A SIR web based leave/absence management system.

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A SIR web based leave/absence management system.

• By
• Dave Doulton
• University of Southampton

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Agenda

• Introduction
• What used to happen
• The initial SIR System
• Give the users what they want.
• The current SIR system
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• This paper covers the development of a SIR web
  based leave/absence system for the Information
  Systems Services department of the University of
  Southampton.
• This is an interim solution before a University
  wide system is brought in.

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Introduction

• The original paper based system which has been
  running to my knowledge for 26 years was
  beginning to cause problems for one and all due
  to the time the paper took to circulate the
  several buildings we now occupy.
• The first suggestion for automation struck me as
  so bad I would try and come up with something
  quickly (in 2 days in fact) that would improve
  matters.
• Unfortunately my system was popular and I have
  spent a considerable amount of time since making
  changes to add functionality.

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Introduction

• What is a leave/absence system?
• It is a system for recording when people have
  their annual leave.
• It also records absence for other reasons e.g.
  Sickness, Conferences, Doctors appointments etc.
• It also records who gave permission for the
  absence.

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Introduction

• What do we need to record?
• Whose leave it is.
• When it is.
• What sort it is.
• Who authorised it and when.
• How much leave is left.

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What used to happen?

• Sheets of paper of different colours were used.
• Pink to book leave
• Yellow to Cancel leave
• Blue to book time of in lieu
• White for conference/training etc

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What used to happen?

• The paper was filled in with the dates.
• It was posted to the persons line manager.
• The line manager approved or denied it based on
  their knowledge (or otherwise) of other peoples
  absence.
• The form was then posted to the admin office for
  processing, which involved filing the top half of
  the form and returning the bottom half in the
  post to the user after noting on it how much
  leave was left.
• The person would then enter this into their
  Outlook calendar so that meetings were not booked
  with them in their absence.
• The admin office emailed a list of who was absent
  to a mailing list of the interested once a day.

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What used to happen?

• The problems were?
• It took too long for the paper to circulate.
• If you want tomorrow afternoon off the paper
• saying it was granted could take several days
• if not weeks to return.
• e.g. your line manager has just gone on2 weeks
• leave.

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What used to happen?

• People going off sick after the email had been
  sent were not known by anyone, but admin, to be
  absent.
• If you did not usually receive the email you had
  no way of knowing who was off sick.
• Booking leave from the next leave year caused all
  sorts of problems with how many days you had
  left.

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The initial SIR System

• Web based using sirweb.cgi
• Is multi-user but does not use master.
• As all writes are quick each action tries to
  attach the database in write mode and waits if
  this fails for up to 30seconds.

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The initial SIR System

• It is a case based database with the day as the
  case id.
• The cases for the next 2 years are set up for all
  working days. i.e. weekends, public holidays and
  University Closure days are not present.
• All case access is old case is or process cases
  so the calendar is fixed and new dates cannot be
  created.

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The initial SIR System

• Bookings consist of a record for each person for
  each half day of the leave
• These hold the half day, the persons username,
  who authorised it ,what type of leave it is and
  when it was booked.

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The initial SIR System

• This was a web based system using email.
• It contained 3 tables
• One holding the users entitlement to leave
• One holding requests for leave
• One holding the absences

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The initial SIR System

• A web form controlled by username and password
  allowed the user to
• choose whether they wanted to book or cancel.
• choose the type of leave.
• type in the dates.
• choose whole or half days only.
• choose who was to authorise the leave.

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The initial SIR System

• Submitting the form entered the details in the
  request record.
• Displayed the request to the user.
• Emailed the line manager a link to the form that
  displayed the request for approval or rejection.
• The result of this was emailed to the user.

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The initial SIR System

• There were reporting options to show full details
  of what leave had been booked for any period.
• Most importantly how many days leave were left.
• It was all based on user ids

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Give the users what they want.

• As soon as it went live the requests and
  suggestions started pouring in.
• They still do.
• The following are the changes that I remember in
  no particular order.

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Give the users what they want.

• From ordinary users.
• Can we have a calendar to choose the dates we
  want rather than having to type in dates (because
  we cannot type dates correctly)
• Dont show other people the number of days I have
  had off sick.
• Dont tell others that I am on Compassionate
  leave.

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Give the users what they want.

• Let me confirm my request instead of sending
  straight to the line manager (because I make
  mistakes)
• On the confirmation tell me if my line manager is
  going on leave soon so I can choose a different
  manager.

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Give the users what they want.

• Show me my outstanding requests.
• Include outstanding requests in totals of days
  left when booking leave.
• On the list of leave I have taken put a cancel
  button next to leave in the future so that it can
  be cancelled without filling in all the
  information again.
• Attach a calendar event to the email so I can
  easily record the leave in my Outlook Calendar.

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Give the users what they want.

• From Managers.
• Show me who on my staff is off from a given date.
• Group my staff on the display of who is off.
• Show me who on my staff is off around the dates
  requests are being made.

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Give the users what they want.

• Show me the outstanding requests I have still to
  process with a link to call up the request form.
• Let me forward a request to another manager if
  they are more appropriate or I have been chosen
  in error.

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Give the users what they want.

• For Admin Staff.
• Send out a list daily of who is absent to a list
  of managers and other interested parties.
• Automatically carry sick over to the next working
  day.
• Remind me of people who are part-time.
• Report quarterly on how much sick leave a person
  has had and in how many occurrences with totals
  for the year.

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Give the users what they want.

• Add an optional information field.
• Can we have real names not userids.
• Can we amend peoples starting entitlement and
  carry over.
• For salaried staff include non-working days (i.e.
  weekends) in the count of days off sick.
• Handle part-timers leave/absence correctly!!!

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The current SIR system

• The system now comprises.
• The three original records with some extra fields
  added.
• Plus a record detailing who a manager is
  interested in and in which group they fall.
• A second database (MUD Master User Database) is
  attached to get real names.
• An included file containing a recode to mark the
  few parttime staff.

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The current SIR system

• Most of the requests have been implemented.
• Handling of Part-timers correctly is still in
  progress and may never be fully satisfactory in
  the case of one person.

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Conclusion

• The system has been working for 5 months so far.
• It has taken quite a lot of time to develop.
• Especially with things like the calendar using
  Javascript. Different browsers treat dates in
  different ways. Some including the browser I was
  using report this year as 2005 whilst others
  report it as 105.

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Conclusion

• Things that seem simple can get very complicated
  and users want everything just the way they want
  it.
• Demonstration.