# Module: Out of Office

With out-of-office management, users define absence periods and specify how approval requests are handled during their absence.

### How it works

- When a workflow creates an approval and the intended approver has an active out-of-office entry (today’s date is between **Start Date** and **End Date**), the approval is automatically redirected to the configured substitute.
- The redirection is logged in the **Audit Trail** of the workflow instance with action type **"OOO Substitution"** .
- In the approval entry, the **"Original Approver (OOO)"** is stored, so it remains traceable who was originally responsible.

### Two levels of OOO resolution

Out-of-office processing happens at two levels:

1. **Level 1 (before distribution)**: can change the **Assignee Type** – e.g. from a single user to a workflow user group. Runs **before** the approval entries are created.
2. **Level 2 (per entry)**: replaces individual users with other individual users. Runs within approval entry creation. Redirecting to a workflow user group is not possible at this level (it would break the group logic).

### Configure out-of-office entries

1. Open **AWF Setup** → action **"Out of Office"** or search via Tell Me for **"Out of Office Entries"**.
2. **New**.
3. Fill in the fields: 
    - **User ID**: the absent user.
    - **Start Date**: first day of the absence.
    - **End Date**: last day of the absence.
    - **Description**: optional description (e.g. "Vacation Q2").
    - **Enabled**: Yes/No.

### Substitute types

<table class="code-line" dir="auto" id="bkmrk-art-beschreibung-kei"><thead class="code-line" dir="auto"><tr class="code-line" dir="auto"><th>Type</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody class="code-line" dir="auto"><tr class="code-line" dir="auto"><td>**No Substitute**</td><td>Approvals stay with the absent user. No redirection takes place.</td></tr><tr class="code-line" dir="auto"><td>**Approver**</td><td>Approvals are redirected to a defined user. The field **"Substitute"** is shown.</td></tr><tr class="code-line" dir="auto"><td>**Workflow User Group**</td><td>Approvals are redirected to a workflow user group. The field **"Substitute WF User Group"** is shown.</td></tr><tr class="code-line" dir="auto"><td>**Use Delegation**</td><td>Uses the standard BC substitution from the **Approval User Setup** (field "Substitute"). Single-level resolution (no chain).</td></tr></tbody></table>

<div id="bkmrk-"></div>### Rule-based substitution (optional)

Via the action **"Show Rules"** on the out-of-office entry you can define **rule-based substitution overrides** :

- The rules are evaluated against the **workflow template record** .
- This lets you define different substitutes for different workflow templates (e.g. "for purchase invoices user A substitutes, for sales orders user B").
- If no rule matches, the default substitution settings of the out-of-office entry apply.

<div id="bkmrk--0"></div><p class="callout info">Out-of-office entries apply \*\*across companies\*\* (DataPerCompany = false). One entry applies in all companies of the environment.</p>