WFM UK: Activity-Based Scheduling: Approving and Submitting Schedules

Overview 

In Activity-Based Scheduling, each Department is scheduled independently. 'Approval by Department' functionality has been developed to allow a more controlled approval at Department level - each Department can be set to 'Ready for Review' and approved individually. 

Schedule Status

New – all schedules start in the “New” status.
Ready for Review – when a schedule is ready to be reviewed, all ‘FCST’ boxes will need to be ticked. This changes the schedule status and indicates to the approver that it can be reviewed.
Rejected - the schedule has been set to ‘Ready to Review’ but the approver has rejected the schedule. The Ready for Review button will be seen to revert back to this status once changes have been made.
Approved – the approver has approved the schedule.
Closed – the Department has actualised all 7 days and has been closed. This will prevent any changes from being made unless the user has the ability to modify shifts after the schedule is set as closed.
Submitted – when all Departments in the location are closed the location can be submitted to Payroll. 

Setting Schedule to Ready for Review

To set the schedule to be 'Ready for Review', all 7 forecast (FCST) boxes must be ticked.

• Go to the Scheduling tab and select the Change button

Fig.1 – Schedule Status Change button

• Tick all 7 FCST boxes

Ticking all 7 FCST boxes indicates the schedule has been forecasted for the week and will automatically change the status from 'New' to 'Ready for Review'. 

Fig.2 - 7 boxes ticked, Ready for Review

Rejecting or Approving Departments' Schedules

The schedule can be rejected or approved through the Schedule Status Change pop-up.

Please note: Only users with permission to approve schedules will see the Reject and Approve buttons

To Reject a Schedule:

• Select Reject

The status will then appear in red, and the Ready for Review button will display again.

• Make the appropriate changes to the schedule, and then select Ready for Review

Fig.3 – Schedule Status Change Rejected Schedule

To Approve a Schedule:

• Select Approve

The status will appear in green. Depending on user permissions, the Close and Submit buttons may be seen, however, they are greyed out at this stage.

Fig.4 – Schedule Status Change - Approved Schedule, 'Submit' button greyed out

The schedule can also be approved through the 'Approve by Departments' page. This enables the approver to see forecasted hours per job role per day and to approve multiple departments from the same screen. To do this:

• Go to Schedule > Manage dropdown> Approve by Department

Fig.5 – Approve by Department button

The Approve by Department pop-up will display all departments to which the user has access in that location.

• Navigate through weeks by using the arrows or select a date from the calendar (select the date itself to do this)

The status of each division for the chosen week will be seen.

For customers using our Performance Edition, Forecasted vs. Required hours and the variance will be seen.
For customers using our Enterprise Edition, Forecasted hours will be seen; Required hours will be 0.

• Drill down into a department using the arrows next to the department name
• Drill further into the job roles using the arrows next to the day & date
• To see and use the Reject and Approve buttons, select a department that is 'Ready for Review' and then reject/approve as required

The name of the department that the action will relate to is listed for ease of use.

Fig.6 – Approve / Rejecting Departments

Closing the Department

To close a Department, all 7 days of Actuals need to be ticked in the Schedule Status Change screen. For some customers, a day can only be actualised once all the time & attendance has been completed.

Depending on user permissions, Close and Submit buttons may be seen.

If required, with the relevant permission a department can be reopened and once changes are made, can be closed again. 

Fig.7 – Closing/Reopening a department

Submitting to Payroll 

To submit the location to payroll, all departments must have Actuals ticked for all 7 days. If the user tries to submit and there are outstanding departments that have not completed actuals, those departments will be listed at the top of the pop-up, as shown in Fig.8.

Fig.8 – Cannot Submit to Payroll message - listed departments

Once all departments have 7 days of Actuals ticked, the schedule can be submitted to payroll - select Submit

Fig.9 – Submitting to Payroll

If configured, overtime and/or lieu hours can be authorised or omitted from the Additional Payments page.

• Use the 'Authorise' and 'Omit' columns to tick one for each employee, or to populate all boxes, tick the header for either
• To make the final submission, use the Submit to Payroll button

Fig.10 – Additional Payments Page

The final submission will show progress and confirmation.

Fig.11 – Submission Progress

The status of the Schedule will then show as 'Submitted'.

Fig.12 – Schedule Status of Submitted