check the two people and the shifts that move.
- Select Approve or Reject.
- Kelola asks you to confirm and repeats the person, the dates or the clock-out time. Select Approve or Reject again. To approve, you can also press Enter. When you reject, Cancel is selected first, so Enter keeps the request. When you reject a leave request or a shift fix, you can type a Reason (optional). The person sees it on their request, in the notification, and in the email.
Kelola saves your decision. It shows a short message, such as Leave approved, and removes the card from the list.
Kelola does not ask for a reason when you reject, and the person does not see one. Tell them why yourself.
Each request can be decided only once. If a co-manager, an owner, or an admin decided it first, Kelola shows the message This request was already decided. and updates the list, so the card goes away.
The person who asked can also withdraw a leave request while it is pending. It then leaves the list, and you get a notification and an email that say so. If you select Approve or Reject on a request that was just withdrawn, you see the same message. Only pending requests can be withdrawn, so an approved request stays approved. See Request leave.
See what each decision changes
For a leave request:
- Approve: the request becomes Approved. The days move from pending to used in the person's leave balance. The leave then shows on My team → Team calendar. On the days the person is away, it also shows on Home, under Out today.
- Reject: the request becomes Rejected. The days go back to the person's leave balance.
For an attendance correction:
- Approve: Kelola sets the shift's clock-out to the time the person asked for. Then it works out the hours they worked.
- Reject: the shift stays without a clock-out. The person can send a new shift fix.
For a shift swap:
- Approve: the shifts move at once. The colleague gets the requester's shift and, in a trade, the requester gets the colleague's shift. Both see it in My schedule. Kelola first checks that both shifts are still published, unchanged and not started, and that neither person ends up with two shifts that overlap. If a check fails, nothing moves, and Kelola shows a message that says why. The card stays, so you can reject it.
- Reject: the shifts stay as they were.
Both people get a notification and an email about a swap decision.
The person gets a notification and an email about your decision. They can turn off the email in Preferences, with Email notifications. The notification still arrives.
Kelola records every leave decision in Settings → Audit log, with the event type Leave request. It also records every approved attendance correction, with the event type Attendance override, and every approved swap, with the event type Shift swap. A rejected correction or swap is not recorded there.
When an owner or admin decides their own request as its only approver, the entry also shows Self-approved.
Decide requests from other pages
You can also decide requests on two other pages:
- My space → My leave: leave requests from your team appear under Pending approvals, with the number of requests in brackets. Your own request appears there only when you are its only approver.
- My space → Shift fixes: shift fixes from your team appear under Pending approvals.
Each page has its own Approve and Reject buttons. They ask you to confirm in the same way.
The notification and the email about a new leave request, a new shift fix or an accepted shift swap open Approvals. Each email is in your own Language. If you turned off Email notifications in Preferences, you get only the notification.
When someone sends a request, Kelola notifies only the people who can decide it: the person's own manager, and every admin and owner. As a manager, you hear only about requests from your own team.