How to use the Wall Chart

Every Leave Dates user has access to the Wall Chart, which provides a powerful visual overview of employee leave across a selected time period. Set up as a calendar view, it’s easy to see who is off and when - with the colourful legend providing a simple way to understand the different types of leave.

To help you access the information you need quickly and clearly, you have options to change the time period displayed, move between dates, and filter by department. You can easily check individual leave information and book leave directly from the Wall Chart.

Company admins can also control what staff can see in the Wall Chart.

The Wall Chart is one of our most valued features because it immediately gives you oversight of how everyone’s leave aligns in a clear, simple way. Exactly whose leave you can see depends on your user permissions, but most companies are set up so that each employee can see the leave for either the whole company or just their departmental colleagues. If you’re an approver, you will always see the information for all your direct reports, even if they’re in different departments.

With the Wall Chart, you can quickly check:

Who is on leave and when
The types of leave being used, plus any overtime/TOIL
Approved versus unapproved leave
Birthdays, work anniversaries and starting/leaving dates
Everyone’s schedule of working and non-working days
Bank Holidays
An overview of each employee’s role, total allowance and leave balance (if you’re their approver or a company admin)
Whether a team or department has reached its leave limit for a certain day/time period (if relevant)

Understanding the key Wall Chart features

The Wall Chart calendar displays employees in a list on the left and the corresponding dates across the chart. Leave is then shown as marked out against the relevant employee and dates.

Leave and overtime bookings

Each leave booking is coloured according to the type of leave, and is blocked out for the length of leave requested:

If it’s a solid colour, the leave has been approved.
If a booking is showing in white with a dashed coloured border, it’s still pending approval.
If someone is on leave today, they will have an extra icon on their profile avatar.
Shorter leave requests, whether half a day or less (measured in hours), are represented by shorter bars to highlight the relevant fraction of the day.
Leave booked over a weekend or public holiday will not be shaded over the non-working period to clearly demonstrate which days impact annual leave deductions. The same applies if the period of leave includes partial days - only the relevant portions of each day booked as leave will be coloured.
Overtime/TOIL is shown with a triangle on the relevant day.
By hovering your mouse over a leave booking, the basic leave details will be shown including type of leave, duration and exact dates.

Working and non-working days

The calendar distinguishes between working and non-working days according to each employee’s schedule. Working days are clear; whereas non-working days have a light blue background.

Bank holidays

Bank holidays for each employee’s designated working location are marked with a flag icon. This flag tells you both the date of the national holiday and which country it relates to.

If the bank holiday equals a day off for staff, the date will also have a light blue background to show it as a non-working day. Or if the bank holiday is a compensation day and changes a non-working day into a working day, the background will be removed to indicate a working day. Hovering over a flag provides the exact details.

Work anniversaries and birthdays

Extra icons tell you about staff birthdays and work anniversaries in the Wall Chart:

Birthdays are marked with a cupcake icon (only the date is highlighted, not anyone’s age or year of birth, and each employee can opt out of sharing their birthday if they wish to)
Start dates are marked with a party icon
Leaving dates are marked with a goodbye icon
Work anniversaries are marked with a badge showing the number of years worked.

Joiners and leavers

The Wall Chart clearly marks employee start and leaving dates, making it easier to see when someone joins or leaves the company. The time period before an employee’s start date and after their leaving date are hatched out with grey diagonal lines.

Leave and overtime/TOIL requests cannot be made outside an employment period, so an employee will not be able to select these dates to book leave.

Additional employee leave information

Each employee displayed on the Wall Chart has an avatar next to their name.

The avatar provides more than a visual identifier. The coloured ring around the avatar gives a visual indication of the employee's remaining leave in relation to their overall leave allowance. If they still have their full allowance to book, the ring will be 100% blue; but as they book their leave, the amount of blue will decrease proportionately.

If someone is on leave today, they will have an extra icon on their profile avatar.

You can hover over an employee's avatar to display additional information about that employee, including:

the employee's role;
their department;
their leave allowance, broken down by leave taken and leave remaining; and
(if relevant) time off in lieu (TOIL) information.

The popup box also provides shortcuts to relevant employee information such as Go to [employee]'s year to view the employee's year page or Edit [employee]'s profile to access their profile.

Visibility of these leave details and links depends on user permissions. Company admins can see everything; approvers will only see the information for their direct reports; standard employees won’t be able to access anything for anyone else.

Team leave limits

If your company uses team or department leave limits, the Wall Chart can show you when a limit has been reached.

When the maximum amount of leave available for a day or week has been reached for a team or department, the relevant area of the chart is highlighted clearly with a notice showing that no more leave is available for that period.

Depending on your company settings, employees will either be blocked from booking any further leave for that time period or receive a warning message discouraging them from requesting the leave.

Approvers can hover over a leave-limit indicator, see exactly who is already away and understand why the limit has been reached.

Showing and hiding the legend

Use the Show legend or Hide legend dropdown box to control whether the Wall Chart's legend is displayed.

The legend is dynamic so will update automatically to show you exactly what information is represented on the Wall Chart for the time period selected, including:

the approved and unapproved leave types, including overtime/TOIL;
any special days (such as birthdays or work anniversaries) and bank holidays;
the shading used to identify non-working days.

You can hide the legend when you want more space to focus on the calendar itself.

Choosing the time period to display

The Wall Chart will always open using the Next 30 Days view (starting from Monday of the current week). Today’s date is outlined in yellow, and week numbers as well as day/date are shown at the top of the calendar grid to help you easily identify the correct time period.

You can switch between 30 Days, Monthly and Weekly views at any time by clicking on the relevant tab in the top left of the Wall Chart. Your choice depends on the level of detail you need:

30 Days – displays the next 30 days.
Monthly – displays the selected calendar month.
Weekly – displays the selected week.

The Wall Chart will always default to the current time period. So to select the exact timeframe you need, use the date filter buttons in the top centre of the Wall Chart:

If you’re using the 30 Days view, use the dropdown arrow to choose the start date for the 30 Day period;

If you’re using the Monthly view, use the left or right navigation arrows to select the previous or next month;

If you’re using the Weekly view, use the left or right navigation arrows to select the previous or next week.

You can also use the small arrows next to the week numbers at the top of the calendar to jump forward or back by one week.

Filtering employees

The Filter by option controls which employees are displayed on the Wall Chart.

The available options include:

Everyone – displays all employees.
Individual departments – allows you to narrow the displayed employees to one specific department.
Group by department - orders the employee list by department.

The gold star depicts your default view, which will show each time you open the Wall Chart. You can change this by hovering your mouse to the right of a department in the filter dropdown, and then click on the grey star to mark it gold.

Please note that your available options for this filter will depend on your user permissions as you will only be able to view the information for the employees/departments you have been given access to.

Printing the Wall Chart

If you need to print the Wall Chart, just use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+P (Windows) or CMD+P (macOS) to bring up an optimised view that’s ideal for printing. It automatically includes a header detailing the date period covered, plus the legend explaining all items included in the print view.

Don’t forget that when you print the Wall Chart, you are printing your own user view, which will potentially include information that others might not have permission to see (particularly if you’re an approver or company admin).

Because of how the browser’s print command works, we’re not able to load all the wall chart’s data when using the File > Print menu, so it’s best to use the keyboard shortcut (CTRL+P or CMD+P). This way you will have all the information you can see on the Wall Chart in your current screen view included in the printout.

Using the Wall Chart to check employee availability

The Wall Chart is particularly useful when you need to understand employee availability at a glance.

For example, you can:

Select the time period you want to review.
Use the employee filter to display everyone or a particular department.
Review the leave shown against each employee.
Use the legend to identify the leave types, overtime and other Wall Chart indicators.
Check bank holiday flags and the background shading to understand working/non-working days and identify periods outside an employee’s employment.
Look for any team or department leave-limit notices.
Hover over a leave request to get more specific details, including exact dates.
Hover over an employee's avatar when you need more information about their allowance or leave balance.

As employees are displayed against a shared calendar, the Wall Chart can also help you identify periods when several employees have leave requested or booked at the same time. These potential clashes or overlaps between team members are important to be aware of if you’re a manager, or if you’re considering the best time for you to book your own leave.

Booking leave from the Wall Chart

You can book leave directly from the Wall Chart using the Book button - or by clicking on a date in the Wall Chart calendar (click and drag to cover multiple dates).

This will open the leave request window. You can then enter the relevant details of the leave request before submitting it for approval by the appropriate approver.

This means you do not need to leave the Wall Chart to start a leave request. You can review the calendar first to check when your colleagues are off and to make sure your desired leave dates will work for the team/department - and then open the booking window when you are ready to request the leave.

The Wall Chart does not, however, replace the normal approval process. A leave request still needs to go through the relevant approval workflow and will be sent to your approver for checking. While this is happening, your leave request will appear on the Wall Chart but will be in white with a dashed coloured border to highlight that it is pending approval. Once it’s approved, it’ll show as a solid colour.

If you’re an admin or approver - as well as booking leave for individual employees, you can also request leave for multiple people at the same time. Do this by dragging over multiple rows in the wall chart. A leave request pop-up box will then appear with all the employees you’ve selected detailed.