Out of Office
The Out of Office page allows managers to designate a period of time when they will be out of the office and to appoint an alternate delegate that will be responsible for taking action on items that require review/approval while they are away. Note: The Out of Office feature is only applicable for the Manager role.
Create Out of OfficeCreate Out of Office
To create a new out of office entry, select the Create button. The user is taken to the Create Out of Office page. On this page the user needs to enter dates in the From Date and To Date fields that correspond to when the manager will be out of the office. The manager should also select an Alternate Approver ID, a delegate who will be responsible for reviewing/rejecting/approving the manager’s tasks in his/her absence and then select Save. Note: The Alternate Approver ID pick list only displays valid peers or direct reports based on the setting of the MSS OUT OF OFFICE APPROVER parameter on the Site Specific Parameter (SPAR) table.
Refer to the following Return to Office or Delete Out of Office Entry section for information on removing an out of office if the user returns prior to the planned To date.
Return to Office or Delete Out of Office EntryReturn to Office or Delete Out of Office Entry
Return to Office
If the manager returns to the office prior to the planned To Date, and wants to end the routing of workflow items to the alternate approver, the Return to Office action can be selected from the row-level menu. The user will be asked to confirm that they want to Return to Office. Selecting Yes will confirm and work items will no longer be re-routed to the alternate approver and the out of office entry is removed from the page. If No or the Close icon is selected, nothing will change, the Out of Office entry remains.
Note: If work items have already been routed to the alternate approver prior to your return to office, those items will not be re-routed back to the manager. For example, a manger returns to the office the day that timesheets are due, but some employees submitted their timesheets a day early, those timesheets would have already been routed to the alternate approver and will not be returned to the manager. Therefore, those items will not be seen in the manager’s worklist.
Delete Out of Office Entry
If a manager wants to cancel/delete an out of office entry that is past dated (the To Date is prior to the current date), the user can select the Delete action from the row-level menu. The user will be asked to confirm that they want to delete the record. If Yes is selected, then work items will no longer be re-routed to the alternate approver and the out of office entry is removed from the page.