Leave Case Tracker

The problem this kills

Protected leave is a minefield of dates. An employee goes out on a medical or family leave, and now HR is quietly tracking a dozen moving parts in their head and three spreadsheets: Were they even eligible? How much of the 12-month entitlement is left? How many intermittent hours got used last week? When is the medical certification due back - and what happens if it doesn't come?

Miss one of those dates and the consequences aren't "oops, redo the report." Protected leaves carry real legal deadlines. A blown certification window or a miscounted entitlement balance can turn into a compliance problem fast. Meanwhile this is some of the most sensitive data in the whole company - medical and family details - so it can't just live in a shared drive everyone can open.

The usual tools fail in two directions. A giant HRIS suite is overkill and locked down by IT. A spreadsheet is flexible but has no reminders, no access control, no audit trail, and no way to stop two people from editing the same case at once. You need something in between: a focused tracker that knows the rules, watches the calendar for you, and keeps the data locked to HR.

What you'll build

A small, private web app - just for your HR / leave team - that runs a leave case from open to close:

• Open a case for an employee and a leave reason, with the dates and hours that matter.
• Run an eligibility check against the rules you actually use (tenure, hours worked, your own thresholds).
• Track the entitlement balance across a rolling 12-month window, so you always know how much leave is left.
• Log intermittent-leave hours as they're used, with the balance deducting automatically.
• Watch document deadlines - certifications, recertifications, return-to-work notices - and email reminders before they lapse.
• A case status board so every open leave and its next deadline is visible at a glance.
• A payroll coordination CSV that exports leave usage in the exact columns your payroll system expects.

And the rule that makes it safe: the tool tracks and reminds, but HR decides. Every designation, status change, and intermittent-hours entry is drafted, then waits for an HR person to review and approve before it's committed.

What's inside the Implementation Plan

The plan is a single markdown file you paste into an AI coding agent (Claude Code). It builds the whole tool with you, step by step, in plain language - no coding experience needed.

It starts by interviewing you about your business. This is the part that makes the tool actually fit you instead of being a generic template. Before it writes a line of code, the plan has the agent ask about your current leave process, which systems and spreadsheets you use, the exact field names and codes in your data, your eligibility and entitlement rules, your typical and peak case volumes, and the messy edge cases you deal with (intermittent leave that spans pay periods, overlapping leaves, transfers mid-leave). It reads a short tailored spec back to you, you confirm it, and only then does it build - shaping the data model, the eligibility logic, and every later step around your answers.

From there the plan walks through: setting up your accounts, building the login and HR-only access, the case and balance data model, the eligibility check, intermittent-hours logging, the deadline reminder emails, the approval gate, the status board, and the payroll CSV export - each step ending with a ready-to-paste prompt.

The governance it includes (this is the point)

This is sensitive HR and medical data, so the plan bakes in the controls from the first step, not as an afterthought:

• Login so only your team can open the tool at all.
• Row-level security so the data is locked to HR and people only ever see their own organization's cases - the database itself enforces it, not just the screen.
• A complete audit trail - who opened the case, who changed the status, who logged the hours, and exactly when.
• A hard human-in-the-loop approval gate before any leave designation, status change, or hours entry is committed - the tool drafts, an HR person approves, and only then is it recorded.
• Duplicate guards so the same employee + case can't be opened twice and the same hours can't be logged twice.

One thing the plan states plainly, and so will we: this is administrative support to help you stay organized, not legal advice. It helps HR track and remember; it doesn't replace your counsel or your compliance team's judgment.

Who it's for

HR and leave administrators who manage protected, FMLA-style, and medical leaves with real legal deadlines - and who are tired of holding it all together in spreadsheets and their own memory. If you can fill out a form and answer questions about how your team works today, you can build this.

You've got this - paste the first prompt and let the plan interview you.