Leave planning for technicians: approving leave without the service grinding to a halt

Where a leave plan in Excel falls short

A spreadsheet with a row per technician and a column per day is a good start. It goes wrong as soon as the leave and the work are in two places:

• Work on a day off. The planner assigns an intervention to a technician who is off according to the spreadsheet, because the planner does not have the spreadsheet open.
• Nobody knows what has been approved. A request by email, an agreement in the corridor, and the spreadsheet says something else.
• Half days disappear. A doctor’s appointment at three o’clock is noted nowhere, and the half past three customer is left waiting.
• Scheduled work stays put. The leave has been approved, but that week’s interventions are still in the technician’s name.
• The replacement knows nothing. They do not know the customer, the installation or what was agreed last time.

Making a leave plan: seven agreements

How much leave someone has and which days are fixed follows from the rules of your sector and the agreements in your company. How you spread the leave without the service grinding to a halt is something you set yourself, in writing and the same for everyone:

1. A deadline for requests. For example, summer leave before a fixed date in the spring, and short leave a few weeks in advance.
2. Peak periods. Name the weeks in which you expect a lot of work, such as the start of the heating season for a heating company, and agree that leave is the exception then.
3. Who may be off at the same time, per skill and per region. Is there still someone that week who knows heat pumps, and someone for every region you serve?
4. One person approves, within a fixed time. A request with no answer becomes a problem in the week itself.
5. Collective closing days and public holidays are in the calendar at the start of the year, for everyone.
6. Half days and a few hours too. An absence of a few hours belongs in the same plan as a week’s leave.
7. Check the scheduled work first, then approve. Which interventions and maintenance visits fall in that period, and who takes them over?

Maintenance, urgent calls and the replacement

During the leave, the work goes on. You agree three things in advance:

• Maintenance visits. A contract with a fixed technician keeps creating visits. Schedule them with a colleague, or move them to after the leave in consultation with the customer.
• Urgent calls. Agree per week who handles the urgent interventions, especially in summer, when several technicians are away at the same time.
• The handover. A replacement needs to know what matters today: what was found last time, where the key is, who to call. Put that on the intervention, and keep the history with the unit, as described in the service history per installation.

An example: two weeks of summer leave

A water treatment company with a handful of technicians. In February, the technician who maintains the water softeners in the east of the province requests two weeks of leave in July. The managing director first looks at the schedule: in the first week, the only colleague with the same skill is already away for two days. They agree that the leave starts three days later, and the request is approved.

From then on, the period is shown on the schedule as unavailable. The planner moves the interventions already booked in those weeks to a colleague or to another date, and schedules the maintenance visits of the technician’s contracts with that colleague. In the instructions of each intervention, the office notes what the colleague needs to know, and the colleague reads them in the app before setting off.

How it works in Digitalnatie Service Suite

You register absences on the technician’s record, which you open from the schedule, the team or an intervention. The planning board automatically takes an approved absence into account.

• Registering an absence: you choose the type of absence, and the application says whether that type requires approval. The duration is one or more full days, a half day or a few hours. A private comment is only visible to the people who manage absences, never on the schedule.
• Approving: an absence is to be approved, approved, refused or cancelled. From the absence’s menu (⋯), you approve, change, refuse or cancel it. For a type that requires approval, the window also offers to approve it straight away.
• On the schedule: as soon as an absence is approved, that period is no longer available. A full day shows leave or public holiday, and part of a day shows a grey bar with the hours. Other users see when a technician is absent, not why: a personal reason always appears as leave.
• Scheduling during leave: Service Suite refuses to schedule during an approved absence or outside working hours. An administrator or manager can schedule anyway by giving a reason, which is kept in the intervention’s log.
• Work that was already scheduled: the application says how many interventions fall during the absence, with the warning that they are not moved automatically. You reschedule them or choose another technician. If an absence is approved afterwards, a message shows that work, with a button to reschedule each intervention.
• Public holidays and busy days: in the planning configuration, you set the working hours, the public holidays and closing days, the blocked days (days without interventions) and the peak days. When you schedule, a blocked day or a peak day appears as a warning among the points of attention for that date.

A maintenance contract creates its visit with the contract’s technician, if it has one. You then schedule it like any intervention, so with a colleague if that technician is on leave. What that colleague needs to know, the office notes in the instructions of the intervention.

Good to know:

• By default, the administrator registers and approves absences; your administrator can adjust the roles.
• The office registers the leave on the technician’s record; the technician requests it the way you agree in your company.
• If your screen offers to add an absence rather than register one, your organisation does not use approval, and the absence goes straight into the technician’s calendar. The absences of a technician with their own user account are then not managed in the application. If they are hidden from you, the schedule shows that technician as available: ask them about their leave before you schedule.
• In the staff and hours screen, you export the absences to Excel or PDF, alongside the hours. How those hours come in is explained in time tracking for technicians.

The scheduling itself, with urgent calls and routes, is covered in scheduling technicians.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make a leave plan in Excel?

Yes, and for a small team it is a good start: one row per technician, one column per day, a colour per type of absence and the peak weeks highlighted. The risk is that the spreadsheet is separate from the schedule of interventions, so nobody sees that there is work on a day off.

How many technicians may be on leave at the same time?

There is no general rule. It depends on the rules of your sector, the agreements in your company and the work you expect in that period. A useful rule of thumb: per skill and per region, someone always stays available for urgent calls and for maintenance that cannot wait.

What happens to the interventions of a technician who goes on leave?

They stay in the technician’s name until someone moves them. In Service Suite, the application says how many interventions fall during the absence; they are not moved automatically. You reschedule them or give them to a colleague, and note in the instructions what that colleague needs to know.

How does a technician request leave?

The way you agree in your company, for example with a fixed deadline and one person who approves. In Service Suite, the office registers the leave on the technician’s record. If that type of absence requires approval, the office approves it straight away or later, or refuses it.

Does the whole team see why a colleague is absent?

In Service Suite, other users see when a technician is absent, not why. A personal reason appears on the schedule as leave, and a private comment is only visible to whoever manages the absences.