LeaveVia Quick Start Guide
A short path from a brand-new workspace to normal day-to-day operation. LeaveVia sets up a Monday–Friday working pattern and starter leave types for you, so you only configure what is specific to your business.
The latest guidance is always available online at leavevia.com/help. If a printed copy disagrees with the Help Center, the Help Center is correct.
1. Create your workspaceRequired · Owner
Sign up, confirm your email address and sign in. On your first visit you are asked for your organisation name, country, timezone, data region and the month and day your leave year starts.
The data region field is recorded as an organisation preference. It does not currently change the physical hosting region: LeaveVia currently runs on a managed EU hosting environment.
The person who creates the workspace becomes its Owner. LeaveVia sets up a default Monday–Friday working pattern and a starter set of leave types for you.
Creating a workspace starts a 30-day free trial. No card is required to start. Everyone else joins an existing workspace through an invitation from their organisation.
2. Review organisation settingsRequired · Owner, Admin
Open Organisation. Check the name, country and timezone — they affect how dates and working days are calculated.
The Setup panel on the same page shows what is still missing before employees can request leave. Items marked Optional can be left for later.
3. Check the default leave configurationOptional · Owner, Admin
Leave settings → Leave types already contains sensible defaults such as annual and sick leave. Most small teams can start without changing anything.
Adjust a leave type if you need different rules for approval, half days, privacy or whether it draws from a balance. Leave types are never deleted — deactivate one to stop offering it while keeping past records intact.
4. Set your entitlement policyRequired · Owner, Admin
Leave settings → Leave policies is where you say how much leave people earn. Create a policy, set the entitlement rules and publish a version.
Published versions are never edited. If rules change later, publish a new version from the effective date — history stays exactly as it was.
5. Review working patterns and public holidaysOptional · Owner, Admin
A default Monday–Friday pattern is created with the workspace. Adjust it if your week is different, or add another pattern for part-time staff.
Public holidays are optional. If you do not add them, every working day inside a leave request counts as leave.
6. Add and invite your peopleRequired · Owner, Admin
Open People, add an employee record, then send an invitation to their email address. They set their own password and join your workspace.
Your plan sets the maximum number of people in your workspace. If you reach it, LeaveVia stops the action and tells you before anything is saved.
7. Assign managers and structureOptional · Owner, Admin
Departments, teams and locations are optional, but they make availability and reporting much more useful.
Assign a manager to an employee so leave requests reach the right person and managers can see their own team.
8. Assign a leave policy to each employeeRequired · Owner, Admin
Balances are only calculated once an employee is covered by a published policy. Assign the policy from Leave policies.
Two details decide the numbers: the employee needs a hire date on their People record, and the policy version you assign must already be published and effective on the date the assignment starts. A draft version calculates nothing.
9. Post entitlement so balances existRequired · Owner, Admin
Assigning a policy sets out what someone will earn; it does not yet put days into their balance. Open Leave ledger, select the employee and leave type, and use Post due entitlement to post the entitlement already due.
Check the statement against your existing records. For leave already taken but not recorded in LeaveVia, use Post adjustment → Debit (remove days), with a clear reason. Add credits only for days not already included. An opening balance adds days; it does not replace a posted balance.
This matters because approving leave is checked against the posted balance, not the projected one. Until entitlement is posted, an approval can be refused for an insufficient balance even though the policy looks correct.
10. Have each person accept their invitationRequired · Employee
An employee record on its own cannot request leave: the person has to accept their invitation and sign in, which links their account to that record.
Until they do, an owner, admin or manager can still record already-approved leave on their behalf from Approvals.
11. Submit the first leave requestRequired · Employee
In My leave, choose the leave type and the dates. LeaveVia shows how many days will be used before the request is submitted, skipping non-working days and public holidays.
12. Review and approve itRequired · Owner, Admin, Manager
Approvals lists everything waiting for a decision, including cancellations and change requests. Approving deducts the days from the balance; rejecting leaves the balance untouched.
13. Check team availabilityOptional · Owner, Admin, Manager, Employee
Availability shows who is away over a period. Managers and admins see the detail for their people; colleagues simply see that someone is away.
14. Connect a calendar (optional)Optional · Employee
Each person can connect their own Google or Microsoft calendar so approved leave appears there automatically. This is one-way: LeaveVia never reads your calendar contents.
LeaveVia — a product by Aegean Astraea. Every workspace starts with a 30-day free trial; no card is required to start.