In Timebutler, you can create any absence types you need, and employees can then enter them. This lets employees record parental leave, maternity protection, employment prohibition during pregnancy, educational leave, unpaid leave, and any other absence.
The following steps use parental leave as an example.
1. Create absence type
Log in to Timebutler as an administrator and click Settings > More… in the bottom left, then click Absence types on the right. Check whether an absence type called Parental leave already exists. If not, click Create new absence type.
Now create the absence type Parental leave. It is best to configure it so that only administrators can enter it, or to make it approval-required. Set the Reduces target working time option to Reduces the target working time in the working time account to 0 h [...]. This ensures that employees are not required to work on those days. This setting is only relevant if you have Time Tracking enabled or plan to enable it later.
Screenshot: the Reduces target working time setting
2. Enter absence
Once the absence type has been created, you can enter parental leave for employees in the same way as any other absence. Click Employees > Absences > Enter absence in the top left, or click the start and end date in the calendar to create a new absence entry.
Annual limit option
In some cases it makes sense to restrict the maximum number of days per year that an employee may enter. For educational leave, for example, a limit is often appropriate. The Annual limit field for this is available in the edit form for the absence type.
3. Partial employment prohibition during pregnancy
Because this is not a complete employment prohibition, you cannot create an absence type that reduces the target working time to zero. If you did, any working time recorded afterwards would automatically be saved as overtime.
For a partial employment prohibition, proceed as follows:
Leave the target working time in the working time model unchanged (Settings > Working days). In addition to the working time they actually work, the employee records a separate time entry for the Employment prohibition (partial).
For example, an employee normally works 5 h per day from Monday to Friday. From the start of the Employment prohibition (partial), they work 1 h per day and have 4 h of Employment prohibition (partial). In this case, they record their working time as usual from Monday to Friday (1 h) and, in addition, one time entry of 4 h each working day, booked to the Employment prohibition (partial) service. At the end of the month, you can review how much time was recorded as Employment prohibition (partial) and how much as actual working time for the employee.
To do this, you first need to create the Employment prohibition (partial) service. Log in to Timebutler as an administrator, click Settings > More… in the bottom left, then click Time Tracking on the right, and open the Services tab.
Note: Maternity protection, parental leave, employment prohibition during pregnancy, and educational leave are absence concepts defined under German law. Their availability, entitlements, and legal requirements differ in other countries. You can still create equivalent absence types in Timebutler for employees elsewhere — check the applicable local regulations before configuring them.