Table of Contents
Introduction ...............................................................................................................2
Description .................................................................................................................2
Prerequisites...............................................................................................................2
Technical Details .........................................................................................................2
Installation .................................................................................................................3
App Usage ..................................................................................................................6
Calendar Display .................................................................................................................................................... 14
Policy Awareness ................................................................................................................................................... 15
Employee Requests ............................................................................................................................................... 15
Workflow Notification ......................................................................................................................................... 16
Manager Features .................................................................................................................................................. 16
Uninstalling .............................................................................................................. 18
Troubleshooting ....................................................................................................... 18
Browser Console Logging................................................................................................................................... 18
License and Terms of Use .......................................................................................... 20
Introduction
The Absence and Vacation Management application is a SharePoint 2013
“SharePoint Hosted” App which is a redesigned and rewritten version of the Fab
Forty application template (not a port). ThreeWill will be providing additional
applications from the original Fab Forty templates over time.
For additional assistance from ThreeWill Labs or the community, please register,
and post comments and feedback to the “SharePoint” Yammer Community
(https://www.yammer.com/sharepoint).
Description
The Absence and Vacation Management application enables employees and
managers to manage requests for out of office days. Team members can request
days off and indicate a variety of reasons for absences. The application enables team
leads or managers to approve or reject requests for vacation, with a workflow
notifying via email that new requests have been made. The application provides a
calendar view for all approved requests, policy document library, and a simple
report of all approved requests.
Prerequisites
The Absence and Vacation Management app requires the following for installation
and use:
 A SharePoint 2013 site using the Team Site template or Developer template;
site may be hosted in Office 365 or on premise.
 A custom Security Group in destination site named “AVR Managers”. This
group must be manually created prior to installing the app, should have at
least the “Edit” permission level to the site, and should be populated with
users that will act as Managers for the app.
 Appropriate permissions to install app to Developer site or to install app to
the App Catalog and Team sites.
Technical Details
The Absence and Vacation Request Management application is a SharePoint Hosted
application for SharePoint 2013. The application demonstrates the use of the
following technical approach(es) to implement the request and management
features.
 Responsive UI
o Basic HTML page (without the use of SharePoint default ASPX page)
o Bootstrap for Mobile First design
 Single Page Application (SPA) using
o
o
o
o
jQuery
KnockoutJS
UnderscoreJS
SharePoint 2013 CSOM and REST services
Developer Site Installation
Note: for installing to Team Site skip to Team Site Installation section.
The Absence and Vacation Request Management application can be installed simply
by uploading the *.app file into a developer site collection for initial introduction to
the application. For full details around the usage and licensing see the “License and
Terms of Use” at the end of this document.
1. Download the app package from https://www.threewill.com/fab40
2. Open a SharePoint site which uses the Developer Template (O365 or on
premises)
3. Click “new app to deploy” link on main page.
4. Click the upload link
5. Click Deploy and then Trust It when promoted to trust the App
6. Once the App is loaded, click the Absence and Vacation Management link in
the “Recent” Quick Launch section
Team Site Installation
Installing the app to a Team Site is a two-step process:
1. Install the app to the App Catalog (this is a task for Farm or Tenant
Administrators). This is a one-time process and only should be repeated
when a new version of the app is available.
2. Install the app from the App Catalog to a Team Site. This step may be
repeated for any subsequent Team Sites where the app may be installed.
Installing to the App Catalog
Note: this process is documented for Office 365; if installation is to be done on
premise, use this article as a reference for managing the App Catalog locally.
1. In Office 365 click the Admin menu, then click SharePoint.
2. In the SharePoint Admin Center click the apps link.
3. Click the App Catalog link.
4. Click the Apps for SharePoint link.
5. Click the New App link.
6. Click the Browse button, and then navigate and select the Absence and
Vacation Management.app file.
7. While you have the option of changing properties for the newly installed app,
all required fields are filled in. Simply click Save to place the app in the App
Catalog.
Installing app to Team Site
1. Navigate to the Team Site where the app is to be installed and click the Site
Contents link.
2. Click the add an app link.
3. Select the Absence and Vacation Management app.
4. When prompted, click the Trust It button to indicate that this is a trusted app.
5. SharePoint will indicate that the app is being installed…
6. …once the install is complete the app is ready for use.
Application Usage
Once installed, the Absence and Vacation Request Management application provides
an immediate calendar view of all approved requests, enables policy review, and
creation of new requests for all users. For managers, an additional menu item is
provided, as well as additional features which enable approval, policy management
and basic reporting.
Calendar Display
The Main page of the Absence and Vacation Request Management app is a Calendar
view of all “Approved” absence requests and all Company Holiday’s.
Policy Awareness
The application contains a document library to which “AVR Managers” members can
post and manage relevant policy documents.
Employee Requests
Employees can visit the app and request Vacation, Sick or other types of leave
requests. The requests provide simple validate for date ranges and all require
approval.
Workflow Notification
The application provides a tasks and notification email to all “AVR Managers”
members in order to ensure the managers approve or reject the requests in a timely
fashion.
Manager Features
Once employees have made the requests, members of the “AVR Managers” group
can approve or reject the request. All approved requests are added to the view for
the Calendar display. In addition to the employee requests, Managers can create
new Company Holiday’s (which are automatically approved) and are displayed on
the Calendar view.
Uninstalling
To remove the application … The application is a SharePoint Hosted app, and is selfcontained within the “App Web”. This means that all data is contained within the
App Web. When uninstalling the app, all content will be removed. To remove the
application, Click Site Contents, and then click the ellipsis next to the app and select
Remove
Note: The removal of all data is the result of the self-contained nature of the
“SharePoint Hosted” app. There are alternatives for apps to ensure data is
preserved, but this is not the intention of the application.
Troubleshooting
The application provides considerable console logging which can be viewed in
browser developer consoles.
Browser Console Logging
The application’s client side JavaScript will provide logging to identify what possible
issues and errors are. Please open your respective browser and use the browsers
Developer Tools or Debugging capabilities to view the logging messages from the
App.
For additional assistance from ThreeWill, ThreeWill Labs or the community, please
register and post to the “SharePoint” Yammer Community
(https://www.yammer.com/sharepoint). Or contact us via Twitter @ThreeWill and
@ThreeWillLabs
Known Issues
Currently these issues are known.
1. If the “AVR Managers” group does not exist, the Policies, and Pending pages
will not display items. A warning message will appear if this group is not
created.
2. Under intermittent circumstances, the Save button for new requests can
become “disabled” (visually enabled, but not clickable). This is under
investigation as of v1.0.25.1.
License and Terms of Use
The application is provided under the ThreeWill Labs Demo License. For details and
complete terms and conditions, please see
http://www.threewill.com/demo_license.