Employee schedules (shift patterns)

An employee schedule is a reusable shift pattern: the days an employee works, the hours in a day, the shift start and end, and, for rotating teams, the weeks of the rotation. You create a schedule once and assign it to every employee who works that pattern.

Employee schedules say when people work. Pay schedules say when people are paid.

Before you start: the Timeclock & Payroll module must be on for your organisation. The page is open to the Administrator, Timeclock Admin and Payroll Admin roles. No menu links to it. Open it from the Manage button on the employee form, from the Schedules button on the stand-alone Payroll Management page (/timeclock/payroll), not the sidebar entry of the same name, or by the address /timeclock/employee-schedules.

What a schedule is used for

• Projected days in the payroll wizard. For an early payment, the wizard builds the days after the payment date from the schedule's shift times and work days (a Custom schedule projects every day). The full rules are in Payment date and early payment.
• Contracted hours. An employee with Use Contractual OT Threshold ticked, working in Per-Week overtime mode, has overtime measured against the weekly hours of the assigned schedule instead of the national threshold.
• Fixed allowances. A monthly allowance, such as a transport allowance, is reduced by the rostered days an employee did not work, using the schedule's work days.

How pay is calculated explains the last two in detail.

Create a schedule

1. Open the page and choose New Schedule. If no schedule exists yet, choose Create First Schedule.
2. Enter a Name, for example Night Shift 19-06 or Dispatch Rotation A. A name is required. Add a Description if you like.
3. Choose the Schedule Type: Fixed, Alternating or Custom. The table below explains them.
4. Enter Hours per Day. The dialog starts at 8, and the value must be greater than 0.
5. Enter Shift Start (HH:mm) and Shift End (HH:mm), or leave both blank. Set both or neither. The times are your organisation's local time.
6. Pick the work days. For a Fixed schedule, tick the days in Work Days. Under the days the page shows the number of days a week and the approximate hours a week. For an Alternating schedule, follow the next section.
7. Leave Active ticked.
8. Choose Save.

Build an alternating rotation

Use Alternating for rosters such as a team that works four days one week and three the next.

1. Set Schedule Type to Alternating.
2. In Week Pattern Length, choose the number of weeks before the pattern repeats, from 2 to 6 weeks.
3. In Anchor Monday, pick the Monday that starts week 1 of the pattern. If you pick another weekday, the page warns that Mondays are recommended. Later weeks count from that Monday, and the pattern repeats.
4. For each week, tick the work days.
5. Leave the hours box of a week empty to use the number of days times Hours per Day, or type the hours for that week. The empty box shows the automatic value. After you save, each week's box shows its stored hours. If you later change the days or Hours per Day, clear a week's box, or type the new value, so its hours are worked out again.
6. Choose Save. At least one work day must be ticked across the pattern.

The row of the current week carries a current badge. Example: for a team that works every other Thursday plus Friday, Saturday and Sunday, tick Thursday to Sunday in week 1 and Friday to Sunday in week 2. With 8 hours a day and the hours boxes empty, week 1 is 32 hours and week 2 is 24 hours.

Overnight shifts and the night-shift box

A shift whose Shift End is at or before its Shift Start is an overnight shift: it runs past midnight into the next morning. For a night worker, set the start to the real start, for example 19:00, and the end to the next morning, for example 06:00.

• When you save a schedule with an overnight shift, This is a night-shift schedule is ticked for you. You can also tick it yourself.
• The list marks such schedules with (overnight) next to the shift times and with a Night badge. The employee form adds (Night) after the schedule name.
• The box labels the schedule. Whether an hour is paid as a night hour depends on the time of day and the night window of the employee's rule group, not on the box. See How pay is calculated.

Read the list

The cards at the top show Total Schedules, Active, Night Shifts and Alternating. Under Schedule Patterns, each row shows:

The list shows active schedules. Clear Active and choose Save to retire a schedule; it then no longer appears in this list or in the Shared Schedule list of the employee form. Move employees to another schedule before you clear Active. Employees who are still assigned keep using the retired schedule for their projected days, contracted hours and allowances. A retired schedule does not appear on this page again, so you cannot reopen it here.

Assign a schedule to an employee

1. Open the employee form in the Admin Hub or on the Payroll Employees page.
2. In the Schedule section, choose a schedule in Shared Schedule. The first choice, no schedule assigned, removes the assignment.
3. Read the line under the list. It shows the type, the paid hours a day, the shift times and, for an Alternating schedule, the length of the rotation and the anchor date.
4. Save the employee.

Manage, next to the list, opens this page. See Payroll employees for the rest of the employee form.

Messages you may see

• "Name is required."
• "Hours per day must be greater than 0."
• "Set both Shift Start and Shift End, or leave both blank."
• "Select at least one work day." for a Fixed schedule.
• "Select at least one work day across the pattern weeks." for an Alternating schedule.

Related pages

• Pay schedules: when employees are paid.
• Payroll employees: assign a schedule, rates and rule group.
• How pay is calculated: night hours, overtime thresholds and allowances.
• The payroll wizard: projected days for an early payment.