The following are some frequently asked questions that we often encounter:
I want to apply for Advance leave, but I'm getting an insufficient entitlement error
I am trying to approve/apply for leave for myself and my employees, but I am getting an error that says “You do not have sufficient leave entitlement”
Why am I getting an insufficient leave entitlement error when I am trying to apply leave? I see that my balances are enough
Insufficient Leave Entitlement Error Shown
If you happen to see the error message “Validation failed: insufficient entitlement to create/approve leave application” when trying to approve leave for your employee, this is because your employee does not have sufficient entitlement during the period of dates selected for leave application.
Why Am I Seeing This Error Message?
1) For Employees Applying for Leave
When an employee is receiving this error message, you should check whether the employee has enough entitlement on those specific dates they are applying for.
Oftentimes, if the employee is applying for a backdated leave application in the system, they might not have accrued sufficient leave entitlement yet. Leave applications will always view the leave balances as of the date applied in the system - if a leave application is backdated, an employee might not have earned enough leave yet.
We do suggest going through the Leave Breakdown and toggling to the specific date of leave application to confirm an employee’s balances:
2) For Leave Approvers Approving Leave Applications
When a leave approver receives this error message while trying to approve a leave application, this means that the employee does not have enough leave entitlement for deduction and approval of the pending leave application.
How to check available Leave Balances on a Specific Date?
To check the number of leaves available on that specific date to the employee, you can adjust the date to view balances as of the start date of the leave application through the steps below:
Under the “View leave balance for” section, the current date should be showing - this is the date on which leave balances have been calculated according to the leave balance breakdown
Click on the current date showing
A dropdown calendar should appear for you for date selection
Select the “Start Date” of your leave application and this should toggle the dates that balances are showing according to
The date selected is the date that leave balances are now being calculated according to - this includes proration of base leave entitlement, if any.
How Is An Employee Able To Apply For A Leave Application With Insufficient Leave Balances?
Some of you might be asking at this point: “Why was my employee able to apply for this leave application in the system if they have insufficient leave entitlement?”.
That’s a great question - just to clarify, the system does not consider ‘pending’ leave applications as leave taken.
This means that leave applied for will not be deducted away from existing leave balances until it has been ‘approved’.
So, in most cases where this error is encountered, employees have applied for more leave days than earned during the application dates.
As the system will not allow for negative leave balances to occur for employees through the approval structure flow, any leave applications that are attempted to be approved that exceed the leave entitlement earned by an employee can’t be approved by a leave approver.
What Are The Next Steps?
If you are an employee or leave approver who finds yourself in this situation, you’ll have to first check on the amount of leave balances as of the dates applied (through the steps highlighted above under the section titled ‘How to check available Leave Balances on a Specific Date?’).
Thereafter, do one of the following to resolve the error:
Cancel the pending leave application that exceeds the leave entitled to the employee and re-apply for the appropriate number of days of leave instead OR
Award advance leave to the employee during the period mentioned to give them sufficient leave balances for the leave application to be approved
We hope this guide has helped you with troubleshooting your leave application errors. 😃