--- title: "How to Approve or Reject an Absence Request" description: "Step-by-step guide for managers and approvers: find pending absence requests in the Approvals tab of the Vitextra My Absences web part, approve or reject them with a comment, and learn what the employee, the calendar and the substitute see afterwards." url: https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10334 language: en published: 2026-10-28 modified: 2026-10-28 products: - "Absence & Coverage" author: "Lidija Reising" tags: ["approve absence request", "reject leave request", "Approvals tab My Absences", "manager approve vacation SharePoint", "absence approval comment", "pending requests badge", "approver workflow", "Vitextra Absence & Coverage"] --- # How to Approve or Reject an Absence Request Step-by-step guide for managers and approvers: find pending absence requests in the Approvals tab of the Vitextra My Absences web part, approve or reject them with a comment, and learn what the employee, the calendar and the substitute see afterwards. ## Overview When an employee submits an absence request for a type that needs approval, the request gets the status **Pending approval** and appears in the **Approvals** tab of the **My Absences** web part of the approver. This article shows how to find the requests that are waiting for your decision, how to approve or reject them, and what happens afterwards. The approver of a request is normally the employee's manager, or the fallback approver if the employee has no manager in Microsoft Entra ID ([KB10336. Who Approves Absence Requests: Manager, Fallback Approver and Self-Approval](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10336)). The approver is fixed when the request is submitted. --- ## Open the Approvals tab The web part shows two tabs, **My absences** and **Approvals**, to a person who has requests to decide or who has direct reports in Microsoft Entra ID. Employees without direct reports see only their own requests. A badge on the **Approvals** tab shows how many requests are waiting for you. ![The Approvals tab with two pending requests](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10334/approvals-tab-en.png) *The Approvals tab with two pending requests* If nothing is waiting, the tab says *There are no requests waiting for your decision.* --- ## Review a request Each request in the list shows: | Element | Meaning | |:---|:---| | Photo and name | The employee who asks for time off | | Type · period · days | For example *Vacation · 9 Nov 2026 – 13 Nov 2026 · 5 d*; half days are included in the number | | Comment | The text the employee typed in the **Comment** field, if any | | *Substitute: …* | The colleague the employee named, if any | | *Also away in this period: …* | Warning with colleagues who have overlapping absences | Look at the warning line before you decide. It lists people with pending or approved absences in the same period; how to use it is described in [KB10335. How to Check Team Conflicts Before Approving a Request](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10335). --- ## Approve a request 1. Click **Approve** in the row of the request. 2. In the dialog **Approve the request**, enter a **Comment** if you want to tell the employee something. For an approval the comment is optional. 3. Click **Approve** in the dialog. The web part shows *The request was approved.* and the request disappears from the **Approvals** tab. Its status becomes **Approved**, the days are counted as used in the balance of the employee, and the absence appears in the Team Absence Calendar as a solid, not hatched, bar. --- ## Reject a request 1. Click **Reject** in the row of the request. 2. In the dialog **Reject the request**, enter the reason in the **Comment** field. A rejection requires a comment: without it the dialog shows *Please enter the reason.* and does not continue. 3. Click **Reject** in the dialog. The web part shows *The request was rejected.* The status becomes **Rejected** and the days are released, so they no longer count against the balance of the employee. ![The dialog for rejecting a request with a required comment](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10334/reject-dialog-en.png) *The dialog for rejecting a request with a required comment* --- ## What the employee and others see | Who | After approval | After rejection | |:---|:---|:---| | The employee | Status **Approved**; the comment appears in the row as *Reply: …* | Status **Rejected**; the comment appears as *Reply: …* | | The substitute | A substitution for the dates of the request is created with the status **Waiting for confirmation**, if the employee named a substitute | Nothing is created | | The calendar | The absence is shown as approved | The absence disappears | The employee does not receive an e-mail or a Teams message, so tell them that the decision has been made. They see the result in the **My requests, 2026** section the next time they open the web part. 📝 **Note** The web parts do not send notifications in this version. The badge on the **Approvals** tab is the only signal an approver gets, so open the tab regularly. --- ## After the decision There is no button for reopening a request or changing your decision. An approved request can be cancelled by the employee while its end date has not passed, which releases the days and cancels the substitution ([KB10330. How to Cancel an Absence Request](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10330)). A rejected request stays rejected; the employee can submit a new one. ❗ **Important** Think before you click **Approve** or **Reject**: the decision and the comment are saved at once, and the web part has no undo button. If a decision was a mistake, ask the employee to submit a new request, or ask the administrator to correct the request in the list.