Time and attendance settings

For most platforms, Approve Shifts will already be enabled from set-up. However, if you do not currently use this feature and would like to start using it, you can do so by following the steps outlined below.

  Contact us: Before making this change, we would recommend reaching out to our support team first, to discuss any ways in which this setting will change or impact your platform.

To turn on Approve Shifts:

1. From the main menu, navigate to Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Locate the setting 'Enable Approve Shifts (for rostered shifts only)' in the Approve Shifts field.
3. Approve Shifts can be turned on across all or select operations. Select the relevant option:
   • Enabled -  Shifts can be approved for all operations.
   • Enabled - Shifts can be approved for select operations.
   • Disabled - Timesheets submitted by employees only.
4. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

Enable Approve Shifts for a single Operation

If you have selected the platform setting 'Enabled - Shifts can be approved for select operations.' you will then need to turn on Enable Approve Shifts feature for a single operation or a few operations of your choice.

To do this:

1. Navigate to Operations > Approved Operations. 
2. Find the Operation and select the name to go to the Operation profile.
3. Open the Quick Settings tab.
4. Change the 'Enable Approve Shifts feature?' toggle to On. 

You can now use the Approve Shifts feature for the selected operation.

Once you have enabled this function, consider if you want your approval managers to have the ability to approve shifts in advance and/or approve shifts in bulk. Consider these options by reading the content below.

Approve Shifts for large platforms

If your platform is quite large (approx. more than 400 employees requiring shift approvals per week), you may consider disabling the setting to 'Load shifts immediately on the Approve shifts page'.

With this setting disabled, when you navigate to the Approve shifts page, it will no longer load with all shifts available for viewing. Instead, you'll need to select your Operations and apply a filter; this way, only shifts for your preferred operations will load onto the page.

  Hot tip: If you try this setting and aren't sure it's for you, you can change it back at any time.

To change this setting:

1. From the main menu, navigate to Platform Settings > System Settings.
2. Locate the 'Load shifts immediately on the Approve shifts page' option, and disable the toggle.
3. Select Save Settings at the bottom of the page.

You're able to approve shifts in advance (pre-approve) by enabling the 'Allow approval of shifts prior to shift being worked' setting.

You may want to pre-approve shifts if:

• You don't have a manager working over a weekend period to approve shifts daily
• An approver is leaving before the end of the day and would like to approve shifts beforehand
• You are preparing shifts for payroll early because of holiday closures
• You know the expected end times of the shifts in question
   

To enable pre-approve shifts:

1. From the main menu, navigate to  Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Approve shifts section, locate and update the setting for 'Allow approval of shifts prior to shift being worked'.
   • When you approve a shift for a future date, the shift will now display as a pre-approved shift.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

  Hot tip: In Approve Shifts, once approved the shift will stay white until the specific date has passed, at which point the entire line in Approve Shifts will turn green. The status will remain 'Pre-approved' though, which allows you to always know that this shift was approved in advance.

If the pre-approved shift setting is off, you will not be able to approve any future shifts. As you can see below, the green tick is greyed out, making it unavailable to select.

On your platform, you can create custom codes for attendance, performance, and terminations. These codes are valuable for managing various attendance and HR issues.

Here are some ways you can use these codes: 

• Keeping a history of why employee shifts were declined or leave was added to a shift
• Internal termination reasons
• Employee performance management

The 'Require a performance or attendance reason for declining shifts' setting allows you to choose which type of codes will appear when your admins decline shifts in Approve Shifts. Additionally, from this setting you can choose not to use this feature. 

As an example, the image below shows that when declining Kris's shift, you can select the Attendance Reasons (codes) 'Called in Sick' and 'No Show'. 

  For further reading on how to set up and use Performance, Attendance and Termination codes, please refer to our article here.

The 'Set cutoff hours for moving shifts that overlap pay periods' setting deals with a specific scenario related to your graveyard or overnight shifts. When one of these shifts commences in one pay period and concludes in another, you can utilise this setting to determine which period it will be counted towards. 

For example, your pay period ends on a Sunday and an overnight shift runs from Sunday to Monday, marking a new pay period. This setting will determine whether the shift will be included in the week ending on Sunday or added to the following Monday, the next pay period. 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance > Approve shifts.
2. Within the Approve shifts section, locate and update the setting for 'Set cutoff hours for moving shifts that overlap pay periods to the next payroll period'.
3. Specify the number of hours for the cutoff.
   • For example, if set to 2 hours, any shifts starting at 10 pm (2 hours before midnight) will be included in the next pay period. 
4. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

When you turn on the 'Show approve shifts in Timesheets' setting, any shift you approve in Approve Shifts will be automatically added to the employee's available timesheet, which can be accessed from the Timesheets page. 

If you disable this setting, the employee's timesheet will not appear in Time & Attendance > Timesheets, but you can still edit it in Approve Shifts. 

  Please note: This setting is relevant only if your platform uses the Timesheets feature. If you don't use Timesheets, this setting won't affect any changes you make in Approve Shifts or process pay. 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Approve shifts section, locate the setting 'Show approve shifts in Timesheets' and select No.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

You can decide how much or how little information you would like to flow through to Approve Shifts in terms of hours worked. This includes showing per employee:

• Total hours approved
• Total leave hours approved
   

To enable this additional information:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance > Approve shifts.
2. Within the Approve shifts section, locate and update the setting for 'Display employee’s total approved hours and leave hours'.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

Example of 'more information' shown in Approve Shifts when this setting is set to Yes. 

Example of 'less information' shown in Approve Shifts when this setting is set to No. 

This setting allows your admins to select multiple employees or all employees on a roster and approve, decline, or edit their shifts. This is enabled by default, but if you prefer that your managers do not have this capability, it can be turned off. 

  For more information on how to approve or decline multiple employees' shifts in Approve Shifts, please refer to our article here. 

To adjust this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings. 
2. Within the Approve shifts section, locate the setting 'Bulk approve, decline and edit shifts from the approve shifts page' and select No.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

When the 'Yes' option is selected, bulk approval and decline are allowed; your screen will display as shown below.

When the 'No' option is selected, none of the admins for your platform will have the ability to approve or decline shifts in bulk. This will display as shown below. You will notice the tick boxes next to each shift (allowing you to multi-select) will also be missing.

  Please note: If you want supervisors to review and approve each shift with care, so that errors are reduced and shift approvals are accurate, then consider turning this toggle off to disable bulk approvals and bulk declines.

When your employees are submitting their hours using Submit Shifts, or when your managers are reviewing shifts in Approve Shifts, you can use this optional toggle to exclude/include worked hours. This is useful for approving leave or allowances without any recorded work hours.

This can be beneficial for the following use cases:

• Adding leave to a shift when an employee calls in sick
• Adding an allowance, such as a sleepover allowance, to a shift

This setting is on by default; it can be updated/ turned off if you do not wish to use this feature.
 

To adjust this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Approve shifts section, locate the setting 'Allow shifts to be approved or submitted without worked hours' and select No.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

  To learn more about adding leave or allowances to shifts while approving shifts, please refer to our article on Adding Leave in Approve Shifts. 

In Time & Attendance, you can configure settings across the platform to manage how breaks are applied. This includes:

• Creating custom labels for both paid and unpaid breaks
• Requiring employees to provide reasons when they do not clock their breaks

  To learn more about configuring your break settings, please refer to our article here. 

The Break Scheduler is a feature that lets you create and organise different Break Schedules. These schedules automatically add breaks to draft shifts on your rosters based on their length.

Additionally, depending on the break settings 'Default to rostered break details over clocked break details for shift approvals', these break schedules can also be applied in Approve Shifts. 

  To learn more about creating Break Schedules and how they can be applied when rostering, please refer to our article Break Scheduler. 

Submit Shifts is one of the platform's timekeeping features and can serve as an alternative to employee clocking.

Instead of clocking in and out of shifts, with Submit Shifts, employees will report the hours worked and breaks taken at the end of their shifts. From Time & Attendance, you can customise how your employees can use this feature.

To learn more about using the Submit Shifts feature and how it's settings can be configured, please refer to our article on Submit Shifts. 

When an employee submits, edits, or deletes a leave application, an email notification can be sent to the admin who is listed as their manager on the employee's profile. This keeps them updated on the application's status so they can take the necessary steps.

This setting is enabled by default, but you can easily disable it if you prefer that your admins not receive these notification emails. 
 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Time Off section, locate the setting 'Send Leave Application Notification to Manager' and select No.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

Please note: The following setting affects whether the notifications are sent to the employees' managers only. As these templates are dynamic, they may be configured to send to other admins as well. 
 

The following templates are affected by this setting:

• Employee submits leave request

• Admin approves employee leave request

• Admin declines employee leave request

• Employee deletes their leave request

• Employee edits their leave request

Leave applications for permanent employees use the work pattern set in their position to determine the hours of leave to be redeemed for each day. The work pattern can be seen/configured on the employee position, as seen below. 

The relationship between the work pattern and leave applications is very useful when your employees work consistent hours/days each week.

However, if your employees work inconsistent hours or days, the 'Allow editing of daily hours on leave application' setting can assist with this.

  Please note:  This setting works in combination with the 'Allow leave applications to exceed the weekly maximum hours of an employees work pattern' setting. If disabled, employees will only be able to edit their hours provided they are under the weekly maximum (e.g if the weekly maximum is 38 hours, the application cannot exceed 38 hours).  See the section below for details.
 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Time Off section, locate the setting 'Allow editing of daily hours on leave application' and select No.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

Allow editing of daily hours on leave application

With this setting enabled, employees will be able to edit the number of hours for each day during the application process, however they may not exceed the total hours per week specified in the work pattern.

In the below example, you can see that the hours for Monday have been increased to 10 but the total weekly hours is not above 38. This leave application can be submitted. 

With this setting enabled, during the application process, employees will have the ability to edit the number of hours for each day and the total hours per week can exceed the total weekly hours specified in the work pattern.

  Please note: This setting works with the 'Allow editing of daily hours on leave application' option above, as employees must also edit daily hours beyond the daily maximum to exceed the weekly limit. We recommend enabling the daily hours to use the weekly hours exceeding setting.

If you want to allow leave application hours to exceed the weekly maximum defined by the work pattern, enable this setting. This will be helpful if you pay employees monthly and they work long shifts. 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Time Off section, locate the setting 'Allow leave applications to exceed the weekly maximum hours of an employee's work pattern' and select Yes.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

Allow leave applications to exceed weekly maximum hours

In the example below, you can see that the hours for Monday through to Thursday have been increased to 12 hours. The total for the week is currently at 55.6 hours (which exceeds the employee's weekly work pattern hours). This leave application can be submitted. 

Pending and approved leave applications can be viewed from the external calendar of your choice! This can assist with visibility within the business and allow you to see who's away at a glance.

Benefits of linking your calendar include:

• The connection between the calendar and your foundU platform is live and will be updated almost immediately. 
• View your employees' pending and approved time off alongside all other events in your day or week. 
• The link, which can be obtained from the Time Off menu, is unique to each admin and respects search restrictions. This allows your admin to see only the leave of the employees they should be able to view.

This setting is enabled by default, allowing you to see the External Calendar link button from the main Time Off page. If you do not wish to use this feature, you can disable it. 
 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Time Off section, locate the setting 'Allow admin users to create public calendar links' and select No.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

  You can read more about this feature and its use here.

TOIL or time off in lieu can be enabled on a per-employee basis, once you have enabled the 'Allow admin users to enable TOIL within employee profiles' setting. 

To understand whether or not you would like to use TOIL in your platform or with certain employees, please consider the following:

• An employee can either earn time off in lieu (TOIL) or overtime automatically. For any employee who has the toggle enabled on their profile, TOIL replaces any overtime hours on their payslip.
• TOIL is redeemed manually by a payslip edit. 

  Contact us: If you would like to use TOIL on your platform, read our article before doing so, and feel free to contact our support team for assistance.
 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Time Off section, locate the setting 'Allow admin users to enable TOIL within employee profiles' and select Yes.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

After turning on the above setting, you can toggle Enable TOIL for individual employees from their profiles.  

 You can read more about TOIL and its use here. 

When paid leave applications are submitted but the employee does not have enough hours to cover it, you can optionally fill the remaining hours with an unpaid leave type of your choosing. 

The unpaid leave type will be visible on the employee's payslip and will also be seen in the Time Off menu when viewing the payslip breakdown of the application.  

The benefit of this setting is that you'll have a clearer picture of your employees' leave, and your employees will have a clearer picture of what they are being paid. 

  Please note: Before you turn on this setting, make sure you have at least 1 unpaid leave entitlement set up. Check out our guide on how to add leave entitlements here.
 

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance Settings.
2. Within the Time Off section, locate the setting 'Select a type of unpaid leave to redeem automatically if the employee’s leave balance is insufficient'.
3. From the dropdown menu, select the relevant unpaid leave type. 
4. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.

Please note: If you intend to enable this setting, it may be worthwhile reviewing your Award Settings as well. There are options around what types of leave (paid only, all leave types) are counted towards ordinary time when calculating overtime. 

For your workforce, especially for your casual employees, managing their Availability is the main way they communicate when they are available to work.

This is done from the Employee App by either updating their Ongoing Availability or sending Once-Off requests to their manager for approval. 

The 'Enable availability' setting is turned on by default, allowing you to use the Availability feature throughout your platform.

However, some businesses might prefer to go with Unpaid Leave instead. If that's you, just turn off this setting, and the following changes be applied:

• Employees cannot access Time Off > Availability from the Employee App
• Admin Users cannot access Availability from the Time & attendance> Time Off page

  For further information about Availability, please refer to our article here. 

To disable employee availability:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Time & Attendance > Approve shifts.
2. Within the Availability section, locate and update the setting for 'Enable availability'.
3. To save your changes, select Save from the taskbar.