Did you know that Iran tops the list for the average number of paid time off days provided to employees, while the USA ranks much lower, with an average of only 10 days? Whatever the number of days and whether your team is spread across the globe or based in a single location, the need for the best PTO tracker is hard to overlook. Therefore, we bring to you the 3 best Slack PTO trackers.
One-click holiday (full day, half day) creation for individuals or teams right in Slack This best Slack PTO tracker enables team members who are not holiday managers to request personal holidays while allowing managers to add both personal holidays (for themselves and others) and team holidays, all without needing to exit Slack. You can add individual holidays and team holidays for either a full day or a half day on Slack.
Quick and easy approval/rejection of leave requests on Slack. Sup Bot lets holiday managers conveniently manage leave requests on Slack. Slack has leave requests with full details (member, dates, leave type, and duration) for careful review. They can approve or reject the leave request on Slack with one click. If holiday managers want to access additional information regarding the leave request, the ‘view on dashboard’ button directs them to the Sup Bot's holiday details page from Slack.
Instant, daily, and weekly notifications on Slack to keep the team updated on members on leave. This PTO tracker makes sure that teams know about leaves by sending them notifications at the right time. First, when the requested PTO is approved, a message is sent to the requested team member and also posted on the Slack channel. Second, if there are any approved PTOs for the day, the team is informed about members on leave that day in the Slack channel. Third, reminders are sent every week for PTOs the following week.
Automatic Slack OOO status on leave days. Team members can set automatic Slack OOO status before their leave with the Sup Bot PTO software. This can be done in two ways: either the holiday managers can set a default Slack status for the whole team when setting up the holidays on Sup Bot, or team members can set it on Slack when they ask for time off. In this way, the "OOO" status is shown on approved PTO dates, which helps team members remember who is on leave each day and makes it easy for them to see who is available.
Multi-workspace admin control for efficient management of holidays. To ensure PTO tracking is never put on hold because of the absence or unavailability of one holiday manager, the Sup Bot PTO tracker allows the ability to assign multiple holiday managers for efficient leave management. This also facilitates the expansion of teams without worrying about the increased pressure of PTO tracking on a single holiday manager.
Customize leave types and holiday notification channels. Sup Bot's employee PTO tracker adapts to any company's leave policies by allowing holiday managers to customize leave types. Sup Bot provides a default list of leave types that can be easily adjusted by managers to fit company requirements. In addition, holiday managers can set up a designated Slack channel for all holiday notifications. This channel serves as the common source of information for all PTO tracking needs since this is where the instant, daily, and weekly notifications for all approved individual holidays and team leaves are sent.
Customize the holiday approval flow. To make PTO tracking easier, Sup Bot allows holiday managers to set certain leave types to be approved automatically. This makes the leave management process efficient, both for small (because holiday managers can have a lot on their plates because of the team size) and large teams (since managing the holiday needs of a large team with their tasks to complete can become overwhelming).
Annual leave days allocation to assign holidays as per company policy. Sup Bot enables holiday managers to allocate annual leave days according to company policy, ensuring accurate PTO tracking. Managers can set a specific number of paid time offs (PTO), and the tracker automatically calculates the remaining leave balance. Both admins (for all team members) and non-admin members (for themselves) can easily view these leave balances, providing transparency and efficient management of PTO quotas.
Monthly and yearly calendar view of holidays for all members, with member filters available for admin members. Sup Bot offers a convenient monthly and yearly calendar view for both admins and non-admins, allowing the entire team to track all requested, approved, and team-wide paid time offs at a glance. For admin members, the process is further simplified with member filters, enabling them to quickly filter through large amounts of data and access specific holiday information for individual team members in seconds.
Actionable holiday list with deeper insights Sup Bot’s holiday list page gives admins a full overview of all team and individual holidays for a specific month or year. Past holidays can be hidden for a clearer view of upcoming leaves. The list provides key details such as holiday dates, member names, and reasons for leave, along with admin controls to approve, reject, edit, or delete requests. Clicking on any holiday tile takes the user to a detailed holiday page, showing additional information like the number of days, request time, and approval details.
Bulk holidays for the addition of all team holidays together at once. Sup Bot simplifies the process of adding team holidays by allowing holiday managers to add all team holidays in bulk, eliminating the need to input each one individually. For team members, having the complete holiday schedule upfront allows for better planning and coordination, making it easier to organize their work around upcoming team leaves.
Advanced Report Generation Holiday managers can generate holiday reports on the Slack PTO tracker to export and delve deeper into PTO data for further analysis. Holiday managers can use month, year, and member filters in Sup Bot to make sure that only the relevant data is generated for certain team members and times.
Powerful leave insights for smarter PTO tracking. Despite having access to extensive data, interpreting it can often be overwhelming. Sup Bot’s Slack PTO tracker simplifies this by providing clear statistics and analytics based on the available information. It highlights key stats like the most frequently used leave types, allowing managers to adjust holiday categories if needed. The PTO tracker also displays the number of leaves taken by individuals, remaining balances of individuals, members who have exceeded their holiday limits, and upcoming PTOs. These insights make managing team leave easier and more efficient.
Real-Time PTO syncs with Google Calendar. Sup Bot syncs PTO directly with Google Calendar, keeping everyone updated on upcoming leaves. With automatic calendar reminders, both employees and managers can plan ahead for absences, ensuring smooth transitions and uninterrupted workflow. The automatic sync removes the hassle of manual updates, providing a seamless leave management experience.
Team-based holiday for efficient PTO oversight. Sup Bot’s ability to group holidays by team simplifies PTO management by allowing admins to organize leave system based on team structures. This feature provides a clearer picture of team availability, ensuring that managers can efficiently coordinate workloads and prevent overlap of critical roles.
How to manage PTO requests in Slack with Sup Bot:
Pricing
The Premium plan with the holiday/vacation tracking is made available to users at a flat rate of$49 per month.
2. Flamingo
Flamingo is a Slack PTO tracking software that easily manages individual and team PTOs.
Key features
Ability to customize the day and time for the delivery of the list of leaves for the upcoming week. To simplify PTO tracking, Flamingo allows its users to customize the day and time for when they want the list of leaves scheduled for the upcoming week delivered on Slack. Users can set a day and time that is most suitable and convenient for them according to their organization’s days and times of work.
Timeline with a summary of approved, planned, and pending leaves. For easier understanding of all the holiday data, Flamingo provides its users with a written summary of requested, planned, and pending leaves on the app. This simplified view frees users from having to invest time and focus into understanding all the data present in the app.
Ability to request half-day leaves. This best Slack PTO tracker allows managers to provide their team members with the ability to request half-day leaves. However, half-day leaves are not present by default but can be enabled by the managers. If the company leave policy does not offer half-day leaves to its employees, the managers can simply keep it disabled.
Creation of leaves on behalf of team members. Flamingo PTO tracker enables managers to add PTOs on the app on behalf of their team members and approve them right then. This helps to ensure that leave requests are accurately recorded.
Easy view of list of commands on Slack. To help users make use of all features in the Flamingo PTO tracking software, it makes a list of all the commands available on Slack.
Limitations
There are no statistics available to give meaningful information. Flamingo PTO software does not offer any stats that make understanding the available data easy. Neither does it offer any analytics that provides the managers with useful insights about the team.
Managers cannot generate leave reports for specific dates. When it comes to the generation of holiday reports through the app, Flamingo does not offer flexibility. It allows managers to generate only monthly or yearly holiday reports and not for periods spanning specific dates. This comes as an obstacle in payroll management.
Lack of clarity in the yearly calendar view. The yearly calendar view on the Flamingo PTO tracker app relies heavily on the color code of different leave types. The calendar view does not come with tooltips to let the users know details about holidays, hindering clarity and easier PTO tracking.
There is no mention of the approver of the requested leave on Slack. When a team member receives a notification on Slack about their leave being approved, Flamingo does not mention the approver of the requested leave on the said Slack notification. The lack of clarity can be an issue in case of any miscommunication later on.
Pricing
The free package is limited to 5 users.
The Business Package is priced at $1 per user per month.
The Enterprise Package comes with custom pricing.
3. Vacation Tracker
Vacation Tracker is a simple PTO tracker that tracks employee time-off requests to ensure accurate record-keeping.
Key features
Numerous priced add-ons for customized holiday management. The Vacation Tracker PTO software comes with a range of add-ons that serve various PTO tracking features such as seniority entitlement PTO, entitlement by role, etc. Each of these can be bought at a separate cost from the package.
Notifications in English and French for cultural inclusivity. Vacation Tracker ensures the inclusivity of cultures. It does so by allowing managers the choice to enable the notifications on the PTO tracking software to be in either of the two languages—English or French.
Ability to set an automatic Slack status on days of leave. The Vacation Tracker PTO software enables managers to set an OOO Slack status for the entire team for specific leave types. Doing this sets an automatic Slack status on days of leave for team members for such leave types.
Calendar view with highlighted days for the complete range of dates of leave. For easier PTO tracking, Vacation Tracker provides a Calendar view with diagonal colored bars for periods of leave. These diagonal bars make it easy for users to visualize the span of leave of team members easily.
A complete log of all actions on the app. Vacation Tracker ensures transparency of all actions on the app by providing users with a comprehensive list of all actions on the app in its action log section. This comes in handy to check for any discrepancies and ensure accountability across all processes.
Color-coded leave types. The app dashboard of Vacation Tracker displays all the approved leave types with specific colors. Each color represents a specific leave type on the dashboard for easier identification of approved leaves and leave types.
Limitations
There are no analytics to derive insights about the team’s leaves. Despite being a PTO tracking software with several useful features, Vacation Tracker cannot derive insights from the app data. It does not provide users with insightful analytics that reveal any useful information about the team.
The number of holiday types that can be created is limited. Vacation Tracker lacks flexibility when it comes to the addition of different leave types to the tool. The PTO tracker limits the addition of holiday types to 25. This can be a hindrance to a company that offers a varied list of holiday types to its employees.
Open API for the import of holiday information is a difficult and slow process. Vacation Tracker comes with an open API for the import of holiday information from external systems. However, users have reported it to be a cumbersome and slow process and thus not a great help.
Inability to customize hours of work for employees. It is difficult for organizations working with the model of different hours of work for different employees to sign up for Vacation Tracker as their PTO tracker because the tool cannot customize hours of work for employees.
Important features are priced separately and not included in the package. Vacation Tracker comes with some useful features, such as the ability to prevent team members from applying for PTOs during certain periods. However, these are not included in packages and must be bought separately.
Time increment choices are limited. Vacation Tracker allows only hourly increments for requesting PTOs. It does not offer more choices for users to customize their time increments. This limits flexibility in the amount of time team members can ask for PTOs.
Pricing
The Core Package is charged at $1 per user per month.
The Complete Package comes at $3 per user per month.
Conclusion
Choosing the right PTO tracker can prove to be a much-needed aid to your leave management needs. The three tools listed above integrate seamlessly with Slack to add to the convenience of streamlined holiday management. Pick the best Slack employee PTO tracker from the three listed above that you think would be the best match for your team’s PTO tracking needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a PTO tracker?
A PTO tracker is a tool used by organizations to manage the leave requests from the employees. The PTO tracker can help prevent scheduling conflicts, automate calculations of the remaining leave days for all team members, and provide clear visibility into who is unavailable each day. This makes it easier for everyone to manage their work schedules and time off.
2. How do I track my employees PTO?
There are several ways you can track your employees' PTO:
Using paper: This method involves recording time off on paper by creating a table of all team members and monthly dates. It is a simple way to track PTO but is prone to errors.
Using Excel: This method uses Excel sheets to record PTO with accurate calculations using the tool. However, it can become cumbersome to work with larger teams.
Using a PTO tracker: This method uses PTO trackers such as the Sup Bot PTO tracker to automate PTO tracking, reducing errors and saving time.
3. How to set PTO status in Slack?
You can set a PTO status in Slack using two ways:
Manual Update: If you're tracking PTO using Excel or paper, you'll need to manually update your Slack status to reflect your time off.
Using a PTO Tracker: If you're using a PTO tracking tool like Sup Bot, your Slack status will be automatically updated for you on the days you've taken leave, ensuring your team is informed without needing manual input.
4. Is there an app to keep track of PTO hours?
The Sup Bot PTO tracker keeps track of your team's PTO hours. It does so in several ways:
It facilitates the addition of half-day and full-day holidays right on Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Webex.
It allows managers to set the available number of leave days and automatically calculates the total balance of leaves remaining for every team member.
It provides a calendar view and a list view of all leaves and holidays to simplify PTO tracking.
It integrates with Google Calendar to provide all team members with a shared calendar for easy tracking of all holidays.
5. How do I track my team PTO?
With automation using the Sup Bot PTO tracker: This app automates the entire PTO tracking process, providing timely notifications, offering analytics, and ensuring accuracy in leave balances. It integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Webex for seamless management of employees' paid time off.
Manually using spreadsheets or paper: This method requires one to track PTO details manually, either in a spreadsheet or on paper. While it's simple and cost-effective, it can be time-consuming and prone to errors.
