In this article, you will learn how to configure public holidays, review and adjust your employees’ vacation balances, and optionally activate the Employee Portal. After activation, employees can submit absence requests and you maintain full visibility over vacation entitlements.
Open the Absences Menu
Open the Absences menu in the left-hand main navigation.
At the top center of the screen, you will see a 3-step activation menu. It shows which steps have already been completed and which are still pending (e.g., '0 of 3 steps completed').
Activate Vacation Management step-by-step
Step 1: Select and Confirm Public Holidays
Hover over the first step "Enter your company's holidays” and click “Manage holidays.”
A new view opens where you select the federal state (Bundesland) that applies to your company. Choose the correct federal state from the list.
Public holidays
You are shown an overview of all public (bank) holidays for the selected federal state. Review the holidays and confirm which ones apply to your company. After selecting, click “Confirm and save”.
Company-internal holidays
Company-internal holidays are days when your company gives time off work as an additional benefit for employees. They are independent of public holidays and are defined only for your company.
How to set up company-internal holidays:
Click the blue button “Add company-internal holidays”.
Choose from templates: In the holiday management view you will find a list of commonly used company-internal holidays (e.g. Shrove Monday, Christmas Eve). You can activate these for your company with a single click. Company-internal, template-based holidays can
be defined as full or half days;
have variable dates that change each year (not always the same calendar day).
Create your own company-internal holidays: Using the blue button “Custom” you can create a fully custom holiday: enter the name and date, and whether it is a full or half day and whether it should repeat every year.
Save: After selecting public holidays and optionally configuring company-internal holidays, click “Confirm and save”.
You are taken back to the Absences page. The activation menu now shows that step 1 is completed (e.g. “1 of 3 steps completed”).
You will be redirected to the Absences page, and the activation menu will show that Step 1 is completed (e.g., '1 of 3 steps completed').
Step 2: Review and Update Vacation Balances
In the activation menu, click 'Review Data' for the second step.
A new window opens with a table of all employees who are active or will become active in the current calendar year.
For each employee, you will see the following relevant columns:
Contractual Annual Vacation Entitlement: The annual vacation entitlement for a full calendar year or for the duration of a limited contract;
Carryover from Previous Years: Remaining vacation budget from the previous year;
Remaining: The currently available vacation balance as a sum of all entitlements;
Review the displayed data and make necessary adjustments:
Contractual Annual Vacation Entitlement:
Enter the agreed annual vacation entitlement and correct it if necessary. Changes will automatically update the employee’s contract data.Remaining:
Enter the actual remaining vacation balance, especially if vacation has already been taken during the year or if a carryover exists.
After reviewing and entering all data, click 'Confirm and Save'. All vacation accounts will now be updated according to your entries.
You will be redirected to the Absences page, and the activation menu will show '2 of 3 steps completed.'
Step 3: Activate the Employee Portal (Optional)
The third step is optional. Activating the Employee Portal allows employees to:
Access and upload documents.
Access their contract data.
View and update personal information
Important: For employees to submit absence requests themselves, the feature must be activated by your payroll service.
If you do not want to activate the portal now, click 'Skip'. You can activate it at any time later.
If you want to activate it now, click 'Learn More' for additional information or directly select 'Activate Now.'
Confirm Activation
Once all three steps are completed, a confirmation window appears automatically, informing you that the Absences feature has been successfully activated.
Click 'Got it' to close the window. The activation menu will disappear the next time the page is loaded. The Absences feature is now fully set up, and you can manage and approve absences.