When the supervisor chain is turned on for your system, a supervisor can see and act on the leave of everyone below them in the reporting line, not just their direct reports. That includes their subordinates' subordinates, even if those people are in other departments. This is why a supervisor may see leave requests from employees who do not report to them directly.
How it works
Supervisor access in OrangeHRM comes from the Report-to relationships on employee records.
- Supervisor chain off (default): a supervisor can access only the employees assigned directly to them as subordinates.
- Supervisor chain on: the system follows the reporting line all the way down. If Employee A reports to Manager B, and Manager B reports to Director C, then Director C can access Employee A's records as well as Manager B's.
The chain follows Report-to links only. It ignores sub-units and departments, so the employees it brings in can belong to any department. It also includes every reporting method recorded on the Report-to tab. With the leave workflow, that means the supervisor can see these employees in the Leave List and Leave Calendar, and can approve, reject or cancel their requests.
The supervisor chain is a system-wide setting. It also changes what supervisors can see in other modules, such as employee records, timesheets and performance. It is not a leave-only option.
What you can do
Open the employee whose leave the supervisor should not see (Employee Management > Employee List) and check the Report-to tab. Follow the supervisors upward to see how the employee links to that supervisor.
If a Report-to link is wrong or out of date, correct it there.
Check whether the supervisor is also a Head of Department (HR Administration > Organization > Structure). Heads of Department can access employees in their sub-unit, which is a separate reason for seeing other people's leave.
To find out whether the supervisor chain is on, or to change it, contact OrangeHRM Support. This setting is not available on an admin screen.
Things to note
- Turning the supervisor chain off affects every module and every supervisor, not just one person.
- In email notification subscribers, the Immediate Supervisors Only and Entire Supervisor Chain options only decide who receives that notification. They do not change who can see or approve leave.