WFM UK: Labour Productivity: 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 will be approved individually. When Departments are approved, a snapshot of the required and scheduled hours is stored. Once all Departments are approved then their location will be approved.

• To enable the Approval by Department functionality, go to Hotels > Settings > Organisation and tick the Enable Approval by Department box

Fig.1 – Approval by Department Setting

Schedule States

New – all schedules start in the “New” state

Ready to Review – when a schedule is ready to be reviewed, all ‘Fcst’ boxes will need to be ticked. This changes the schedule state 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

Approved – the schedule has been set to ‘Ready to Review’ and the approver has approved the schedule

Closed – if the ‘Close at Location’ functionality is enabled then once approved and all 7 Actual boxes have been ticked, the department can close. This will prevent any shift changes from being made once closed unless the user has the ability to modify shifts after the schedule is set as closed

Submitted – only when all Departments in the location have 7 ‘Fcst’ and 7 ‘Act’ boxes ticked will the location be able to submit to payroll. If the location is using ‘Close at Location level’, all departments will need 7 Act and 7 Fcst boxes ticked and the schedule in the “Closed” state to allow submission

Setting Schedule to Ready to Review

• To set the schedule to ready to review, all 7 Daily forecast completed boxes must be ticked. This can be done in the main Schedule page or through the Schedule Status Change functionality

Fig.2 – Setting Daily forecast completed in Schedule Page

 Fcst boxes can be ticked en masse by using the Schedule Status Change feature.

• Select the Schedule State Tag as per Fig.3 (the schedule state in this instance is New)

Fig.3 – Schedule State tag

The Schedule Status Change pop-up will be displayed, to allow the bulk-updating of Fcst boxes.

Fig.4 – Schedule Status Change pop-up

If the user can approve department schedules, then they will see the Reject / Approve Buttons.

Rejecting or Approving Departments Schedules

The schedule can be approved through the Schedule Status Change pop-up. The user approving the schedule must have the user level permission “Approve Forecast”.

Fig.5 – Schedule Status Change Reject/Approve

The schedule can also be approved through the Approve by Departments link Report.

• Go to Schedule > Actions > Approve by Departments

Fig.6 – Accessing the Approve by Department Report

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

Fig.7 – Approve by Department Report

Each Department can be expanded. The report will dynamically return the required hours based on the labour standards for that department, the scheduled hours, and the variance.  

Fig.8 – Approval by Department Day Breakdown View

 The day can be expanded to display a breakdown of required hours scheduled hours and variance by job role by day. Fig.9 – Approval by Department by Day by Role Breakdown View

The department can then be approved or rejected from the buttons at the bottom of the pop-up. The name of the department that the action will relate to is listed in the pop-up for ease of use.

Fig.10 – Approve / Rejecting Departments

Once approved, the Schedule Status will update for the relevant department. The values in the Required Hours, Scheduled Hours and Variance columns will be locked as of the time of approval and will no longer update.

Fig.11 - Schedule Status updated

Close Department / Submit to Payroll 

When all 7 days are set as ‘Actual’ the department can be set to close. This can only be done in the Schedule Status Change pop-up and will only close the department to which the user is logged in.

Fig.12 – Close Department

To submit to payroll all Departments must be set to ‘Actual’. If the user tries to submit and there are outstanding departments that have not completed actuals, then these departments will be listed at the top of the pop-up to inform the user.

To use the ‘closed at location level’ functionality, Hotels > Settings > Closed at Location will need to be enabled by your customer admin user. If the functionality is not being used, then the Close button will be hidden, and the next step is to Submit to payroll.

Fig.13 – Submit to Payroll

The schedule will then be submitted for processing. If there are any issues these will be returned onscreen for the user to take action on.

Fig.14 – Submission Process

If the schedule is successfully submitted, then the user is returned to the home screen and the “Payroll was submitted successfully” message is displayed.

Fig.15 – Payroll Submitted Successfully