Work patterns
Work Patterns
LeaveWizard supports flexible work (shift) patterns suitable for full time and part time staff. Multiple virtual representations of actual work patterns can be created. These work patterns can be assigned to locations, work groups or to users. With precedence in that order, i.e. An assigned user work pattern overrides a work group one which in turn overrides a location work pattern assignment. If no work pattern is assigned the default company work pattern is used for the user.
Users can see which work pattern has been assigned to them by looking at the My Allowance / Allowances section of their Dashboard or the Allowance tab of their My Leave page.
Managing work patterns
The management of work patterns is available to Administrators from 'Settings' on the main menu. Select the 'Work Patterns' sub menu. From this page you can create new, edit existing and delete work patterns as well as set the default work pattern.
The page lists all the work patterns that have been defined and are available. Initially, when the company is created the system creates a work pattern named '7 days (5 work, 2 off)' automatically. As the sole work pattern it becomes the default. Although this work pattern can be modified we recommend that is not done and that new work patterns are created as needed.
For each work pattern there is a list of the days in the pattern and the hours worked on each day. Working days are shown in bold and non-working days in normal text.
Details
This section displays the work pattern name and the work pattern start day.
Day Based allowances
This section lists the days in the sequence, if the day is a half or full day and the total number of days worked. In this example, 5 days are worked in a sequence of 7 days, starting on a Monday.
Hour based allowances
This section lists the hours worked for each day in the sequence. In this example, 8 hours are worked for each of the 5 working days giving a total of 40 hours in the 7 day sequence. The hours worked are only applicable to hour based leave allowance calculations.
New work pattern
A new work pattern can be created by clicking the 'New Work Pattern' button on the sub-menu.
Name
This field allows you to enter a descriptive name for the work pattern. We recommend that you use a name that describes the work pattern rather than the users that use it, i.e. '2 day week Tue & Wed'.
Base on work pattern
This setting allows you to select a template work pattern from the drop down box that most closely represents the work pattern you intend to create. The work pattern you create can be edited to match your exact requirements so this base template is just a starting point which helps speed up the process.
Start Day
This setting allows you to select a day of the week, Monday - Sunday, from the drop down box that the work pattern starts on.
Ignore Public Holidays
This setting allows you to specify if LeaveWizard should ignore public holidays when calculating event duration for users on this work pattern, e.g. any existing Public Holidays will not reduce event duration.
Work Pattern Preview
The work pattern preview gives a visual guide to how the work pattern will look. It is a fully functional calendar with which you can navigate to whatever month and year you choose.
The first day of each repeated pattern is circled. The calendar day number is shown in bold for work days and grayed out for for non working days. A superscript numeral shows the order in the pattern sequence for each day. In the example shown the pattern is for 7 days starting on a Monday. So, each Monday is circled and has a superscript '1' and Tuesdays have superscript '2', etc. Monday to Friday are working days and shown in bold.
Edit work pattern
A work pattern can be edited by clicking the 'Edit' button on the right hand side of the listing for that entry. If we create a new work pattern, using the technique described above, named 'Half Day Mon, Tue & Wed', based on the '7 days (3 work, 4 off)' template...
we can then edit it.
The fields Name, Start Day and Ignore Public Holidays which were entered when creating the work pattern are displayed and can be edited. The Work Pattern Preview is also displayed and will change to reflect edits that are made. An additional section, Work Pattern Days, is now available to edit the work times in detail for each day of the work pattern
Work Pattern Days - Display Mode
This section displays a list of all the days in the pattern and information about the hours worked on each day.
This displays a number representing the order in the sequence of the day.
This is the work day start time.
This is the time at which an AM half day ends and a PM half day starts applicable to day based leave types.
This is the lunch break start time.
This defines the lunch break duration and in conjunction with the Lunch Start Time, the lunch end time. It can be set to 0 if there is no lunch break.
This is the work day finish time.
This defines if the day should be counted as a working day (True) or not (False).
This defines if the day should be counted as a half day (True) or not (False). This setting will only be used for day based allowance leave types. It will have no impact on calculating duration for leave types using hour based allowance for which the specified start, finish and lunch times will be used.
At the top and bottom of the Work Pattern Days are 3 action buttons.
Clicking this button will extend the work pattern sequence length by 7 days.
Remove last 7 days
Clicking this button will reduce the work pattern sequence length by 7 days.
Multi edit
You can edit a single day by clicking the 'pencil' icon on the far right hand side of each day or you can click 'Multi edit' to edit all days simultaneously.
Assigning work patterns
Work Pattern Days - Edit Mode
We can now edit the information provided by the '7 days (3 work, 4 off)' template used to create the required 'Half Day Mon, Tue & Wed' work pattern. Assuming we want Monday to be a half day working until 13:00 we can make the necessary changes by clicking the 'pencil icon' on Day 1.
The appearance of Work Pattern Days will change with all fields of Day 1 becoming editable except for the Day sequence number. The edit icon becomes a 'tick' and a 'cross' icon to either accept or reject the edits. The 3 buttons at the top and bottom of the section change to become 2 new buttons 'Update' and 'Cancel'.
To create a work pattern where Day 1, Monday, starts at 8:30 and ends at 13:00, set 'Lunch Duration' to '00h 00m' and 'Half Day Time', 'Lunch Start Time' and 'Finish Time' to '13:00'. To set as a half day check the 'Is Half Day' tick box. Then click the 'tick' icon or 'Update' to finish the edit.
If the finish time on Tuesday and Wednesday is 17:00 rather than 17:30 then you can edit these by using the 'pencil' icon on each line separately or using the 'multi edit' button as shown.
Once editing is complete click Submit to finish. You now have a completed new 2.5 day, 19.5 hour work pattern.
Accommodating Complex Work Patterns
Work patterns on LeaveWizard are based on week long (7 day) periods. If you need to create a cyclical work pattern which is not based on week periods, such as a '4 days on, 4 days off' repeating work pattern then you need to define a long work pattern that 'fits' into an exact number of weeks, i.e. a multiple of the cycle that is divisible by 7 (7 day week). The example of '4 days on, 4 days off' is an 8 day cycle. We would need to create a 56 day work pattern to define this where 56 is exactly divisible by 8 and 7. If you need help with these complex work pattern please contact our customer support team who will be glad to advise.
The default work pattern
In the list of work patterns one is marked as 'default'. The others have a link to 'Set as default'. In this way there is only one default work pattern and a link can be clicked to change the default. Any work pattern can be used as the default and it is not possible to delete the current default work pattern.
Changing work patterns will impact on user allowances. When a user is assigned a work pattern the hours or days worked are compared to the default work pattern to calculate their annual allowance. So, ignoring other factors, if the default work pattern is 4 working days and the user work pattern is 2 working days. Then for a day based Holiday leave type with an annual allowance of 20 days, their calculated allowance would be 10 days.
Please note, that at present, LeaveWizard will use the current work pattern assigned to the user to calculate the allowance for the whole year. Therefore, if a user changes work pattern mid leave year the recommended course of action is to end their employment and start them as a new user, transferring their remaining allowance across. This will correctly calculate and apportion the allowances. Please contact our customer support team if you need further advice.
Changing work patterns will impact on user allowances. When a user is assigned a work pattern the hours or days worked are compared to the default work pattern to calculate their annual allowance. So, ignoring other factors, if the default work pattern is 4 working days and the user work pattern is 2 working days. Then for a day based Holiday leave type with an annual allowance of 20 days, their calculated allowance would be 10 days.
Please note, that at present, LeaveWizard will use the current work pattern assigned to the user to calculate the allowance for the whole year. Therefore, if a user changes work pattern mid leave year the recommended course of action is to end their employment and start them as a new user, transferring their remaining allowance across. This will correctly calculate and apportion the allowances. Please contact our customer support team if you need further advice.
Assigning work patterns
The default work pattern is the company work pattern unless overridden.
A work pattern can also be defined for all users in a location or all users in a work group on the Organization And Employees page by editing the location or work group.
The work pattern for an individual user can be assigned on their Employee Details page which can also be accessed from the Organization And Employees page by clicking on the user name link on the left hand side of the member list.
A work pattern can also be defined for all users in a location or all users in a work group on the Organization And Employees page by editing the location or work group.
The work pattern for an individual user can be assigned on their Employee Details page which can also be accessed from the Organization And Employees page by clicking on the user name link on the left hand side of the member list.