Awayly now includes Restricted Dates, giving companies more control over when employees can request time off.
Owners and admins can create restricted periods for busy times, important business dates, staffing-sensitive periods or any other dates where annual leave may need tighter control.
Create single dates or date ranges
Restricted Dates can cover:
- A single day
- Several consecutive days
- A longer busy period
- Dates that span weekends
- Periods that continue across months
Each restriction can include a clear title and reason so employees and approvers understand why the date has been restricted. Decide who the restriction applies to
Restrictions can be applied to:
- Everyone
- A specific department
- A specific job title
- Selected employees
This means businesses can create targeted rules without unnecessarily restricting the whole company.
For example, a business could restrict leave for Drivers during a particularly busy week while allowing Office staff to continue booking normally. Choose how strict the restriction should be
Each Restricted Date can use one of three levels:
- Warning only — employees are warned but can still submit the request
- Strong approval warning — the request can still be submitted, but the approver sees a stronger warning
- Blocked for employees — employees cannot submit a request that overlaps the restricted period
Owners and admins can still manually add or manage leave where an exception is needed.
Employees see restrictions before submitting
When an employee selects dates that overlap a restricted period, Awayly displays the relevant warning before the request is submitted. If the period is blocked, the request is prevented from being submitted.
This is also enforced behind the scenes, so restricted dates cannot simply be bypassed by changing the page or request manually.
Managers and admins see the warning too Restricted-period information is also shown during the approval process.
Approvers can clearly see when a request overlaps a restricted date and why that restriction was created before making their decision. The normal approval email can also include a Restricted leave period warning, helping managers spot the issue without needing to check the request first.
Works alongside coverage clash warnings Restricted Dates also work alongside Awayly’s new coverage clash warnings.
This means a request can clearly show multiple staffing concerns at the same time, such as:
- A restricted business period
- Another employee in the same role already being away
- A pending overlapping request
This gives managers and admins much better information before deciding whether leave should be approved. Restricted Dates make it easier for businesses to protect important working periods without removing the flexibility to manage exceptions when needed.