Work schedules

Schedules tell AccessTime how many hours each person should work and on which days. With them, the platform knows who's missing, calculates the month's hours balance and fills in the expected-hours column of the working-time record report.

1. Create a weekly schedule

1. Go to Schedules (side menu, Administration section) and press New schedule.
2. Give it a recognisable name: "Office Mon–Fri 9:00–17:00", "Part-time mornings", "Evening shift"…
3. Fill in the weekday table: for each day, a Start time and an End time.
4. Leave both fields empty on non-working days (Saturday and Sunday, for example).
5. Press Create schedule.

Each day allows a single start/end block. If your day is split, define the full block (for example 9:00–17:30) and record breaks by clocking out and back in: the break is automatically deducted from time worked.

You can create as many schedules as you need and edit or delete them later from the same list. Schedules belong to your company: nobody else sees them.

2. Assign schedules with effective dates

A schedule isn't "glued" to a person forever: each assignment has a start date and, optionally, an end date. For each day, AccessTime uses the schedule whose validity covers that date. That way the history is never rewritten when someone changes their working hours: past days keep the expected hours of the schedule they had at the time.

Schedule changes are handled as requests:

1. The person goes to Schedule changes (side menu, My requests section) and presses Request change.
2. They choose the schedule they want to switch to and the type of change:
   • One-off: only for a date range; afterwards they automatically return to their usual schedule, with no second request needed.
   • Permanent: from the start date onwards, with no end date.
3. They enter the dates and the reason, and submit the request.
4. Their manager or HR reviews it in Approvals. Once approved, the assignment applies itself: the previous validity is closed the day before the change and the new one takes effect on the requested date.

Every approved schedule change is recorded with who approved it, which schedule was assigned and from when — useful in the event of an inspection.

3. How they feed the report's expected hours

Every night, when consolidating the workday, AccessTime calculates each person's expected minutes for the day: the duration of the block in their schedule in effect for that weekday. With these rules:

That daily expected figure appears in Reports as the Expected hours column for each workday, and feeds the Month balance (h): hours worked minus expected hours (positive if there's overtime, negative if time is owed).

Additionally, if on a scheduled day the person doesn't clock in at all:

• With no absence to justify it, the workday is marked as absent (and counts as an incident in the report).
• With an approved absence, it's marked as justified and creates no hours debt.

Tips

• Make sure nobody is left without a schedule from day one. Without an active schedule, the day's expected hours are 0 and the hours balance doesn't reflect reality. Assignment is done through an approved schedule-change request (section 2). If you've just imported your team, this is the next step.
• Public holidays already deduct themselves. Keep the Public holidays section up to date (see getting started) and don't create special schedules for weeks with a holiday.
• Use one-off changes for seasons. Summer intensive hours, a reinforcement week… when the range ends, each person automatically returns to their usual schedule.