Approve leave, swaps and open-shift claims
Decide the requests your team sends from the rota: leave, shift swaps and give-aways, and claims on open shifts.
Staff ask for leave, offer shifts to colleagues and claim open shifts from their own Rota page. Nothing changes on the rota until someone with authority decides. Those requests wait in Approvals, at the top of Staff rota.
The panel reads "Swaps, leave requests and open-shift claims" and shows how many are waiting, or Nothing waiting. Open it and choose a tab: Swaps, Leave or Open-shift claims. Each request is a card with Approve and Reject. ARC tells the person which way you decided.
Leave
The Leave tab lists requests waiting for approval, with the person, the type, the dates and their reason. If shifts already fall in those dates, the card says how many, so you can see the cost before you approve.
Approved leave shows against the person on the rota. Colleagues see only that the person is unavailable, never the type or the reason.
You cannot decide your own leave. Someone else has to.
To put leave on the rota yourself, for example when someone phones in sick, select Record leave on the Staff rota page. Choose the person, the type, the first and last day and, if you want, a reason. It is approved straight away and the person is told. You cannot record your own leave; ask another manager.
Swaps and give-aways
A swap goes through two steps. A colleague accepts first; only then does it reach you, marked "Accepted, waiting for a manager". A request still marked "Waiting for a reply" is waiting on the colleague, and has no Approve button.
A swap can be for a named shift. When a colleague is asked to swap, the requester can pick one of that colleague's published shifts to take in return, and the card then reads "In return for: ..." with that shift. Approving moves both shifts.
A give-away has nobody named: it reads "(give-away, nobody named)" until an eligible colleague takes it.
When you approve, the shift moves to the new person. If that puts them on two shifts at once, or on shifts during their leave, ARC tells you and does not block it: "Nothing was blocked; check the rota."
Two things stop an approval: the shift has already started, or hours have already been confirmed on it, because confirmed hours stay with the person who worked them.
You cannot decide a swap you are part of. If the card says "You cannot approve this one. It needs a different approver.", your organisation has set swaps to be approved by an administrator, or the swap involves another home you do not manage. That setting is changed by your organisation administrator.
Open-shift claims
When staff claim an open shift, the claim appears under Open-shift claims with the person's name and employment status. Approve gives them the shift and rejects any other claims on it. A claim never fills a shift by itself.
You cannot decide your own claim.
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