Early access: How do I set up time off waitlists?

When a day reaches its time off request limit, agents can now join a waitlist instead of being turned away.

Waitlists are configured for each time off rule that limits overlapping requests, so you decide exactly which event types and agents can use them.

What is a waitlist in Assembled?

Right now, you can use your time off rules to cap how many people can be off at once. When that cap is reached, a day is full. When a day is full, your rule either blocks the request or sends it for manual review.

If you turn on the new waitlist option, agents can request the day anyway and hold a place in line. You'll be able to keep track of demand, and agents get a fairer experience.

How do I turn on waitlists?

Waitlists are off by default. If you'd like to turn them on:

1. Visit your Time off rules page.
2. At the top of the page, select the toggle to turn waitlists on. This doesn't change any rules on its own.
3. Next, select or create any rule with the type maximum number of overlapping requests.
4. Scroll to When a request breaks this rule. 
5. Select Agents can join a waitlist and save the rule.

Good to know: You'll be able to turn waitlists on one rule at a time, so you can choose to enable them only where they make sense — for example, on a rule covering peak-season dates for one team — while leaving everything else unchanged. 

How do waitlists work?

• A waitlist builds on top of your existing time off rules and settings. To be eligible to join a waitlist, the agent's request can't be blocked by any other time off rules.
• There is an optional per-agent usage limit. 
  • The system tracks how much waitlisted time each agent has requested. This limit can help if you're worried about people holding a place on every waitlist. 
  • To set up the limit, select Set limits in the Waitlists card at the top of the Time off rules page. From there, choose the limit that makes sense for your team.
• Requests are ordered by submission time. 
  • For example, if request A was submitted earlier than request B, request A will be eligible for promotion from the waitlist first.
• If requests break more than one rule, they may not be promoted in chronological order. 
  • For example, when a spot opens, we check request A against your other rules first. If it's no longer breaking any rule, we'll move it to Pending status. 
  • If request A is still breaking another rule, it will stay on the waitlist. This might mean that request B is promoted first, if it doesn't have any other limiting rules.
• When a request is promoted from the waitlist:
  • Its status will change to Pending. 
  • It will be sent for approval through your normal process (manual review or auto-approval).
  • The agent will be notified when the request is approved or denied.
• Waitlists expire. When the dates pass, all remaining waitlisted requests are automatically canceled.

What do agents see?

If an agent is trying to request time off for a high-demand time period, we'll tell them they can join the waitlist.

Their request will appear on the Time off requests page with the status Waitlisted. They can cancel a waitlisted request at any time. 

At the top of the Time off requests page, agents will also see the total number of hours they're waitlisted for. This will help them quickly find those requests and cancel them if they no longer need the time off.

How do I find and manage waitlisted requests?

Waitlisted requests appear on the Time off requests page alongside everything else. Use the Status filter to view Waitlisted requests. 

Waitlisted requests can't be manually approved or denied until they're promoted into Pending status.

What happens if I turn waitlists off?

• Agents won't be able to join any new waitlists. 

• Any existing Waitlisted requests will become Pending and go through your normal approval workflow. 

• We keep the approvers already assigned to each request and notify them.

• You can always turn waitlists back on later. However, the order of waitlisted requests won't be stored, so team members will lose their place in line.

If you want to stop waitlisting for a single rule, the current requests will be converted to Pending if you change the rule to require manual review. If you change it to block submission, they stay Waitlisted until their dates pass and they'll be canceled automatically. No one else will be able to join that specific waitlist.