Reimagining Leave Visibility: How One Company Brought LOA in Workday to the Time Calendar with hrPad

When Jenna, an HR Manager at a fast-growing hospitality company, walked into her office on Monday morning, she was greeted by an inbox brimming with emails. Nearly half were from employees confused about their LOA in Workday. Some weren’t sure whether their LOA in Workday had been approved or still pending, and others were frustrated that nothing was showing up on the tablet calendar they used every day.

“I requested time off two weeks ago—why isn’t it showing on the tablet calendar?” one message read.

Another read simply: “Approved or pending? I have no idea.”

The company had recently implemented CloudApper hrPad, a tablet-based solution to replace their old hardware clocks. Employees loved being able to clock in with a face scan and see their schedules. But there was one persistent gap: approved and pending Leave of Absence (LOA) requests weren’t visible on the Time Calendar.

Jenna knew this was a problem. Employees were starting to lose trust in the system, and supervisors were frustrated by constant questions. She decided it was time to solve it.

She called a meeting with Ahmed, the company’s Workday integration lead, and Sophia, their CloudApper specialist.

“Let’s start by understanding what’s possible,” Jenna began. “We need LOA records from Workday to show up here.”

Ahmed nodded. “The data is in Workday. We have the Absence Requests API that tracks every LOA—start date, end date, approval status. The issue is, hrPad doesn’t automatically pull that data into the calendar.”

Sophia leaned forward. “But hrPad is designed to be extended. We can build an integration that syncs LOA data into the system. Then we customize the Time Calendar UI to display it.”

Jenna looked relieved. “Walk me through it step by step.”

Sophia pulled out her laptop and turned the screen to the team. On it was a simple diagram:

“First,” Sophia explained, “we’ll set up an API connection. We’ll create a secure integration system user in Workday that has read-only access to Absence Requests.”

Ahmed added, “Once we have that, we can set up a scheduled job to pull the latest LOA records every four hours.”

Jenna tilted her head. “And how do employees see the data?”

Sophia clicked to the next slide. It showed a calendar view with shaded blocks labeled LOA – Pending and LOA – Approved.

“On the Time Calendar, each leave period will appear as a shaded block. We’ll use green for approved, yellow for pending. When employees tap the block, they’ll see details.”

“Details?” Jenna asked.

“Exactly,” Sophia replied, “like this.”

Sophia switched to a mock-up screen that displayed a tap interaction:

Jenna exhaled. “That’s exactly what we need.”

Ahmed nodded. “We’ll also cache the records in CloudApper’s database to keep the calendar responsive. That way, employees won’t experience delays every time they open the view.”

Sophia continued, “We can also configure permissions. Only employees can see their own LOA, and managers can view their team’s leave data.”

Jenna smiled. “How long will this take?”

“With proper scoping and testing,” Ahmed said, “three weeks, maybe four.”

Three weeks later, Jenna stood beside a row of tablets near the breakroom. An employee named Carlos walked up, scanned his face, and tapped on the Time Calendar.

“Hey, my vacation leave finally shows here,” he said, pointing at the green bar. He tapped it and read the details. “That’s perfect.”

Jenna watched as Carlos smiled and walked away. It was a small moment, but it meant everything. Clear visibility. Fewer questions. A little more trust in the system.

Sometimes, solving a problem isn’t about big technology shifts. It’s about finding the hidden gaps in your tools—and filling them thoughtfully.