July 25th, 2024, Release Note: WFM UK | Scheduling: Automatic Breaks and T&A Breaks in Shifts

Summary

Release date: July 25th 2024

• Enabled by default? - No
• Set up by customer admin? - Yes
• Enable via support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes

What’s Changing?

The 'Status and Actions' when viewing T&A data for a shift will now support three new actions for managing breaks.

1. Automatic Breaks - apply automatic break settings to T&A shift times
2. T&A Breaks - use the break times recorded in the T&A data
3. T&A No Breaks - disregard all breaks in the T&A data

Reason for the Change

This feature introduces several key advantages:

• Increased Flexibility: Allows scheduling managers to easily toggle between automatic and manually entered break times, enhancing adaptability to diverse operational needs
• Improved Accuracy: Ensures that T&A data accurately reflects the reality of breaks taken, leading to more precise payroll processing
• Enhanced Efficiency: Simplifies the T&A process by integrating new actions that align with the recent updates in break management, reducing administrative burden
• Compliance Support: Assists in adhering to labour laws by accurately tracking and compensating paid breaks

Customers Affected

All Scheduling customers.

Release Notes 

Organisation Setting

The following organisation settings will need to be applied by a customer administrator:

• From the Scheduling homepage, go to Settings > Organisations and select Edit against the required Organisation
• Scroll down to the 'Schedule' section and apply the settings Take T&A Time and Accept TnA Breaks

This will reveal the new setting - TnA Actions with Breaks and Automatic Breaks.

• Apply this setting and then make a selection from the Auto Confirm Actions dropdown:

• • Auto confirm with T&A Breaks
  • Auto confirm with automatic Breaks
  • Do not auto confirm TnA shifts (this option will ignore any logic for auto-confirmation and is the default setting)

Fig.1 - TnA Actions with Breaks and Automatic Breaks and Auto Confirm Actions  Organisation Settings

On the Scheduling Page

When the setting Do not auto confirm TnA shifts is enabled, automatic breaks will be applied only when creating/editing forecasting shifts in the future. For more info about automatic breaks please see this article.

The following is carried out by the Scheduling manager.

• Access the T&A data for a shift

Fig.2 - Accessing T&A Data for a shift

• Select Confirm T&A

Fig.3 'Confirm T&A' 

A new modal will then open.

• Make a selection:
  • Automatic Breaks - the automatic breaks will be applied according to the rules created for automatic breaks and any T&A breaks will be ignored
  • T&A Breaks - what the employee has entered will be confirmed within the T&A shift
  • T&A No Breaks - only the T&A shift is confirmed, without any breaks

Fig.4- Select 'Automatic', 'T&A' or 'No Breaks'

Example:

The employee has 3 clock-in shifts with breaks, but then the Scheduling manager selects Automatic Breaks.

Fig.5- Clock Times records

Fig.6- Clock Times breaks records

Fig.7- Confirm T&A with automatic breaks