WA PFML, NY PFL, and CA SDI — rules in natural language you can cite, reused when LEAN explains. Open Navigator

Leave Engine and Navigator

LEAN answers all of your leave questions with the rule, the dates and the math.

WA PFML · NY PFL · CA SDI

Book a walkthrough See a leave story

Colors show whether that part of leave is approved, waiting on information, not covered, or temporary — for each stretch of time.

Every determination is computed from rules — and every answer shows its work.

Familiar pain

You’ve had this call.

An employee asks why pay stopped in week six. Their manager wants an answer by end of day. The answer is buried across three systems, two people’s memories, and a policy PDF someone maybe updated in January.

Meet Riley

One leave, from request to “why?”

Riley’s short medical leave under a state paid-family program — the kind of case your team already knows. Same person you’ll see on the timeline above and in Navigator.

  1. Riley asks for leave

    HR opens the case. Big stretches of the timeline show Waiting — LEAN doesn’t have enough yet for a yes or no. A questionnaire goes out asking only what’s still blocking the decision.

  2. Enough arrives to decide the start

    Certification lands. Hours look fine. Job protection for the first weeks flips to Approved. Pay may still wait on a waiting period — that’s a different lane, and LEAN keeps those stories separate.

  3. Someone asks why pay isn’t covering week one

    You click that stretch and open the explanation: not covered because the program’s waiting period hasn’t elapsed yet — not because Riley did something wrong. That’s the answer you send to the manager who asked.

  4. Pay starts — and the amount isn’t a mystery either

    When wage replacement flips to approved, open the week’s dollar figure the same way. See what counted in the lookback, what got excluded, and how three different payers stacked for that week.

  5. “What did we know last Tuesday?”

    Slide the date back. Certification wasn’t in yet, so that stretch shows Waiting again. Nothing broke — you’re seeing the case as it looked that day.

Read the full leave journey in the docs →

How LEAN answers

Three things every leave answer must survive

Not a score. Not a guess. A week you can open.

Traceable

Every week and dollar opens to the facts and natural-language rules that produced it — captured when the determination ran, not reconstructed afterwards.

Checked

Incomplete lookbacks and missing certs hold the week. LEAN doesn’t average down to a number someone would retract on Friday.

Gated

Open decisions stay Waiting until someone chooses. Contested benefits don’t silently default — real money differs between options.

There is no “probably eligible.” Ops can’t act on 0.73. They can act on Waiting Not covered Approved — statuses that are the call, not a soft score hiding it.

Navigator

Ask the program. Plot the leave. Open Why.

Grounded statute chat, a sample leave on the calendar, and the same determination trees Engine uses when someone asks why week six unpaid.

Riley · WA PFML medical

Leave desk

as of 2026-03-14

Why isn’t wage replacement covering Riley’s week of Feb 10? Job protection already looks approved.

Job protection is approved for that week. Wage replacement is not covered because the program’s waiting period hasn’t elapsed yet — not because hours or certification failed .

Pay is eligible from Feb 17. Until then the week stays not covered; LEAN doesn’t invent a partial week of pay .

Same tree you’d open from the timeline — open why · status

  • Ask in the case Statute answers stay grounded, with citations you can open beside the reply.
  • Plot the leave Load a sample WA or CO leave and see the same calendar bands as the product timeline.
  • Open Why Click a day for applicability and wage trees — the same story as production.

See it in action

See it in action

From Navigator to the real desk.

Watch the statute desk and pay math in Navigator — or the full Engine path: HR books the leave, hands off the questionnaire, approves what’s left, and opens the timeline.

WA PFML in Navigator — ask the statute desk, plot eight weeks, open the wages Why tree.

Book a walkthrough

Leave pay

Pay that shows its work.

LEAN computes the weekly gross and keeps every input visible. The wage lookback, the quarters that counted, the offsets between payers — open any week and see exactly how the number got there.

  • Missing earnings hold the week. An incomplete lookback waits rather than averaging down to a number someone would retract on Friday.
  • Exclusions are labeled. A zero-earnings quarter reads as zero-earnings, not missing. A leave-depressed lookback extends past it rather than pretending it’s fine.
  • Offsets are visible. See why the state benefit computed to $750 but paid $150 after the STD offset. No mysteries between payers.

LEAN computes gross entitlement for the week. Paycheck withholding stays with payroll.

Riley · week of Jan 5

$1,000 this week

open why · amount

  • STD pays $600 60% of weekly wage
  • State PFML adds $150 offset by STD already paid
    • PFML computed $750 before offset
      • Week straddles rate tiers $500 @ 100% + $500 @ 50%
      • Weekly wage $1,000 from lookback
        • Lookback extended past two leave quarters
        • $39,000 over 3 paid quarters
        • Sabbatical quarter excluded zero earnings — not missing
  • Employer tops up $250 to full weekly wage

How LEAN works

Three steps. Same leave decision everywhere you look.

  1. 1

    Record what you know

    Hours, medical certifications, elections, earnings — whatever you’ve already gathered for the person and their job.

  2. 2

    Apply your leave program

    LEAN runs your rules against that information and returns a clear answer for job protection, pay, and the rest.

  3. 3

    See the timeline — and open the reason

    Colored stretches show what’s approved, waiting, or not covered. Click any week and LEAN opens the reasoning — the rules that applied, the ones that didn’t, and the data behind both.

Engine

One place to see the leave decision — and why it looks that way.

Engine doesn’t invent a second case file. Timeline, questionnaire, and explanations all show the same leave decision.

A timeline that tells the story

See job protection, pay, and benefits as colored stretches over time. Scan a case at a glance, then open the week that matters.

Click any week. See the reason.

Open the explanation behind that stretch — including rules that didn’t apply. Built for the moment someone asks “why was week six unpaid?”

Pay that shows its work

Weekly leave pay isn’t a black box. Open the amount — see the wage lookback, what counted, and how benefits stacked for that week.

Write rules in natural language

Draft policy the way it reads. When LEAN explains a decision later, it can reuse that same language — so notices and ops answers stay aligned.

Try Navigator

Ask the statute with citations, plot a sample leave, and open the same Why trees Engine uses when someone asks why.

A questionnaire that asks only what’s left

LEAN only asks what’s still blocking a decision. “I don’t know” keeps the case waiting until someone who knows answers, instead of pretending they said no.

See the case as it looked last Tuesday

Slide back to any day and see what you knew then. Planning uses the same view — same trace, with draft what-ifs layered in.

Why

Click the week. See the reason.

Why is LEAN’s explanation for any week on the timeline — grants, waits, and denials, including the paths that didn’t apply.

When someone asks why week one isn’t paid, you don’t hunt tabs. You open the stretch and read the tree — what decided it, and what already looked fine.

  • Equal weight Approvals and “not covered” both open the same way. No scavenger hunt for denials.
  • Paths that didn’t apply See the rules that were satisfied or skipped — usually what people need when they push back.
  • Lanes stay separate Job protection can be approved while pay is waiting. Each stretch has its own story.

The explanation lives inside the leave decision. It’s there when you need it.

Riley · wage replacement · week of Feb 10

Not covered

open why · status

  • Waiting period has not elapsed path taken
    • Program requires 7 calendar days before pay starts
      • Leave start 2026-02-10
      • Pay eligible from 2026-02-17
  • Already satisfied for this stretch not what blocked pay
    • Hours threshold met
    • Medical certification on file
  • Job protection for the same week approved

How LEAN thinks about leave.

Explanations are ordinary

Every answer carries the reasoning that produced it — approvals, denials, and dollar amounts alike. You don’t generate an explanation. It’s already there, because it’s how the determination was made.

You can always answer “what did we know then?”

Slide back to any date and see the determination as it stood that morning. Re-running is safe — nothing changes, you’re just looking at what you knew.

Policy reads like the explanation

Rules are drafted in natural language people will read again. When LEAN explains a decision to an employee, it uses the language the policy author actually wrote.

Who it’s for.

Leave operations

Click the week, read the trace, send the answer. No hunting.

Policy authors

Draft the rule in natural language. LEAN reuses that language when it explains.

Approvers

See what’s approved — the value, the stretch of time, and why — before you sign off.

What LEAN brings

Bring a leave question. We’ll answer it live.

Pick a case your team argued about last month — the one where someone asked “why?” and nobody had a great answer. We’ll open the timeline and walk it together.

No spam. We’ll reply with a calendar link.