Shift Templates Overview

The Shift Templates feature provides a method for you to efficiently perform the following tasks:

Set up patterns of work called shift templates, and using security rights, control the ability to view, add, update, delete, and assign them.

Designate shift templates as public, available to users with appropriate security rights, or as private, available to only the user who created them.

Assign shift templates to employees or positions.

Automatically apply the shifts to generate schedules for employees and positions. However, you can still enter schedules manually.

Your security rights determine the information you can view, add, edit, and delete in TimeSaver. For an overview of security information, see Security Overview.

TimeSaver uses three labor levels and provides flexibility for naming the labor levels. Throughout TimeSaver documentation you will see the default names for the levels: Site, Department and Position. If you see a different name on your TimeSaver web page, it is because your organization is using the flexible labelling feature. For more information, see Labels for Labor Levels.

For a brief demonstration of the Shift Templates feature see the Shift Templates Demonstration topic.

Accessing the Module

Starting from the TimeSaver home page, make the following selections:

Employee Management Tools area ~ Scheduling link ~ Shift Templates link

Assigning and Applying Shift Templates

To assign shift templates to employees, you must have the following security rights set up:

Update rights to the Scheduling Screen security function. If you do not have update rights to the Scheduling screen security function, then the Assign Template button is grayed and unavailable.

Run/execute rights to the Private Shift Template process. Even if you do not have access to the Public Shift Template process, you can still assign private shift templates.

Minimum of view rights to the Public Shift Template process.

If any of the following conditions fails as the apply shift templates process runs, then TimeSaver does not add shifts to employee schedules and writes error messages to the log file:

You cannot apply overlapping shifts for pay to schedule employees.

You can apply overlapping shifts for employees only if their setup allows overlapping shifts.

You cannot apply shifts for terminated or inactive employees.

You cannot apply shifts in a closed pay period. However, you can apply shifts in a signed-off pay period if you did not select the Prevent Editing of Punches for Signed-Off Employees option in your setup.

TimeSaver applies shifts to schedules only when they comply with your shift increment and minimum shift length settings.

TimeSaver rejects and rounds shifts based on your shift increment setting and the ODI Scheduled Shifts Import and Employee Shift Template setting.

TimeSaver applies shifts to selected Department-Positions only on days that they are effective when assigning and applying a template to department-positions.

Viewing the Status of Shift Template Requests

After processing shift template requests, you can view the status of requests in the Request List area of the TimeSaver home page under Shift Template Status.

Deleting Shift Template Requests

After TimeSaver processes shift template requests, you can delete the requests from the Request List area of the TimeSaver home page under Shift Template Status. You can delete requests with a status of Pending, Processing Completed, and Completed with Errors. Alternately, on assigning and applying shift template pages, you can click Delete next to the Assignments field to delete the selected shift template request.