Configuring Shifts with the Schedule Generator

Overview

In the Working Schedule, you can generate your company/department's schedule on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The Schedule Generator allows you to preset the employees shifts when they are on a fixed basis. This article explains how to use the Schedule Generator to do this.

Permissions

To make use of this you will need the 'Manage Time and Attendance Settings' and 'Manage T&A Working Schedules' permissions.

Setting up the Schedule Generator

In the Schedule Generator, you can specify groups of people based on their Job Schedule or the Job Schedule + Department to assign their fixed pattern of work. When you select the Job Schedule alone, you can assign the shifts on the right hand side for all employees assigned to that Job Schedule.

When you select the Job Schedule + Department , you can assign the shifts on the right hand side for all employees assigned to that Job Schedule in that specific Department.

There are two types of shifts you can create from the Schedule generator:

Fixed Shift

A fixed shift is when an employee will be working the same hours per day and same days per week.

To set up a fixed schedule:

1. Make sure that your shift templates are set up
2. Go to the Scheduler section
3. Click on Schedule generator  
4. Select the relevant job schedule
5. Assign the correct shift template to the job schedule by clicking on it (it will turn red). 

Rotation

If the employees work on a rotation basis during the week that will reset each week, you can switch to a Rotation Basis and create the pattern to be generated.

To do so:

1. Make sure that your shift templates are set up first
2. Go to the Scheduler section
3. Click on Schedule generator  
4. Select the relevant job schedule
5. Click on the Switch to Rotation button in the top right hand corner
6. Click Add new to start creating your rotation pattern. 

It is worth noting that when a rotation pattern is set (and there are days outside the schedule) the pattern will ignore these days that fall outside the schedule and continue with the pattern. For example, if you have an employee with a day, off, day, off pattern. The rotation pattern will be generated as follows:

Monday – Day
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday- Day
Thursday - Off
Friday - Day
Saturday - Outside Schedule
Sunday – Outside Schedule

Monday - Off
Tuesday - Day
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - Day
Friday - Off
Saturday - Outside Schedule
Sunday – Outside Schedule

Configured Shifts in the Working Schedule

After you configure a shift, you can generate a schedule for a period of time. However this is not always needed as configured shifts can be seen on the Scheduler using the filter "Show configured shifts".

Configured shifts, even though they are not generated and published, can be used for clocking approval. When a clocking has been made, and a configured shift has been set up, this can be approved without the need of an Approval Block or a published shift.

NOTE: To be able to use the configured shifts for clocking approval, the clockings must have been made with the punch state enabled.

Above and beyond this, a feature that might be of interest to you is the personalised rotation function. For more information on this, click here.