What’s New
If you would like to know what’s new in Leave Dates – and what’s changed – you’re in the right place.
When we make changes to Leave Dates we will post them here for your reference. The most recent changes are at the top.
If you have an idea for an improvement we can make to Leave Dates, please get in touch.
September 2021
Public holidays are now sent to external calendars
We now sync public holidays, as well as leave records, to external calendars such as Google or Outlook Calendar.
Read more about connecting your calendar
Choose to copy allowances from previous year or from default allowance
A new option has been added to the allowance policy to control whether an employee’s allowance should be copied from one year to the next, or whether they should reset to the default allowance each year.
Read more about allowances
Rolling 30 day view on the wall chart
View the next 30 days on the wall chart by simply clicking on the 30-day filter.
Admin users can filter and search for employees
Additional filters and a search box has been added to the Settings > Employees page to make it easier for admin users to find employees.
Wall Chart performance improvements
We have completely re-engineered the wall chart to improve the performance. Leave is now shown faster, saving you precious time.
Improved experience for starters and leavers
New starters and leavers will no longer be shown allowances for years outside of their employment. We’ve also improved the allowance proration logic to make it easier to use.
Read more about managing starters and leavers
May 2021
Prorate allowances for new starters and leavers
When an employee joins your company or someone leaves, Leave Dates will automatically prompt you to prorate their allowances based on the proportion of the year worked.
Read more about prorating allowances
Booking leave when no approval is needed
Admins and approvers can now book leave on behalf of other people without the need for further approval. Any requests which do not need approval will show a ‘Book’ button rather than a ‘Send Request’ button and bypass the approval process.
iCal calendar feed improvements
Leave requests which span multiple days are now shown as multi-day requests rather than multiple single day requests. In addition, the approval status is shown more clearly on the calendar event. These changes are consistent with how the direct integrations with Outlook and Google Calendar work.
Bug fixes and performance improvements
We also fixed a number of bugs and introduced some performance improvements.
February 2021
Sync leave data to your personal Google or Outlook calendar
Link your Google or Outlook calendar and leave records will be synced in real-time to your personal calendar. Your ‘busy time’ will be set on days when you’re on leave, to avoid colleagues booking meetings with you while you’re off. To connect your calendar, click the Add to regular calendar link in the My Leave page.
Read our step-by-step guide
Receive a weekly email summary
Sign up to receive a weekly summary email showing who has leave planned for next week. The weekly summary will also inform you of any upcoming birthdays, work anniversaries and public holidays.
Read more about the email summary reports
Set a default company
Users who work with multiple companies in Leave Dates can now configure which company should be considered the default. To set a default company, simply click the star in the company dropdown. The default company will be selected after login.
Bug fixes and design improvements
We’ve fixed a number of bugs and made design improvements to enhance your experience using Leave Dates.
December 2020
Carry over unused leave
It is now possible to automatically carry over unused allowances into the next year. Simply configure a policy within the Settings > Allowances page, specifying the maximum number of days allowed to carry over, along with the period of time when the carry over must be taken.
To configure your calendar to automatically calculate carry over, read our setup guide.
Other improvements
October 2020
Book leave for multiple people at the same time
We’ve made it really easy to book leave for multiple people at the same time. Perfect for marking company holidays, office closures, training or team-building exercises.
Read our step by step guide
Manage calendar automatically
Each leave year is referred to as a calendar and is administered in the Settings > Calendars page. You now have the option to automatically create new calendars before the leave year ends, giving you one less thing to worry about.
Learn more
Show birthdays on the wall chart
Birthdays are now shown on the wall chart with a cake icon. What better way to celebrate?!
‘Hidden’ employees
We introduced a new role for employees which allows them to be hidden in the Wall Chart. This is for employees who do not need their leave to be visible to other people.
Upload attachments using the mobile app
The mobile app (available for Apple and Android devices) now allows you to upload and view attachments when requesting or approving leave.
September 2020
Single Sign On (SSO)
We have added OneLogin and Microsoft Azure AD to our list of Single Sign On (SSO) identify providers. For more details about how to use Single Sign On with Leave Dates, please read this guide.
View allowances of your team using the mobile app
Approvers and company admins can now view the allowances of their team. Simply tap the arrow on the allowances section of the home screen to get a breakdown for each employee.
August 2020
Single Sign On (SSO)
Single Sign On (SSO) allows staff to log in to Leave Dates using a single account which is used for all systems. Initially, you can integrate with Okta as your identify provider and we will be adding more identify providers in the near future. For more details about how to set up Single Sign On with Okta, please read this guide.
Private Leave Types
You may wish to keep certain types of leave a little more private than others. Now you can – with private Leave Types. Any Leave Types set up as private will not be shown in the Wall Chart publically (except to admins and approvers). To access this option go to Settings > Leave Types.
Reporting on Public Holidays
You can now run a report of all public holidays set up for a given period. Admin users and approvers can access this report by navigating to Reports > Public Holidays.