Electronic Leave Management Organizer

Frequently Asked Questions

ELMO brings many procedural changes to our court. In preparation for implementation, we have come up with answers to the most important questions that may arise.

1. How does ELMO know what my leave balances are? Will I have to wait until a pay period is closed before I can determine what my current balances are?

Your initial employee record is entered into ELMO. This includes your beginning leave balances and your service computation date. Based on your time in service, ELMO knows whether you earn 4, 6 or 8 hours of annual leave per pay period if you are a full time employee. For part-time employees, ELMO calculates a percentage of leave earned based on the number of hours worked per pay period. Each pay period, ELMO adds accrued leave and deducts approved leave requests to the beginning balance, resulting in your current leave balance.

You do not have to wait until a pay period is closed to review your current or future balances. ELMO's main screen will display your current balances as of the last closed pay period, but you have the ability to change that date to any date and to include future leave requests in the calculation using the View Future Leave Balances button. The result is an accurate reflection of your leave status at any time.

2. How easy (or difficult) is it to request leave using ELMO?

ELMO is extremely easy to use. All you need to do is click on the Request Leave button, select the leave type, date(s) and the beginning and ending times of day you are requesting. ELMO will then check to see if you have enough leave of the type requested by the time you are scheduled to take the leave.

ELMO will allow you to request leave in half hour increments. As a court policy, the minimum allowable annual leave request should be 1 hour.

If you are going to split up a day into various types of leave (e.g., 4 hours sick and 4 hours annual) you must make 2 separate request, one for each type of leave, and define the beginning and ending times for each.

If your request passes the appropriate ELMO tests, (including FEFFLA and FMLA minimum balances) you are notified that the electronic request was successful. The request is then electronically sent to your manager. When the manager logs into ELMO , he/she will receive a message indicating there are leave requests to review for possible approval.

3. How does my supervisor approve my leave? How will I know if a leave request has been approved?

Once you successfully submit a leave request, your manager will be notified by ELMO that there are requests to review for possible approval. Managers' ELMO menus include the Supervisor button, which allows them to review all of their employees' pending and approved leave requests chronologically. The manager can then evaluate (based on reviewing the ELMO calendar) whether or not the leave can be approved. If so, your manager will click on the request and type "y" to approve your leave.

Once approved, your name will appear on the court wide ELMO calendar for the date(s) you requested. you can also view all of your pending and approved leave requests at any time using the View Leave button. If some time has elapsed and your leave request has not yet been approved, you should contact your manager.

4. What happens if my supervisor denies my leave request?

Denied leave requests will need to be deleted from the system. If your manager denies your request, they will delete the request after contacting you. These deleted leave requests will obviously not be included in your projected future balances.

5. What if I make a mistake and request the wrong leave type, date or leave time(s)?

If you make a mistake and submit an incorrect leave request, you can delete it yourself if you catch it before your manager approves it. If your manager has already approved the request, you must contact him/her so that they can delete the leave. You may then submit a corrected leave request.

6. What happens if I decide not to take leave that has already been approved?

Once leave has been approved, your manager must be contacted to delete the leave. If you plan to take only a portion of the approved leave, the leave request must still be deleted and then you can initiate a new one for the corrected dates and times.

7. What happens if I submit a request for a portion of a day, as for a Doctor's appointment, but the appointment takes longer than expected?

After speaking to your manager, you can add a new partial leave request for the additional time taken on that day.

8. Who posts my leave when I call in sick since I am not there to do it?

Because we are using the ELMO calendar as the official leave record for the court on any given day, if you call in sick, your supervisor will have the ability to enter the leave request for you. When this is done, the supervisor will edit the remarks field so that it is apparent that the request was entered in your absence. For added security, every time a request is added or deleted in ELMO, a transaction is posted to the audit log. This will allow the daily calendar to be accurate and will still give you control over your leave.

9. What happens if my manager is out?

Each manager will have a designated backup. You will be informed of whom this will be when we go live on the system.

10. How do I request Compensatory time? How does ELMO handle Compensatory time?

The Compensatory time request process will not change for the most part. Employees wishing to earn comp time must still get approval from their manager first. Once comp time is earned, managers must forward the approved request form to Personnel; the earned comp time hours will then be entered into the ELMO system.

11. What is the End of Pay Period Process all about? What are managers' duties in regard to this process?

There are typically 26 pay periods each calendar year. ELMO keeps track of each pay period's begin and end dates. Employees accrue a certain amount of leave each pay period. At the end of each pay period, Personnel runs the End of Pay Period process so that everyone's balances are updated with the number of hours accrued and the number of leave hours taken.

One week after the end of a pay period (the following Friday) supervisors will be required to print an ELMO certification form. This is called the Two Week Certification Report. The report will list all of the leave taken by each of their staff and will contain their electronic signature. Supervisors are to review this report, make changes if necessary and then submit to Personnel. Once Personnel has received all of the certifications, they will run the End of Pay Period process.

You will notice that the End of Pay Period was run when the date on your ELMO main menu moves forward to the next pay period's begin date and your balances are updated.