US-312: Employee Views Leave Balance & Submits Request

1. Story Title

Leave balance display & request submission

2. Context / Background

After leave types & accrual (US-311), employees need to consume balances via a request workflow.

3. User Persona

Primary: Mark – Employee Secondary: Manager (approval path)

4. Problem Statement

Without self-service visibility, employees rely on HR for balance inquiries; manual process for requesting leave.

5. Desired Outcome

Employee sees current balances and submits a leave request specifying dates & type; system persists and notifies manager.

6. Business Value

Reduces HR workload; improves transparency and satisfaction.

7. Scope (In / Out)

In: balance display, request form (type, start, end, note), basic validation, notification event. Out: Partial-day requests, multi-approver chains, complex blackout rules.

8. Acceptance Criteria (BDD)

Scenario: View balances
  Given employee has Vacation 12h, Sick 4h
  When he opens leave page
  Then those balances are displayed

Scenario: Submit request
  Given employee has sufficient Vacation hours
  When he submits a request for 8h
  Then request status is Pending
  And manager notified

Scenario: Insufficient balance
  Given employee has Vacation 4h
  When he requests 8h Vacation
  Then validation error insufficient balance

Scenario: Overlapping request prevented
  Given a pending request covering 2025-03-10 to 2025-03-11
  When submitting another Vacation request for those dates
  Then overlap error shown

9. UX Notes / References

Balances summary panel + request form drawer; inline errors under fields.

10. Data / Domain Model Impact

LeaveRequest entity: employeeId, typeId, startDate, endDate, hours, status, note.

11. NFR Touchpoints

• Performance: balance + recent requests load < 500ms.
• Observability: request creation + notification events traced.
• Security: employee only views own balances.

12. Dependencies

US-311 leave types & accrual; manager relationship retrieval.

13. Risks & Mitigations

Risk	Impact	Probability	Mitigation
Balance stale due to late accrual job	Incorrect decisions	Low	On-demand recalculation fallback
Notification failure	Manager unaware	Medium	Retry queue + dashboard visibility

14. Estimation Support

1. Balance fetch service
2. Request creation + validation
3. Notification event
4. UI integration

15. Analytics / Success Metrics

Request submission rate; denial reasons; average balance utilization.

16. Rollout / Release Strategy

Vacation type first; add Sick requests after stability.

17. Definition of Ready Checklist

• Validation rules confirmed
• Notification channel chosen

18. Definition of Done Checklist

• Scenario tests pass
• Events logged

19. Open Questions

1. Need cancellation flow in MVP?
2. Auto-calculate hours vs manual entry?

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Version: 1.0