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Shifts, rotations and the roster planner

Define fixed, night, split and flexible shifts and run 24-hour rotations with teams offset from each other. Plan who works what on a grid of people by days. Shift swaps need the colleague's acceptance and the manager's approval, and every change flows into that day's attendance.
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The problem it solves

  • Three shifts and rotating teams are planned on a whiteboard, and attendance is then checked against the wrong shift.
  • Night shift punches after midnight land on the wrong day and people look absent.
  • People swap shifts among themselves and the manager finds out when someone is marked late.
  • Security staff on a 24x7 cycle need their offs from the rotation, not a fixed Sunday.

How it works

  1. Create your shifts under Time & Attendance > Configuration > Shifts and Holidays > Shifts: name, code, type (Fixed, Split or Flexible), Starts, Ends and Break (minutes). A shift that ends earlier than it starts crosses midnight by itself.
  2. For round-the-clock teams, open Rotations (24x7) and list the cycle. Each line is a shift and its number of days, or off days with no shift.
  3. Under Time & Attendance > Planning > Shift Assignments, say who works which shift or rotation, using Applies To. For a rotation, set the Rotation Anchor Date and a Team Offset (days) so team B starts the cycle after team A.
  4. Open the Roster Planner to see people in rows and days in columns for 1, 2 or 4 weeks. Click a day to give another shift or an off; Undo Change brings back the planned shift.
  5. An employee asks for a Shift Swap from My Requests, naming the colleague in Swap With. The colleague clicks Accept Swap, then the manager approves, and both people take each other's shift that day.
  6. Attendance of a day is worked out against the shift of that day: the roster first, then the rotation step, then the assignment.

Everything it does

Shifts

  • Types: Fixed, Split and Flexible. Split has Second Session Starts and Ends; the gap between sessions is not counted. Flexible has Core Hours From, Core Hours To and Required Minutes for a full day
  • Night shifts: Crosses Midnight is set by itself when the shift ends at or before its start
  • Break (minutes): unpaid, taken off the worked time
  • Punches Count From (min before start): 120 to start with; Punches Count Until (min after end): 240
  • Shift Allowance per Day: paid through payroll for each day worked on the shift (Growth)
  • Who Works on a shift shows who is on it for the next seven days
  • A shift with no Entity is shared by every Entity of the group

Rotations (24x7)

  • A cycle of lines: a shift and its days, or off days (no shift), in order; the cycle length is added up for you
  • Rotation Anchor Date: the day the cycle is at its first step for offset 0
  • Team Offset (days): teams on the same rotation start at different points of the cycle
  • Offs from Rotation (on to start with): rotation off days replace the weekly-off pattern

Roster and planner

  • Roster Planner: 1 week, 2 weeks or 4 weeks; filter by Entity and department, search by name or code
  • Each cell shows the shift code, WO for a weekly off, H for a holiday and L for leave
  • A changed day is marked as set by hand, with a note of who set it
  • Roster: the plain list of days set by hand, one entry per employee and day
  • Attendance User for the Entity, or the manager for their team below them, can change days; nobody changes their own
  • A change to today or a past day works that day's attendance out again at once

Shift swaps

  • One day only, with a named colleague
  • The colleague (or the attendance office) clicks Accept Swap first; the manager cannot approve before that
  • Approved by the reporting manager or the Attendance User, through the Attendance request chain
  • On approval both roster days are written with the swap's reference

For employees

  • My Shifts shows your shifts for this week and the next

Who uses it

Attendance ManagerDefines shifts, rotations and shift assignments.
Attendance UserChanges anyone's day in the roster planner for their Entities.
ManagerPlans the team's days and approves shift swaps.
EmployeeSees My Shifts and asks for a swap.

Where you use it

  • Web: Time & Attendance > Configuration > Shifts and Holidays > Shifts and Rotations (24x7)
  • Web: Time & Attendance > Planning > Shift Assignments, Roster Planner and Roster
  • Web: Time & Attendance > Attendance > My Shifts and Requests > My Requests
  • The SmartMy HRMS app: asking for and approving attendance requests (built and in testing, not in the app stores yet)
  • Not in the app: the roster planner is on the web

What you control

Settings

  • Ready to start with: General (9:00 to 17:30, 30-minute break) assigned to everyone
  • Punches Count From 120 minutes before start, Until 240 minutes after end
  • Offs from Rotation: on

Approvals

  • Attendance request: shift swaps go through this chain. The reporting manager or the Attendance User of the Entity decides, unless you set other levels. The colleague's acceptance comes first

Notifications

  • Attendance Request to Approve: to the approvers of a shift swap, in the app, by push and by email
  • Attendance Request Decided: to the employee, in the app, by push and by email
  • Both are transactional; a person can switch off a channel such as email, while in-app notices always arrive

Works with

SmartMy ProjectsTime on projects can be checked against the day's attendance.

Questions

Do night shift punches after midnight go to the right day?

Yes. A night shift takes the punches from 120 minutes before its start to 240 minutes after its end. Both are settings, and the punches count on the day the shift began.

Can each team on a 24x7 rotation start at a different point?

Yes. Use one rotation and give each team's shift assignment its own Team Offset (days). The offs come from the rotation, not the weekly offs.

Can a manager change the roster, or only HR?

Both. A manager can change the days of anyone below them in the roster planner; the Attendance User can change anyone in their Entities. Nobody changes their own days.

Is the shift allowance paid automatically?

From the Growth plan, payroll pays the Shift Allowance per Day for each day worked on that shift. You link a salary component to the shift once.

Can employees see the roster on the phone?

The app shows today's shift on Home and the shift of each past day when it is opened. The two-week view of coming shifts, My Shifts, is on the web only for now.

Related features

SHIFTS, OFFS AND HOLIDAYSWeekly offs and holiday calendarsSet weekly offs such as Sundays plus the 2nd and 4th Saturdays, and half-day offs, for whoever they apply to. Keep holiday calendars with public and restricted holidays and a yearly quota. Declare a holiday on the day when rain or an emergency closes the site.ATTENDANCEDaily attendance, regularisation and the registerEvery employee gets one attendance record a day with the status, paid days, loss of pay and late, early and overtime minutes. It says in plain words which rules gave the result. Employees correct missed punches by request, only authorised HR can change a day, and the monthly register exports to CSV.ATTENDANCEOvertime, comp-off and short leaveOvertime is counted from the punches by your overtime rule and either paid through payroll at your rates or turned into comp-off. Work on a weekly off or a holiday earns comp-off by claim. Short permissions of an hour or two stay within your monthly limits.EMPLOYEES AND ORGANISATIONDepartments, grades, locations and policies by scopeModel the organisation as it is: departments with sub-departments, designations, grades, employment types, staff categories and work locations. Every HR rule says who it applies to, from the whole Entity down to one employee, and the most specific rule wins.ATTENDANCECheck-in on the web, the phone and attendance devicesStaff mark attendance in the browser from the office network, or from their own approved phone with a selfie and a location check. ZKTeco and eSSL device punches come straight to the server. All punches of a person count together for the day.

See your own month run in it.

Tell us how many people you have, how you take attendance and how your salary is structured. We will show you SmartMy HRMS set up that way.
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