Requesting Time Off in helloswap: What Happens to Your Shifts After Approval

Requesting time off in helloswap is a request, not a guarantee — until your manager or admin approves it, the dates are just pending. Once it's approved, though, it's final for scheduling purposes: your manager can no longer assign you a shift on that day. The one exception is short-notice sick leave in Denmark, which can approve itself. Here's how the different cases actually work and where people trip up.

Requesting Time Off in Advance

For anything you know about ahead of time — a holiday, a planned unpaid day, parental leave, or sick leave more than a day or two out — go to the time off page. Pick the type (holiday, sick, unpaid or parental), set your date range, and add a reason if you want to. That sends a pending request to whoever manages your department.

A few practical points:

• Submit as early as you reasonably can. The request doesn't block anything on the schedule until it's approved, so a late request sitting in "pending" doesn't stop a manager from putting you on a shift in that window.
• helloswap doesn't track how much leave you're entitled to or have left. It won't stop you from requesting more than you're owed — that judgment call sits with whoever approves it, not with the system. Don't treat the absence of a limit as a green light; check your own entitlement before you ask.
• If you need to change your mind, there's no cancel button on your side. While the request is still pending, ask your approver to deny it. If it's already approved, ask them to withdraw it instead. Either way, it's their action, not yours — so don't just assume an old request has quietly disappeared if your plans change. Follow up.

Calling in Sick for a Shift Today or Tomorrow

If you're too ill to work a shift that's today or tomorrow and hasn't ended yet, don't use the time off page — use the "I'm sick" option on that shift instead, either from your Home page or on the shift itself (this works in the Android app too; if you don't see it there, update the app). Confirming it does three things at once:

1. Tells your manager immediately.
2. Records the day as sick leave.
3. Puts the shift on the swap board so a free colleague can pick it up.

The shift stays assigned to you until someone takes it and that's approved — it's not automatically off your plate the moment you tap the button. If nobody on your team is available, or your company has switched off taking shifts from the board, it's your manager's call what happens to the coverage, not yours.

This button only appears for a shift that's today or tomorrow. For sick leave further out, use the time off page instead like any other leave type.

Why Denmark Is Different

If you're in Denmark, short sick leave requests of four days or fewer are approved the instant you submit them — no manager decision required, matching the legal self-certification period before an employer can require a doctor's note. The form tells you upfront if your dates qualify. Anything longer, and every other leave type everywhere else, still goes through the normal manager approval step.

What "Approved" Actually Locks In

Once a request is approved — automatically or by a manager — that day is blocked outright. It's not a soft warning a manager can click past when building the schedule; the assignment is refused. That's worth knowing if you're relying on time off to guarantee you won't be scheduled: once it's approved, it holds.