Workflows example: Time-off Requests

Note: For an optimal experience, this workflow requires certain functionalities only available on specific subscription plans. Check out our corporate website for more information.

Want to simplify your absence request process? This article explains how you can set up an Absence Request workflow to automate the collection and management of absence requests. 

Beekeeper’s Absence Request workflow caters to various types of leave requests, including sick leave requests, holiday or PTO requests, unpaid leave requests, and more. 

With Beekeeper’s Absence Request workflow, you can easily:

• Collect absence request submissions from employees

• Inform employees that the request has been submitted

• Specify who can approve or reject requests

• Assign a task for the right person to approve or reject the request

• Notify employees of their request status

Check out the video for an easy step-by-step process!

Steps to create this workflow

1. As a first step, we need to build the form that will allow employees to submit their request. Go to the “Dashboard” and click on “Toolbox”, then “Forms”.

2. Set up your absence leave request form. Check out this article to understand how you can create a form!We recommend to use the date field for the start and end dates of the time off, a short text for the number of days the person will be gone and a single-select for the type of leave. In most cases, you will also want to let employees select their manager when submitting a time-off request. In this case, we recommend building the form with a ‘user select’ field at the end, which will allow your employees to select their manager, and use that input in a later step when defining who should approve the request.

3. Next, we need to build our automation. Go to the “Dashboard” and click on “Toolbox”, then “Workflows”.

4. Click on “Create new Workflow” if this is the first workflow in your tenant or  “Add New” if there are already some workflows.

5. In the “Workflows settings'' panel on the right side, enter the workflow name and optionally add a description.

6. Then click on the “Add a Trigger” in the middle of your screen to add a trigger.

7. Select “Form Submitted” from the trigger list and click on “Add”.

Within the panel on the right side, in the field “Form name” select the Form which should trigger the workflow. This is the name of the form you created in the first steps. You can just start typing, and a proposition of forms will pop up. Select the correct form.

8. Then click on the “Add an Action”.

9. Select an Action: “Retrieve User Profile Data” and click on “Add”.
This step allows to get more information from the selected user’s profile such as: first and last name, role, user email, user name, # of comments, # of likes, # of posts, last activity date, profile creation date…etc. You can reference these fields in the further steps of the workflow, for example to create a dynamic file name or address the chat message or email.

10. Fill in the field ‘User’ on the right side. You can start typing their name, or select a Magic Variable on the left. In our example, it makes sense to retrieve the magic variable ‘Form Submitter’, so we can use the information in their profile (such as first name, last name, etc.) in a follow-up step for customization purposes.

11. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.

12. Select an Action: “Send a Chat Message” and click on “Add”.

13. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side:

Send to - you can select the form answer from the previous step as a magic variable to send a chat message to the submitter

Message - type the chat message e.g. to thank the form submitter for their submission and let them know about the next steps. We also recommend putting in the submission link, so they can retrieve their submission at any time.

14. Then click on “Add an Action”.

15. Select an Action: “Get Form Answer” and click on “Add”.

We are going to retrieve the person that the employee selected as their manager within the form.16. Choose the form you are trying to retrieve a form answer from. In this example, we want to retrieve the form “Leave Request” and the answer “Who’s your manager” that you have defined in step 1. It should look something like this:

17. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.

18. Select an Action: “Send a Chat Message” and click on “Add”.

19. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side:

Send to - you can select the ‘Form Answer’ from the previous step as a magic variable to send a chat message to the manager of the submitter

Message - type the chat message e.g. to let the manager know where to find their new request (https://{subdomain}.beekeeper.io/tasks) and what they need to do.

20. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step

21. Select an Action: “Send Request and Branch on Approval Status” and click on “Add”.

22. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side: 

Task Title and Description - enter the title and the task description. You can enter a static text or use the Magic Variables to reference fields from preceding steps i.e. the form name, the time of submission...etc.

Requested by - this will enable you to send the request on behalf of the selected user. If you leave this blank, then the creator of the task will be the ‘Workflow Automation Bot’. In our example, we will want the Form Submitter to follow-up on their request in the Tasks Overview, so we select ‘Form Submitter’ as a magic variable.

Approvers - you can assign the request to a specific user by selecting them from the dropdown or use the Magic Variable ‘Form Answer’ to select the user from the previous steps. In this case we will add the employee’s manager as an approver and therefore choose ‘form answer’. You can select up to 5 approvers, either through a magic variable or by typing in directly the names of the approvers.

23. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.
24. Select an Action: “Convert Form Submission to a PDF”

Submitted form - use Magic Variables to enter the submitted form.

Submitter profile data - using this field, you can add the details of the person who submitted the form to the generated PDF file: their full name and avatar picture will show up on the PDF.

Approver profile data - using this field, you can add the details of the people who approved the form to the generated PDF file: their full name, avatar picture and approval status (approved or rejected) will show up on the PDF.

Page format - select A4 or Letter.

File name - you can enter a static name or use the Magic Variables. When you leave it blank, the file name will display the form submission ID. If you are planning to upload this file to the document library, the file name has to be unique.

25. Do this for both branches “Approved” and “Rejected”.

26. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.

27. Select an Action: “Send a Chat Message” and click on “Add”.

28. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side:

Send to - you can select the user to send a chat message or use a variable to reference a user from the previous steps. In this case we want to send a chat message to the user who submitted the form and we will select him/her using a Magic Variable.

Message - type the chat message. It should be different if their request has been approved or rejected.

File attachment(s) - using Magic Variables, select “Generated PDF file key” from the “Convert form submission to a PDF” step in order to attach the submitted form in a PDF format to the chat message. This PDF will show the submitter’s user name and avatar, the approvers’ user names and avatars, as well as the approval status

29. Validate and save your workflow.
Now that your entire workflow is ready you can validate the trigger and each action and save if everything is correct. The system will not let you save the workflows in case something is missing or not correct.
Correctly updated trigger and actions have a green checkmark next to their name
Incorrectly updated trigger or actions will have a red cross and the field which is not updated will be highlighted in red:

30. When the trigger and all actions have a green checkmark, you can save the workflow.

31. Flip the toggle to activate your workflow. It should look like this: