The aptly named Vacation Tracker is a smart, easy-to-use tool that helps HR collaborate on vacation policies and leave/attendance management. Unlike 360-degree HR tools, Vacation Tracker has one job, and it does it well – orchestrate how vacation policies are designed and executed across the organisation and monitor the regular workweek. The company started as a software development company in 2015 and came up with Vacation Tracker to solve its in-house attendance complexities. The product was launched in 2018 and now integrates with your favourite collaboration software like Slack, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Teams for seamless vacation days management.
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Process complexities are a common problem in HR, a function that’s continued to rely on paperwork despite many digital adoption. For large organisations, vacation policies can be fragmented due to regional holidays, cultural practices about work hours, and individual manager discretion. During COVID-19, this has become an even more severe challenge – in the absence of in-person visibility, employees can be prone to idle hours or overworking.
Vacation Tracker offers a streamlined leave workflow automation process, custom leave policies, and location/department-wise management. Thanks to the Teams integration, employees can request leaves without leaving the Teams interface, and HR can combine productivity with collaboration.
Let us review the features of the Vacation Tracker app in more detail.
Inside Vacation Tracker for Microsoft Teams
There are two ways to use Vacation Tracker on Teams: an employee using the tool to ask for leaves or as a manager/HR professional to discuss and work on pending leave requests. Here are the key features you can expect with the Vacation Tracker app:
- Vacation Tracker bot – The bot is helpful when employees want to request leaves without interrupting the ongoing flow of work. You can type on “request leave”, and the app will send the request to the relevant stakeholder, creating a live card that informs you about the leave status.
- Adaptive cards – Employees who place leave requests immediately receive a card in return as part of the bot-based conversation flow. This card displays the leave type, the number of leaves requested, the specific dates, and the leaves you have remaining. As the approver acts on your request, the card will be updated dynamically.
- Approving requests – The bot also assists the leave approver by conveying all the leave request details in a comprehensive card. Importantly, it will tell you if anyone else from that team is on leave during that period, so that you can avoid understaffing or scheduling conflicts. As an approver, you can add a reason explaining why you approved or denied the request (particularly the latter).
- Daily summaries – On opening the vacation Tracker from the Teams sidebar, you will find a host of notifications and updates on leave activities. Every day, you will get a summary of upcoming leaves in your and other teams, indicating who will be unavailable, why, and until which day.
- Leave profiles for employees – Every user can view their leave details using the “My Profile tab on the Vacation Tracker app in Teams. This provides many important details, including past leaves, scheduled leaves, number of allotted leaves left, and upcoming holidays.
- Pinned tabs on channels – You can use the Vacation Tracker app by pinning it as a channel tab. This will list all the relevant leave details pertaining to the channel, along with your pending requests and an option for you to request leaves from your superior. Throughout the experience, you’ll be able to navigate to your dashboard on the Vacation Tracker primary product for more complex functions.
Why the Vacation Tracker App Makes a Difference
The biggest USP of Vacation Tracker is its clean, crisp, information delivery approach. To take a simple example, it doesn’t just mention that someone will be out of the office from July 8, 2021, to July 13, 2021. It also specifies that this entails 4 days out of the office, factoring in the weekend. Small details like these make Vacation Tracker’s UX truly delightful, further enhancing Teams’ value proposition by incorporating a fun and convenient way to handle one of our most common workplace activities.
What We Think
As more HR and admin workflows move online, solutions like Vacation Tracker will become increasingly relevant for productivity. The app combines minimalist material design with easy-to-understand cues in natural language to simplify leave management – download it here.
