Creating Shift Patterns In Evotime

Created by Luke Webber, Modified on Thu, 23 Jan at 11:53 AM by Luke Webber

In Evotime, shift patterns are created for a Monday-to-Sunday schedule and assigned to employees, repeating weekly.

Using shift patterns allows you to effectively track expected hours, clockings, overtime, days off, lateness, and breaks.

1. Defining Breaks for Shifts

The first step in creating a shift is setting up the rules for breaks. Depending on your needs, you may choose not to create or assign a break in the following cases:

No Breaks: The shift does not require breaks, or you do not wish to record them.
Paid Breaks: Employees have paid breaks and do not need to clock in or out for them.
Flexible Breaks: Employees take multiple breaks during the day without a predefined duration.

Even without explicitly assigning breaks, Evotime can still provide accurate tracking and reporting for your shifts.

2. Configuring Breaks

Breaks in Evotime have two key variables:

Duration: Specifies how long the break should last.
After X Hours: Determines how many hours must be worked before the break duration is applied.

Currently, Evotime supports one break per shift. There are three types of breaks you can configure:

Break Types

Paid Clocked:
- Employees clock out for their break, but the first X minutes (defined by the duration) of the break are not deducted from their total hours.
Unpaid Clocked:
- Employees must clock in and out for their break.
- Time is not deducted unless they clock out, and the system can flag if they exceed the specified duration.
Unpaid Auto Deduct:
- Once the "After X Hours" threshold is met, the software automatically deducts the specified duration from the employee's total hours for the day.

3. Creating Shifts

Once you've created or decided against creating a break, you can move to the next tab, "Shifts." This tab contains all the shifts created within the system. Shifts apply only to a single day and should not be confused with shift patterns.

When creating a shift, you’ll encounter several options that might seem overwhelming at first. Below is an explanation of what each variable does and how it can be used effectively:

Code, Name, Description: These fields serve as simple references for the shift in the system and are visible across the software. They have no other functional purpose beyond identifying the shift.
Shift Balancing: When enabled, this uses the last clocking of the day as a reference point and searches a specified number of hours (defined by phase hours) into the future (including the next day) . It pulls in any clockings from that period to be part of the shift and will display them on the same day in the timesheet. This is particularly useful for night shifts without a defined start or end time.
Phase Hours: When shift balancing is disabled, phase hours function differently. They are used to count backward from the shift’s start time to establish a cutoff point. Clockings made before this cutoff (start time - phase hours) are applied to the previous day’s shift. This is helpful for night shifts with defined start and end times or shifts that occasionally extend past midnight.
Break: Here, you can select a pre-defined break from the breaks table or leave the option blank if no break applies.
Rounding Start Zone: This setting defines a window of time before the shift’s start time during which any clockings will round up to the start time. It’s useful for accommodating employees who clock in slightly early before their shift begins.
Rounding End Zone: This setting defines a window of time after the shift’s end time during which any clockings will round back to the end time. This allows employees to clock out slightly late without accruing overtime.
Start: This is the expected start time for the shift. It can be left blank if the start time is likely to vary or be sporadic.
End: This is the expected end time for the shift. It can also be left blank if the end time is subject to change.
Rounding (Start): This specifies the interval (in minutes) for rounding clockings near the start of the shift. Evotime checks the grace period to determine whether to round forward or backward. If the clocking is within the grace period, it rounds backward; otherwise, it rounds forward.
Grace (Start): The number of minutes an employee can clock past the rounding interval to have the clocking rounded in their favor.
Rounding (End): Similar to start rounding, this defines the interval (in minutes) for rounding clockings near the end of the shift. The grace period determines whether to round forward or backward based on how close the clocking is to the interval.
Grace (End): The number of minutes an employee can clock before the rounding interval to have the clocking rounded in their favor.

4. Overtime Rules

There are two types of overtime rules you can configure:

Target Overtime: Define a specific number of hours to be paid at a set rate. Once the target is met, the system moves to the next target.
Timeband Overtime: Define specific time periods during the day to be paid at a set rate.

For both rules, any hours worked beyond the targets or outside the time bands will be paid at the employee's standard pay rate, as defined in the payroll period.

Additional Features for Target Overtime:

Use Expected Hours as First Target: This option uses the total expected hours for the shift as the initial target. These hours are paid at the standard pay rate, and once met, the system moves to subsequent targets.
Period Target Overtime: Instead of setting daily targets, you can define target hours for an entire payroll period. Then instead of asssigning the rule in the shift , you assign the rule in the payroll period. Period target overtime rules take precedence over daily overtime rules. Daily overtime will only apply after all period targets have been met

Tip : If you want to pay a full day at a specific rate, use target overtime. Set a target of 24 hours and assign the desired pay rate.

5. Building a Shift pattern

From here building a shift pattern is pretty straight forward.

Click on the Shift Patterns tab and then Add New , then for each day of the week add the shift and overtime rule you wish to use for that day. Both shifts and overtime rules are optional for each day.

If there is no shift set on the day this will be classed as a "Rest Day" meaning employees status will be "Unexpected" for these days and booking absences will ignore these days unless "Book Rest Days" is ticked.

Once the shift pattern has been build you can head over to the employee list , and for each employee you wish to assign this shift , select them and change their shift pattern to this shift.

Shift calculations are done in realtime , meaning changing a shift pattern will also make all previous and future clockings calculate using this shift pattern. To see how the data would look without the shift pattern you can use Original or Actual clockings/totals when looking at timesheets and reports.