September 1st 2021, Release Note: WFM UK | Labour Productivity: Time and Attendance without Location Codes

What's Changing?

A new setting will allow Time and Attendance data to be submitted to the T&A API without having to include Location codes.

Release date: 1st September 2021

Reason for the Change?

This will allow for a single clocking-in device to be used across multiple locations. 

Customers Affected

All Labour Productivity customers.

 Please note: The clock icons referred to in this release note will not display onscreen when using Microsoft Internet Explorer (Internet Explorer is due to be retired by Microsoft in June 2022).

Release Note Info/Steps

• Enabled by default? - No
• Set up by customer Admin? - Yes
• The functionality is compatible on the following browsers. Chrome, FireFox, Edge

An Admin user will need to log in to Labour Productivity and enable the 'Available Shifts' functionality.

• Go to Settings > Organisations and select Edit against the required Organisation
• Tick the box against Available Shifts
• Scroll all the way down and Save

Fig.1 - Available Shifts Organisation Setting

When the setting is enabled there is a new user interface for managing time and attendance. The Time and Attendance screen will still be accessed via the clock icon within the Schedule page, however.

Fig.2 - Schedule Page Time and Attendance Links

The Time and Attendance pop-up will be displayed on the Scheduling page - see Fig.3. There are no functional changes to any of the Time and Attendance actions. The pop up will be displayed on the users whole screen. 

Fig.3 - Time And Attendance pop-up - No Available Shifts

Matching T&A Data Without Location Code

If Time and Attendance records have been sent without a Location code for an employee then the T&A record will be matched to that employee's forecasted shift. If there is no forecasted shift for the employee for that day then the T&A record will be matched to a Location/Department based on the following matching criteria below.

If a T&A record overlaps one forecast shift for the same employee, it will be set to the same role as the forecast shift.

If a T&A shift overlaps more than one forecast shift for the same employee, it will be set to the same role as the shift it overlaps with the highest number of minutes (i.e. if 60 minutes overlaps a Bar shift and 30 minutes overlaps a Chef shift, it will be set as a Bar shift).

If a T&A shift is incomplete, (where there is a clock-in but no clock-out time, for example) the shift will not be matched and an available shift will be created for the user to assign to the correct Location/Department.

Available Shifts

If the T&A cannot be matched to a Location, the available shift will be displayed in all of the Location/Departments in which the user has an active job. The user selects the Available Shifts drop-down and can convert this Available Shift to the department the user has worked in by selecting Convert to TnA.

Fig.4 - Available Shifts - Convert to TnA

Once the shift has been converted, a T&A record is created for the department that the user is logged into and is removed from any other departments.

Fig.5 - Selecting an Action

When selecting Manually Enter times a side bar will be appearing which will display the employees forecast and clock shift details. The user can manually enter the employees shift details using the shift detail input fields. 

Fig.6 - Manually enter times 

Once the user has confirmed their Action from the drop-down, an Undo 5 second countdown will appear. If Undo is selected then the T&A action is cancelled. If the user closes the T&A modal by selecting X, the T&A actions will be processed once the countdown is completed. Once the pop-up is closed the Schedule page will be refreshed and the Clock Icon colour state updated.

Fig.6 - 5 second Undo option

Synel Clocks

For any customers which are upgrading their editions package from Rotas to Labour Productivity and already using Synel Clocks for time and attendance. The Location codes will need to be configured to 0 or have no Location code populated. If the clock is 0 or no code is configured then the T&A records will be sent via the 'Available Shift' functionality. If the clocks have codes greater than 0 then they will follow the standard Labour Productivity Time and Attendance process. To reconfigure your Synel location codes please liaise with your Fourth representative. (SY-785 Devices)

For any new Implementations using a Synel clocks. If a clock is being used by employees at multiple locations the data must be sent without a location code. 

Submission to T&A API

If sending T&A to either HR & Payroll (People System) or Labour Productivity TnA API, then the submissions will either include Location codes or not. If sending some payloads with Locations and some without, then the submissions must be split into two submissions. For more information please see: https://developer.fourth.com/en-gb/docs/time-attendance-api/release-notes