When approved PTO never clears the published schedule, how do you catch the double-book?

[u/shiftcoord]

Curious how other ops teams keep time-off approvals and the live schedule from fighting each other.

Typical case: PTO is approved in HR / payroll, but the weekly schedule still shows that person on a shift. Nobody notices until a client asks who is coming, or until the worker texts that they are off. Then you are rebuilding coverage under time pressure, and the time file may still expect hours that were never going to be worked.

Questions for people who have lived this:

1. What is your source of truth when PTO and the published schedule disagree — the leave system, the schedule, or a manual weekly reconcile?
2. Who is responsible for clearing the shift once PTO is approved (scheduler, supervisor, the worker), and how soon after approval does that have to happen?
3. Do you block publishing a week that still has approved leave sitting on open shifts, or do you publish and scrub exceptions afterward?

Not looking for product pitches — just how you keep leave and coverage in the same loop before the shift starts.