Work schedules & shift rules
What a shift is, where shifts are defined, how pay-affecting rules work, and what each setting means for attendance and pay.
Administrator-configured
Pay-affecting shift rules don't have a self-serve editor yet. They're set up by your administrator (and were loaded during the initial data migration for migrated organisations). This page explains what each setting means for your attendance records and pay.
What a shift is
A shift is a reusable work-schedule template. It defines:
- the scheduled start and end time for a working day, and
- the minimum minutes an employee must be present to count as a full day's attendance.
Shifts are created and managed in App → Settings → Shifts. A roster then assigns a specific shift to an employee on a specific date. See Rosters for how that assignment works.
Shift rules and how they affect pay
A shift rule is the pay policy attached to a shift. It defines how the system treats time beyond (or short of) normal working hours. Most of the fields are optional — if a field isn't set, the system inherits the organisation's default setting.
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Standard daily minutes | The expected daily working time. Worked minutes above this count toward overtime. |
| Standard weekly minutes | Same concept applied over a week. |
| Overtime daily threshold | The point (in minutes above standard) at which overtime starts being counted. |
| Overtime weekly threshold | Same applied weekly. |
| Grace — late | How many minutes after the scheduled start the employee can arrive before lateness is recorded. |
| Grace — early out | How many minutes before the scheduled end the employee can leave before early-leave is recorded. |
| Auto break deduction | A fixed break duration subtracted automatically from worked minutes, even if not punched separately. |
| Split-shift break window | The minimum gap that defines two separate working periods as a split shift (rather than one long shift). |
| Daily paid-minutes cap | A ceiling on payable minutes per day, regardless of how long the employee actually worked. |
| Night differential window | The time-of-day window that carries a higher pay rate for hours worked within it. |
| Night differential multiplier | The rate applied to time worked in the night window (for example, 1.25 = 125% of normal pay). |
| Saturday multiplier | The rate applied to Saturday hours (when Saturday is a configured working day or an employee works on their rest day). |
| Sunday multiplier | The rate applied to Sunday hours. |
| Public-holiday multiplier | The rate applied to hours worked on a public holiday. |
| Weekday overtime multiplier | The rate applied to overtime hours on a normal working day. |
Multipliers affect how attendance minutes translate into payable amounts in the payroll engine. A multiplier of 1.5 means 60 overtime minutes are paid as 90. The exact pay calculation also depends on the employee's contract rate.
Effective dating
Shift rules are effective-dated: each rule has a validity window, and the system resolves the rule that was in force on the work date, not today's rule. Changing a rule going forward doesn't recalculate past attendance or pay.
This matters in practice: if your organisation updates its overtime threshold in April, attendance from March is still governed by the March rule. Historical payslips stay correct without any manual adjustment.
See Effective-dated rules for the underlying model, and Leave rules & day counting for how the same principle applies to leave.
How a rule is selected
When the system calculates attendance for a date, it looks for a rule in this order:
- A rule configured specifically for the employee's assigned shift, whose validity window covers the work date.
- An organisation-default rule (not tied to a specific shift), whose window covers the date.
- The organisation's general settings (overtime multipliers, grace periods, break settings).
- Built-in defaults, when nothing is configured at all.
An organisation with no shift rules configured at all behaves exactly as before — rules are strictly opt-in and only override the fields they set.
What employees see
You don't configure or manage shift rules. They're set up by HR or payroll admin and applied automatically when attendance is calculated. What you see as an employee is the outcome:
- your payable minutes on each attendance record (which reflects grace periods, break deductions, and any daily cap),
- your overtime minutes (driven by the applicable threshold), and
- your night-differential, Saturday, Sunday, or holiday classification (driven by the day type and multiplier).
If the minutes or classification on a record look wrong, contact HR to review which rule is applied to your shift.
Role notes
| Role | Access |
|---|---|
| Admin / HR Admin / Payroll Admin | Can view and manage shift rules. Create, edit, and archive rules in Settings. |
| Manager | Can view shift details and manage roster assignments but cannot edit pay rules. |
| Employee | Sees the effect of rules in attendance records and payslips. No access to the rules themselves. |
| Auditor | Read-only view of rules and their effective dates. |
Why managers can't edit pay rules
Shift rules directly affect how people are paid. Editing them is restricted to HR and payroll administrators. This is enforced by the system, not just the UI.
What to check
- Overtime isn't appearing when expected — the shift rule may have no daily or weekly threshold configured, or the threshold is set higher than the hours worked. Contact HR to confirm the rule applied to your shift and date.
- Night differential isn't showing on your payslip — check that the shift rule for your shift includes a night-differential window and that your punches fall within it. Contact HR if the window looks wrong.
- Break deductions seem too large — the rule may include an auto break deduction. HR can confirm the exact deduction for your shift.
- Grace period doesn't match what you expect — different shifts can carry different grace windows. The grace on your attendance record is determined by the rule for the specific shift you were rostered to on that date.