Quick start

This guide is the fastest path from “we just signed up” to “the team is booking leave”. If you’re the admin bringing Deckchair into your company, follow it top to bottom. Everything here is covered in more depth in the linked guides.

1. Create your account

Go to the sign-up page and enter your name, company name, work email, and a password. Deckchair creates your organization in the same step and emails you a verification link — click it to finish setup. If your company uses passkeys, you can set one up after first sign-in from the Preferences page.

2. Complete the onboarding wizard

First-time admins land in a four-step wizard. Each step saves as you go, so you can pause and pick it back up.

1. Team basics — country and timezone. The country drives public-holiday auto-sync (see public holidays). Your organization name comes from the sign-up screen; rename it later under Settings → Organization if you need to.
2. Work pattern — which days of the week are working days by default. Individual members can override this later.
3. Leave year — the month and day your leave year rolls over (e.g., 1 January or 1 April), and how many days of unused leave members can carry into the next year.
4. Leave types — create the first set of leave types. Most teams start with Annual leave (deducts from balance, requires approval) and Sick leave (doesn’t deduct, doesn’t require approval).

For a walkthrough with all the fields explained, see setting up your organization.

3. Invite your team

From Settings → Team, click Add member and enter each teammate’s name, email, role, department, and annual allowance. They receive an invitation email valid for seven days; they click through, set a password, and land in the app.

Bulk-onboarding a larger company? Use Settings → Team → Import to upload a CSV — see bulk importing members.

4. Book a test leave request

As an employee (or as yourself), open Request leave, pick a leave type, select the date range, and choose whether the first and last days are full or half days. Deckchair automatically:

• skips non-working days from your work schedule,
• skips public holidays if your account is set to have them off,
• warns you if the dates overlap with an existing request or a locked date.

Submit the request. If the leave type requires approval, it enters a pending state.

5. Approve the request

As an admin or manager, open Team requests. Pending requests show at the top. Click one to see the details, add an optional comment, and hit Approve (or Reject). The requester receives an email confirming the outcome.

Balances update immediately: used days go up, pending days go down, available days reflect the new total. See understanding your balance for exactly how these numbers are computed.

What’s next

• Configure departments if you want a hierarchy with department-level approvers.
• Fine-tune work schedules for part-time staff or unusual working patterns.
• Set up locked dates for company-wide closures (e.g., a between-Christmas-and-New-Year shutdown) so leave booked over them doesn’t deduct from balances.
• Review the billing settings before your trial ends.