Key Concepts
The building blocks of Holiday Ocean 360: leave types, leave policies, approval modes, policy assignments, departments and holiday calendars.
Core Building Blocks
Holiday Ocean 360 is built around a few key concepts that work together to automate your leave management. Understanding these will help you get the most out of the platform.
Leave Types
Leave types define the categories of time off available to your team. Each type has its own balance, accrual rules, and carryover settings.
| Leave Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Annual Leave | Standard paid vacation days |
| Sick Leave | Days off for illness or medical appointments |
| Personal Leave | Flexible days for personal matters |
| Maternity / Paternity | Extended leave for new parents |
You can create custom leave types from the Policies page to match your organization's needs — for example, Study Leave or Volunteering Day.
Policies
A policy defines the rules for a leave type. Policies control:
- Entitlement — how many days are granted per year
- Accrual method —
Yearly,Monthly, orQuarterly(Monthly and Quarterly from the Starter plan) - Carryover — whether unused days roll over at year-end
- Probation — whether new hires can request leave during their probation period
- Limits — maximum consecutive days, monthly caps, minimum notice
Policies can be customized per region or department to match local labor laws and company agreements.
Changes to a policy take effect immediately for all assigned users. Historical balances are not affected.
Approval Modes
Each leave policy has an approval mode that determines who must approve a request.
| Mode | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-Approve | System checks policy compliance and approves instantly | Sick leave, emergency leave |
| Direct Manager | Employee’s department manager reviews the request | Annual leave, personal leave |
| Multi-Step Chain | Request walks up the org tree from the employee’s department to the configured depth | Extended leave, regulated industries |
Approval mode is configured per leave policy in the Policies page. Multi-step chain depth is limited by your plan (1 step on Free, up to 5 on Professional, unlimited on Business+).
Policy Assignments
Policy assignments let you customize entitlements for individuals without creating separate leave types:
- An employee on a special contract might receive additional sick leave days
- Remote workers might have different approval requirements
- Senior staff might receive increased annual leave allowance
Policy assignments override the base policy values. The employee’s effective entitlement is always visible on their profile.
Departments
Departments form your organizational tree. Navigate to Org Structure in the sidebar to manage your structure.
Each department can have:
- A department head who acts as the default approver
- Nested sub-departments for granular structure
- Coverage settings that determine how team capacity is calculated
A department can only be deleted once it has no employees and no sub-departments. Move them first, and update department heads and approval chains accordingly. Deletion cannot be undone.
Holiday Calendars
Holiday calendars define public holidays and non-working days for a region. They automatically:
- Exclude public holidays from working-day counts
- Adjust balance calculations for regional differences
- Prevent double-counting when an employee requests leave over a public holiday
Manage calendars from Organization → Holidays. You can assign different calendars to different departments or regions through the Org Structure page.