Understanding Request Limits

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Understanding Request Limits

Request Limits in Clairvia Web work with access schedule periods and the Staff Manager Client Task Control settings of Show in Web and Limit Requests to. Together, these features help you refine how Staff Manager accepts and processes requests. Once you have request limits configured, you can set Staff Manager to approve certain requests automatically, put requests on a Wait List if the conditions for approval do not apply, or both.

By configuring and assigning request limits, you can set how many requests Clairvia Web accepts for any task or group of tasks from any employee or group of employees. Once a limit has been reached, Clairvia Web stops taking requests for the task, group, or individual.

If you have configured and assigned request limits, you can make use of two additional features.

Wait List: If you enable Wait List, then Clairvia Web puts any requests over the allowed number on a Wait List for further processing. If a pending request is deleted or denied, the first request on the Wait List is then changed to Pending.
Auto-Approve: If you enable Auto-Approve for a selected Request Limit, then Clairvia Web approves all requests up to the request limit and stops accepting requests once the limit is reached.

The Wait List and Auto-Approve features also work together. If you enable both Wait List and Auto-Approve, Clairvia Web approves all requests up to the limit, and then puts any additional requests on the Wait List.

Understanding How to Limit Requests

You can define two types of Request Limit rules.

Date Range Limits restrict the sum total of requests an individual or group of individuals may make for a task or group of tasks for a range of dates. Date ranges cannot exceed two years in length.
Daily Limits restrict the number of requests an individual or group of individuals can make on any given day of the week for a task or group of tasks. There is no date range limit for this type of request, and there is a No End Date option if you want this limit to persist.

Each request limit may have multiple rules defined, but each Request Limit is defined as either an Individual or Group Limit:

Individual Limits enable you to create limits on the number of requests an employee may make over a specified period for a single task or group of tasks. You can assign multiple request limits.
Group Limits enable you to create limits on the number of requests a defined group of employees may make for a single task or a group of tasks.

Once you have defined a request limit, you must then assign employees and tasks to the request limit to complete your Request Limit configuration.

The following table reviews how assigned Request Limits work to regulate staff requests. Although the table uses the Vacation task, you can apply request limits to any task. For example, if staff like to work the 7a-3p task on Wednesdays, you can limit the number of people in your profile who request that task.

Defined Request Limit	Employee Assigned	Task Assigned	Result
Date Range: 20 times From January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014	Individual: Jane Doe Joe Smith	Vacation	Jane Doe can request the Vacation task 20 times during the 2014 calendar year. Joe Smith can request the Vacation task 20 times during the 2014 calendar year.
Daily Limit: Once a day Monday through Friday Zero times Saturday and Sunday From January 1, 2014, with no end date	Individual: Jane Doe Joe Smith	Vacation	As of January 1, 2014, Jane can request the Vacation task once a day Monday through Friday and zero times Saturday and Sunday. This Request Limit has no expiration date. As of January 1, 2014, Joe can request the Vacation task once a day Monday through Friday and zero times Saturday and Sunday. This Request Limit has no expiration date.
Date Range: 80 times From January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014	Group: Jane Doe Joe Smith	Vacation	With a Group limit, the assigned individuals share the total number of available requests. In this example, Joe and Jane can request Vacation 80 times during 2014, but this number is distributed on a first come, first served basis. If Joe makes 50 Vacation requests for 2014 before Jane does, Jane can only make 30 Vacation requests. If Jane makes 80 Vacation requests before Joe, Joe cannot make any Vacation requests.
Daily Limit: Once a day Sunday through Saturday From January 1, 2014, with no end date	Group: Jane Doe Joe Smith	Vacation	As of January 1, 2014, either Jane Doe or Joe Smith can request the Vacation task on each day starting January 1, 2014 but this would not prevent either from also requesting a conference day. This Request Limit has no expiration date.

How Request Limits Work With and Without Auto Approve and Wait List

Approved and Pending requests count toward request limits. Wait Listed and Denied Requests do not count toward request limits.

If a user makes a request that is not covered by your configured Request Limits, Clairvia Web marks the request as Pending and alerts managers that the request needs processing.

If you have configured Request Limits but have Auto Approve and Wait List disabled, and users make requests that fall under a configured Request Limit, Clairvia Web accepts employee requests as Pending until the limit is reached. Clairvia Web then stops accepting requests for the Request Limited task. Clairvia Web does not deny the requests, however; the request is simply not allowed, and Clairvia Web displays a message to the employee as to why the request was not accepted. This saves time for managers, as they do not have to deny requests they cannot approve.

If you have configured Request Limits and have Auto Approve enabled, requests users make that are applicable to active request limits are either Approved or not accepted. This also saves time for managers, as Clairvia Web processes a portion of incoming requests.

If you have configured Request Limits and have Wait List enabled, requests users make that are applicable to active request limits are entered either as Pending or as Wait Listed.

If you have configured Request Limits and have both Auto Approve and Wait List enabled, requests users make that are subject to active request limits are either Approved or Wait Listed.

Important: The Auto Approve and Wait List features are retroactive, so depending of what features you enable, a previously pending request can be Approved or Wait Listed, and a Wait Listed request can be changed to Pending or Approved.

Security Access

Your access to the Request Limit Definitions and the Assign Request Limit pages depends on what your Access Schedule permission is.

The Access Schedule permission has three options for each security group and profile combination:

None (no access)
Read (read only access)
Full (read and write access)

The following list describes how the different security levels affect how users interact with the configure Request Limit pages.

Users with the None Access Schedule permission cannot access the Request Limit Definitions and the Assign Request Limit pages. The page links do not appear in the user's Configure menu.
Users with the Read access have read-only access to the Request Limit Definitions and the Assign Request Limit pages. They can view the limits on those pages but cannot make any changes.
Users with the Full access can both view and edit the Request Limit Definitions and the Assign Request Limit pages according to the rules below:
- Assign Request Limits page: If users have Access Schedule permissions for any profile, they have read and write access to this page; however, the profile menu is restricted to those profiles that the user has Access Schedule permissions for.
- Request Limit page: If users have Access Schedule permissions for at least one profile, they have access to this page.

By default, users in the Enterprise Administrator security group have Full access to the Request Limit Definitions and the Assign Request Limit pages. The Access Schedule permission also grants access to Access Schedule Periods.

How Changes to Assign Request Limits Affect Request Processing

When someone changes a request limit assignment, Clairvia Web reviews all current requests and changes their statuses accordingly. The following actions trigger the Clairvia Web request review.

A user removes an employee from an active Request Limit. Clairvia Web starts a request review for all applicable profiles associated with the changed request limit.
A user removes a task from an active Request Limit. Clairvia Web starts a request review for all applicable profiles associated with the changed request limit.
A user adds an employee to an active Request Limit. Clairvia Web starts a request review for all applicable profiles associated with the changed request limit.
A user adds a task to an active Request Limit. Clairvia Web starts a request review for all applicable profiles associated with the changed request limit.

How Clairvia Web Applies Wait List and Auto Approval Rules

Staff Manager applies its Wait List and auto approval rules only when one or both features are enabled and then only when it receives a request subject to a Request Limit. For a request to be applied to a Request Limit, the employee and the task must both be assigned to the same Request Limit.

When the user submits a request that is not subject to any active Request Limits, Clairvia Web processes the request as a pending request. If the employee and task are then added to an active request limit, however, the request is subject to the Wait List and Auto Approve rules and Clairvia Web updates the request's status as appropriate.

The following requests are exempt from the Wait List and Auto Approve logic:

Employee requests entered by an administrator (that is, where the administrator makes the request on behalf of another employee, not when the administrator makes a request of their own).
Requests where an administrator manually changed the request status.
Requests with Approved or Denied status.
Requests previously made for dates that are now in the past.

The following events cause Staff Manager to update requests based on the applicable rules:

Creating or deleting a request from Clairvia Web.
Creating, editing, or deleting an active Request Limit or a limit that becomes active with the following actions:
- Changing (by increasing or decreasing) the number of allowed requests on a Date Range or Daily Limit.
- Changing the dates of a Daily or Date Range Limit parameter on an active Request Limit.
Assigning or removing an employee or task to or from a Request Limit that is either active or is made active by that action.
Enabling or disabling Auto Approval and or Wait List features on the Request Settings page.
Adding (submitting), deleting, or denying an applicable request via Clairvia Web.

How Enabling or Disabling the Wait List and Auto Approval Features Affect Request Processing

When someone enables or disables the Wait List and Auto Approve features, Clairvia Web reviews all current, non-expired pending, and Wait Listed requests and changes their statuses accordingly. The following tables review the events that trigger the Clairvia Web request review and how they change request status.

Wait List Enabled Only

Actions	Pending Requests Subject to Request Limits	Wait Listed Requests Subject to Request Limits	Pending Requests Not Subject to Request Limits
User enables the Wait List feature	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	No Change	No Change
User disables the Wait List feature	No Change	Wait Listed request changed to Pending	No Change
User activates Request Limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	No Change	No Change
User edits Request Limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	Wait Listed request may be changed to Pending if no blocking limit exists	No Change
User deletes Request Limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	Wait Listed request may be changed to Pending if no blocking limit exists	No Change
User assigns employee to an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	No Change	No Change
User assigns task to an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	No Change	No Change
User removes employee from an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	Wait Listed request may be changed to Pending if no blocking limit exists	No Change
User removes task from an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	Wait Listed request may be changed to Pending if no blocking limit exists	No Change
User submits request via Clairvia Web	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	No Change	No Change
User deletes or denies request via Clairvia Web	Pending requests may be Wait Listed if it exceeds one or more Request Limits	Wait Listed request may be changed to Pending if no blocking limit exists	No Change

Auto Approval Enabled Only

Actions	Pending Requests Subject to Request Limits	Pending Requests Not Subject to Request Limits
User enables the Auto Approval feature	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User disables the Auto Approval feature	No Change	No Change
User activates Request Limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User edits Request Limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User deletes Request Limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User assigns an employee to an active request limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User assigns a task to an active request limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User removes an employee from an active request limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User removes a task from an active request limit	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User submits a request via Clairvia Web	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change
User deletes or denies request via Clairvia Web	Pending request may be Auto Approved if it does not exceed one or more Request Limits	No Change

Auto Approval and Wait List Both Enabled

Actions	Pending Requests Subject to Request Limits	Wait Listed Requests Subject to Request Limits	Pending Requests Not Subject to Request Limits
User enables the Auto Approval feature	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
User enables the Wait List feature	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
Request Limit is activated	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
Request Limit is edited	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
Request Limit is deleted	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
An employee is assigned to an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
A task is assigned to an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
An employee is removed from an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
A task is removed from an active request limit	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
A request is submitted via the web	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change
A request is deleted or denied via the Web	Pending requests may be Wait Listed or Auto Approved	Wait Listed request may be Auto Approved if no blocking limit exists. No change in status if a blocking limit remains.	No Change