The Settings menu is organized into the following areas:
How to edit your organisation settings
Settings can only be viewed and edited by users with the Admin permission level.
To access your settings, select Settings from the top-right of your Workforce.com account. This opens the searchable Settings hub, where settings are grouped by feature.
Changes do not take effect until you click Update Settings at the bottom of the relevant settings page.
1. General
1. Go to Settings > All Settings > General.
General
Bank Holiday Region
Choose where your business is based, so bank holiday rates are paid on the right dates. To see the bank holidays included for your region, click Show pre-built public holidays.
Bank holiday dates
Click + Add holiday date to add any extra dates paid at bank holiday rates, such as regional holidays. You can also set bank holidays for each location. To decide whether someone gets bank holiday rates, Workforce.com checks their default team’s location first, then this setting.
📝 Important to note: Adding dates here tells Workforce.com when bank holidays are. It doesn’t add paid holiday leave to timesheets. To do that automatically, edit your bank holiday leave type under Manage Leave Types and choose to apply it on all or selected bank holidays.
If you see Holidays are missing for location: [location names] at the top of the page, those locations don’t have bank holidays set up. Choose a Bank Holiday Region, or set the region on those locations.
Enable shift feedback
Enable shift feedback
Collect shift feedback from staff in the mobile app. Each week, staff get a short survey asking what went well and what didn’t. You can see the results in the Feedback Report, and choose the topics with Edit Shift Feedback Categories. For more detail, click How it works.
Cost settings
Salary allocation
Choose how a salaried employee’s pay is split across their shifts, so rota and timesheet costs are accurate:
Split evenly by rostered days: weekly salary ÷ the number of rostered days
Split using an hourly rate: weekly salary ÷ contracted weekly hours (or rostered hours if there are no contracted hours)
Split salary evenly by days in year: yearly salary ÷ the number of days in the year
Split using an hourly rate enhanced: like the hourly rate, but it also costs overtime and bank holiday rules. Contracted hours are required.
For more detail, see Salary allocation methods explained.
Allocate Salary On a Weekly Basis
Work out salary costs each week, instead of over the whole pay period. This gives consistent weekly costs, whatever your pay frequency.
Business date cutoff
Shifts that start before this time are counted on the previous day in reports. For example, with the default of 04:00, a shift starting at 2am on Saturday counts towards Friday. You can also set a different cutoff for each location.
Advanced
Click Show Advanced Settings... to see these.
Show weekends on timesheets and rotas
It’s on by default. If you turn it off, Saturdays and Sundays are hidden on the rota. On timesheets, weekend days only appear if someone has a shift or leave that day.
Session Inactivity Timeout (Days)
How long someone can be inactive before they need to log in again, up to 30 days. The default is 30 days.
Enforce Two Factor Authentication
Require two-factor authentication for everyone with manager-level permissions or higher. See Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).
Auto generate payroll ID
Give new employees a payroll ID automatically. It’s one higher than the highest existing ID, and never less than 1000.
Use Daily Sales Forecasts
Enter sales forecasts as a single figure for each day, instead of in smaller time periods.
📝 Note: Changes only take effect when you click Update Settings. To see who changed what, open Settings History at the bottom of the page.
2. Permissions
1. Go to Settings > All Settings > Permissions
These settings change what managers and employees can do. To change permission levels in more detail, see Advanced below.
Manager Permissions
Allow team managers to see staff costs
Team Managers can see costs on rotas, staff profiles and timesheets, for staff they manage. If this is off, you can still turn on Can see staff costs for individual managers on their profile.
Keep manager costs visible in total rota costs
Include Team Managers’ wages in total rota costs.
⚠️ Important: Managers may be able to work out other managers’ wages by adding and removing shifts and watching the total change.
Protect manager data (salaries, hourly rates & performance reviews)
Hide managers’ wages and performance reviews from other managers, even if they can see them on the rota. Managers can still see employees’ wages and reviews. General Managers can still see Team Managers’ wages and reviews.
Allow team managers to edit/approve their own timesheets
If this is off, Team Managers can still see their own timesheet, but can’t edit their times or approve it.
Receive qualification update alerts
Choose which permission levels get alerts about employees’ qualifications. Team Managers and General Managers only get alerts for staff they manage.
Receive compliance document expiry alerts
Choose which permission levels get alerts when compliance documents are about to expire. Team Managers only get alerts for documents linked to their locations, or documents with no location.
Employee Permissions
📝 Note: For the timesheet settings below, employees also need Enable Workforce.com Login ticked on their profile to use them in My Workforce.com.
Allow employees to make changes to all timesheet fields
Employees can change allowances and other timesheet fields, for example to enter a travel allowance. Changes still need a manager’s approval.
Allow employees to add times to their own timesheets
Employees can enter clock-in times they missed, for example if they forgot to clock in at the Time Clock.
Allow employees to view their Timesheet Export Summary
Employees can see their total hours, allowances and pay rates chart on their timesheets.
Allow employees to clock breaks
Staff at any permission level can clock breaks.
Allow employees to see their own estimated wages
Employees can see estimated pay for their own rostered shifts.
Employees can view the full rota
Employees can see who’s working each day. Under Select view preference, choose The teams they work in or The locations they work in.
Allow employees to enter leave requests
Employees can request leave in the mobile app, and in My Workforce.com if they have login access. See Manage Leave Requests.
Allow employees to view the full leave calendar
Employees can see the leave calendar for their teams or their whole location. The reason for leave is hidden.
Allow employees to enter their availability (on some accounts: Allow employees to enter unavailability)
Employees can enter when they can or can’t work in the mobile app, and in My Workforce.com if they have login access.
Allow employees to update qualifications
Employees can update expiry dates, effective dates and documents for their own qualifications. Changes need a manager’s approval.
Allow employees to edit UK tax declaration (UK only)
Employees can update their tax code, NI category and student loan details in self-service. If this is off, only admins can change them.
Advanced
Default passcode length
The length of the Time Clock passcode new employees are given automatically.
Advanced Permissions
To change what each permission level can do, or create your own, click Customise access & roles here. See Assign Permissions to Staff and Customise Roles & Permission Levels.
📝 Note: Changes only take effect when you click Update Settings.
3. Shift Breaks
1. Go to Settings > All Settings > Shift Breaks
Automatic breaks
Enable break rules
Automatically add paid or unpaid breaks to shifts, based on how long they are. When it’s on, you’ll also see these settings:
Require staff to nominate which break they are taking: when staff clock a break, they choose which one it is. They only see the break rules that apply to them.
Enforce minimum break durations: staff can’t clock back in until their break time is up. This only shows when the setting above is ticked.
Paid meal breaks are worked time: time on paid meal breaks counts towards overtime rules.
Click Save to save these settings.
Break rule sets
Break rule sets decide when breaks apply, how long they are, whether they’re paid, and whether staff need to clock them. They only show when Enable break rules is on.
Default rule set: applies to everyone whose shifts don’t match a more specific rule set.
Custom rule sets: click + Add new rule set to create rules for a group of staff. Each rule set shows how many employees it applies to.
Priority: rule sets are numbered, for example “1. 30 UP Break”, and number 1 has the highest priority. If someone matches more than one rule set, only the highest-priority one applies. Rule sets aren’t combined. Drag a rule set by its dots to change the order.
For step-by-step instructions and examples, see Automatic Breaks.
History
At the bottom of the page, open Settings version history to see changes to these settings, or a rule set’s own history (for example Default rule set history) to see who changed its rules and when.
Roster cognitive breaks
Add cognitive breaks when rotas are built automatically.
📝 Note: To let staff clock breaks on the Time Clock or app, turn on Allow employees to clock breaks in Settings > Permissions.
4. Timesheets
1. Go to Settings > All Settings > Timesheets
General
Allow staff (in addition to managers) to approve their own timesheets via the mobile app
Staff can confirm their timesheet is correct, or ask for a change, in the mobile app. Choose which staff this applies to by tag, or All tags. Change requests don’t stop timesheets being exported. For more detail, click How it works.
To switch between 12-hour and 24-hour time, each person changes it on their own profile.
Salaried Staff Automatic Timesheets
Automatically create timesheets for salaried employees
Timesheets are created automatically for salaried staff, based on their regular hours of work, and they can edit their own timesheets. Use Exclude Position Titles to leave out certain roles.
Custom Export Dates
Enable Custom Export Dates
Adds a date picker to the export to payroll page, so you can export timesheets for any date range, for example for monthly or quarterly payroll.
Shift Auto Approval
Automatic approval for shifts that match the rota exactly
Shifts that match the rota are approved automatically, so managers only need to check the ones that don’t. When it’s on, choose the conditions that should stop a shift being approved automatically.
Shift Variance Approval
Require shift Variance approval
If a shift’s worked times are different from the rota, a manager has to add a comment before approving it. Shifts approved through the API are still approved as usual.
Shift Ratings
Prompt managers to rate each shift
When approving shifts, managers are asked to give a star rating. You’ll see ratings on staff profiles and on the rota, to help choose the best person for each shift.
Shift Checks
Enable shift checks
Shows payroll checks on staff shifts before they’re approved. Click Configure checks to choose which checks to run.
Remote Clock-ins
Allow staff to clock-in remotely using the Workforce mobile app
When this is on, choose which teams can use it under Teams allowed to use remote clock in.
Face Detection
Enable face detection
Staff must pass face detection on Android Time Clock devices before they can clock in.
Clock-in Blocking Checks
Enable clock-in blocking checks
Staff can’t clock in if they fail any of the checks you tick:
Employee hasn’t finished onboarding
Employee needs to sign contract
Employee has an unacknowledged document
Employee has an unacknowledged announcement
Employee’s start date of employment is in the future
Employee’s end date of employment is in the past
These checks don’t run for offline clock-ins.
Clock-in Time Rounding and Clock-out Time Rounding
Rounding changes clock-in and clock-out times on timesheets. Leave these blank if you don’t want rounding. You can set clock-in and clock-out separately.
Rounding of times (minutes): how many minutes to round by.
Use smart clock-in rounding: only round clock-ins forward. For clock-outs, Use smart clock-out rounding only rounds backward.
Round clock-ins/clock-outs to scheduled times: round to the rostered start or finish time, if it’s within the minutes you set.
For example, with 10 minutes and both options ticked:
For a shift rostered from 9:00am:
an 8:46am clock-in isn’t rounded, so it’s paid from 8:46am
an 8:54am or 8:56am clock-in is rounded to 9:00am
a 9:04am clock-in isn’t rounded, so it’s paid from 9:04am
For a shift rostered until 5:00pm:
a 4:56pm clock-out isn’t rounded, so it’s paid until 4:56pm
a 5:04pm or 5:06pm clock-out is rounded to 5:00pm
a 5:14pm clock-out isn’t rounded, so it’s paid until 5:14pm
If someone isn’t rostered, their clock-ins and clock-outs aren’t rounded. The page shows an example like this as you change the settings.
Break Clock-out Rounding
Only round breaks using break threshold
Tick this if you don’t want breaks to use the clock-in and clock-out rounding above.
Round up break threshold (minutes)
If a clocked break is up to this many minutes shorter than a “clock-in required” break rule, the break’s finish time is rounded up to the full break length. For example, with 5 minutes, a 27-minute clocked break on a 30-minute rule is recorded as 30 minutes. Set it to 0 to turn break rounding off.
Wage Compare
Enable Wage Compare
Turns on the Wage Compare Report, which compares how timesheets are paid under two different classification setups.
No Shows
Enable No Shows
Managers can mark a rostered shift as a no show when someone doesn’t turn up. Click Edit Reasons to set the reasons managers can choose from.
Manage Pay Periods
Click Manage Pay Periods to create or change timesheet pay periods.
Advanced
Click Show Advanced Settings... to see these.
Enable team switching: staff can clock out of one shift and straight into their next one, in a different team.
Show an extra dropdown to adjust shift cost (Award Tag): adds a tag dropdown to timesheets, for setting up specific earnings rules, such as higher duties.
Maximum shift length (hours) and Minimum duration between shifts (hours): help Workforce.com decide whether a clock-in belongs to the same shift or a new one. These should match your earnings rules. The defaults are 14 hours and 8 hours.
Use Overtime Averaging Period for Minimum Paid Hours calculations: work out minimum paid hours over the overtime averaging period, instead of the pay period.
Include future leave hours in overtime calculations: count approved leave later in the overtime period towards the overtime threshold. By default, only leave earlier in the period counts. See the example below.
Use strict calendar date boundaries: put shifts into timesheets and overtime periods strictly by calendar date. Shifts that run past midnight aren’t grouped together.
Enable monthly overtime: work out overtime over a month, then choose the Monthly overtime starting day.
Overtime averaging period (weeks) (only shows when Enable monthly overtime is off): how many weeks overtime is worked out over, for example 1 for weekly or 2 for fortnightly. It can be different from your timesheet length. If you change it, update the overtime hours in your earnings rules to match, for example 80 hours for 2 weeks. If you use an earnings rules template, set this on the template instead.
Minimum interval between clock-ins (minutes): if someone clocks in more than once within this time, only the last clock-in is kept. Set it to 0 to turn this off. The default is 0.
Overtime: an example
Workforce.com works out overtime day by day through the overtime period. Overtime is only paid on hours worked, not on leave.
If overtime starts after 40 hours a week, and someone works 28.5 hours from Monday to Wednesday, with 16 hours of annual leave at the weekend:
Include future leave hours off: they only pass 40 hours on Sunday, which is leave, so there’s no overtime.
Include future leave hours on: the weekend leave is counted when working out Wednesday, so 4.5 hours of Wednesday become overtime.
Only leave types set to Ordinary hours, without Does not count as hours towards overtime rules ticked, are counted. Changing this setting updates timesheets that haven’t been exported yet.
📝 Note: Changes only take effect when you click Update Settings.
5. Leave
1. Go to Settings > All Settings > Leave
Availability
Minimum number of days notice required for availability
Staff can’t enter availability closer to today than this many days. For example, with 7, they can’t change their availability for the next 7 days.
Require approval for availability requests
Availability requests need a manager’s approval. If you turn this off, requests are approved automatically, but managers are still told about them.
Enable changes to ongoing availability
Staff can change their usual weekly availability. If you turn this off, staff are always available by default.
Enable changes to temporary availability
Staff can submit short-term changes to their availability, for example for two weeks.
Leave
Display Predicted Leave Accruals
When staff request leave, they see what their balance is predicted to be, so they can decide whether to go ahead. Managers also see it before approving. For more detail, click How it works.
Leave proration method
Choose whether leave balances are worked out by Monthly or Daily precision. Monthly is the default. See Starting Leave Balances.
Cost leave requests on weekends
Tick this if Saturday and Sunday are working days for your business, so weekend leave is costed and exported.
Default leave hours per full day of leave
How many hours a full day of leave is, for example 8. It’s used when you request leave for an employee, and for earnings rules that add leave automatically.
No default leave hours
If there are no autofill settings that apply, staff must enter how many hours of leave they’re taking.
Send daily update emails to...
Every morning, a summary of new leave requests is emailed to Nobody, Admins, Employee’s team managers, or Admins & employee’s team managers. Managers only get it if they’ve logged in within the past 30 days.
Recent Pattern Lookback Period (weeks) and Minimum Days Worked Required
These are used by the Recent pattern of approved shifts autofill option (see below):
Lookback period: how many weeks of approved shifts to check. The default is 5.
Minimum days worked: how many days someone must have worked in that time for the pattern to be used. The default is 3.
Leave year start date
The date your leave year starts, for example 1 April. Leave requests outside the current leave year don’t affect balances. Setting a leave year also lets you add starting balances. See Starting Leave Balances.
You can also set a different leave year start date for individual staff. If you change the date, you’ll be asked when the new date should apply.
Autofill leave requests
Choose how the hours on a leave request are filled in automatically, for different groups of staff.
Click + New.
Who it applies to: choose the tags for the staff this applies to.
How leave requests are autofilled: choose what to fill from first, then what to use if that doesn’t exist:
Published roster
Unpublished roster
Regular hours of work
Recent pattern of approved shifts
It saves automatically.
If none of these exist for someone, their leave is filled using the Default leave hours per full day of leave.
📝 Note: If you choose Recent pattern of approved shifts, any options below it are switched off. To use more than one option, drag it lower in the list.
For more help with leave, see Manage Leave Requests.
📝 Note: Changes only take effect when you click Update Settings at the bottom of the page.
6. Organisation Notifications
Notifications & Tasks
Go to Settings > Notifications & Tasks. There are two tabs: Key Alerts and Scheduled Tasks.
Key Alerts
Key Alerts let people know when something needs attention. Each alert has its own tab:
Alert | When it’s sent |
Late to work | An employee hasn’t clocked in for a rostered shift |
Late to clock out | An employee hasn’t clocked out after their rostered shift has finished |
Didn’t clock break | An employee hasn’t clocked a break they’re required to take |
Overtime risk | At the end of a shift, if the employee’s future rostered hours that week will put them into overtime |
Qualification maximum hours risk | As soon as an employee goes over their qualification’s maximum hours |
For each alert, choose who’s notified:
Alert the Employee: the employee who caused the alert.
Alert the manager: the manager clocked in for the employee’s team. If no managers in that team are clocked in, all managers in that team are alerted.
Alert the organisation admins: all admins.
Lenience sets how many minutes after the event the alert is sent, for example 5 minutes. To see past changes, click Show history.
📝 Note: Didn’t clock break can’t be used while automatic breaks are turned on. To use it, click Edit break settings and turn off Enable break rules. See 3. Shift Breaks.
Scheduled Tasks
Task | What it does |
Automatically Deactivate Staff | Deactivates staff at 11pm on their employment end date, if one is set on their profile |
Incomplete Timesheet Employee Reminder - Weekly | Emails staff at 7am every Monday if their timesheet for the previous week is incomplete |
Incomplete Timesheet Employee Reminder - Daily | Emails staff at 7am every day if their timesheet for the previous day is incomplete |
Turn each one on or off with its toggle. Admins are never deactivated automatically. See Deactivate a Staff Profile.
Customise Standard Emails
Go to Settings > Customise Standard Emails. You can change the wording of some emails Workforce.com sends to staff: the invitation to Workforce.com email, and the next steps email.
For each email, you can:
Preview: see what it looks like
Edit: change the wording, then click Save
Enable or Disable: choose whether your version or the standard version is sent
Reset: go back to the standard wording
The Customisation Status column shows whether your version is Enabled or Disabled.
SMS Log
Go to Settings > SMS Log. This shows the text messages your organisation has sent, with the time, recipient, message and delivery status. It also shows how many messages, and message parts, were sent.
You can search the messages, filter by status (All, Delivered or Other), and choose a date range. The last week is shown by default.
7. Shift Questions
Go to Settings > Shift Questions. This opens Device Management > Shift Questions.
Shift Questions ask staff a question when they clock in or out, or start or finish a break, for example “Why are you clocking in early?”. Your questions are listed with when they’re asked, for example Clock In or Clock Out. You choose what happens with the answer: add it as a timesheet comment, set a shift tag, or create an allowance. Click + Add new shift question to create one.
To stop staff clocking in too early, use Clock-in Restrictions instead (see 16. Time Clocks).
See Shift Questions.
8. Customise & Extend Workforce
This part of Settings is for turning features on, connecting other systems and changing how Workforce.com looks.
Feature management
Turn features on or off for your organisation. There are three tabs.
Workforce Management Features
Employee Self Service: staff can see and update their own payroll details in the app, such as bank details, address and emergency contacts. You get an email when someone changes their details.
Enable Leave Years: turns on leave years, starting balances, the leave balance report and automatic bank holidays.
Shift Replacements: staff can ask for a replacement through the app, and managers can send out available shifts. See Shift Replacements.
Team Groups: group teams together for rostering and reporting. You create groups when you edit a team, and they show on rotas and reports.
Tip Jars: record tips and share them out by hours worked in the team. Tips are paid as an allowance, and they aren’t included under Allowances on cost reports. See Tip Jars.
Payroll features
Advanced Payroll Fields: export timesheets for custom date ranges, pay someone adult rates whatever their age, and use the overtime averaging fields.
Allow Additional Rates: set a different pay rate for a location or team. You add it on the staff profile’s Pay Conditions tab.
Add-ons
Right To Work & DBS Checks: run checks through TrustID. These cost extra and are billed monthly. The current prices are shown on this page. See Right to Work.
Agency Staff: add seasonal workers, freelancers and temporary staff. See Agency Staff.
Integrations
Connect Workforce.com to other systems. There are three tabs:
Payroll Integrations
POS Integrations
Single Sign On: add a SAML or Azure provider so staff can log in with SSO.
Data Streams
Data Streams bring in figures like sales, transactions and headcount, and link them to your locations or teams. You can connect a POS or upload a CSV with Import Actuals Data or Import Predicted Data.
Roster Ratios: turn your data into staffing needs. For example, “1 per £100” means a team needs 1 staff member for every £100 of sales.
Stat Types: the kinds of data you bring in, such as Sales or Budget, and how each one is shown.
Sales: an overview of budgets, actual sales and forecast sales for each location and team.
To choose how forecasts use this data, go to Demand settings.
Custom Fields
Add your own fields to staff profiles. Click New Custom Field to create one. You fill in the fields on each staff profile.
Calendar Sync
Connect your Google or Outlook calendar so interviews you schedule sync to it automatically. Each person connects their own calendar.
API Documentation
Technical guides for developers building integrations with Workforce.com.
Configure Pay Checks
Choose how serious each payroll check is. Set each one to Blocking, Warning or Disabled. Checks are grouped by area, such as Organisation, Payroll Entity, Employee, Shift, Timesheet, Payslip and Leave Request. You can use Bulk actions to change a whole group at once. See Pay Checks.
Import & Export
Import or export staff, locations, teams, positions, pay conditions, custom events, roster rules and activity codes in bulk. You can also import timesheets and wage comparisons, and upload HR documents for staff in bulk.
Branding
Add your logos and choose your colours. They’re used in Workforce.com and on emails sent to staff.
Logos: a horizontal logo and a square logo, each up to 2MB (JPG, PNG or GIF). Emails use the horizontal logo.
Header: background and text colour.
Accent: the colour of buttons and the welcome panel on invite emails.
There’s an email preview at the bottom of the page. Click Reset to defaults to undo your changes.
9. Pay Checks
Pay checks look for missing or incorrect setup that could cause problems with payroll, such as missing leave types, missing public holidays or timeclocks being offline.
To change them, go to Settings > Configure Pay Checks.
The page is also under Reports > Workforce > Compliance > Central Pay Check Report.
The checks are grouped by area:
Organisation
Payroll Entity
Employee
Shift
Timesheet
Shift Break
Payslip
Tax Declaration
Pay Conditions
Team
Leave Request
For each check, choose one of these:
Blocking: the strictest setting, for problems that must be fixed.
Warning: the problem is flagged so you can review it.
Disabled: the check is turned off.
To change every check in a group at once, use Bulk actions.
See Pay Checks for more detail.
10. Dashboards
Go to Settings > Dashboards > Dashboard templates to choose which dashboards people in your organisation start with.
If you haven’t made any templates yet, you’ll see the Workforce defaults, for example Default and Labour & Ops. Everyone in your organisation gets these. Click Customise templates to change them.
To add a template, click New template.
For each template, you can see how many widgets it has and who it’s for. Click Edit to change it, or Remove to delete it.
To choose who gets a template, use Who gets this template?. You can choose everyone, or share it with certain people.
📝 Note: Changes to a template don’t affect anyone who already has their own copy of that dashboard. Removing a template doesn’t delete their copy either.
Only admins can see this section, and only if your organisation uses the new dashboard.
11. Onboarding
Go to Settings > Onboarding to set up how new staff onboard.
Employees must sign contract before onboarding
Tick this if new staff must sign their employment contract before they can finish the rest of their onboarding. It only applies when you send them a contract.
Click Update Settings to save.
For how to send contracts and documents, see Contracts & Documents. For how to onboard new staff, see Send an Employee Onboarding Invitation.
12. Rotas
The Rotas settings are split across five pages:
Rota settings
Rota Validations
Rota Agent Settings
Rota Planning
Demand settings
Rota settings
Go to Settings > Rotas > Rota settings. Click Update Settings to save your changes.
General
Show addresses of shifts in the mobile app: shows each shift’s location address in the app.
Each person chooses 12-hour or 24-hour time on their own profile, not here.
Shift Replacements and Swapping
Enable shift replacements: staff can ask for a replacement in the app when they can’t work a shift. When this is ticked, two more options appear:
Recipients of shift replacements can be chosen by staff: staff choose who on their team they’d like to replace them.
Shift replacements and swaps require manager approval
Allow staff to initiate one-to-one shift swaps: staff can ask to swap shifts with another team member. See Shift Swaps.
Minimum number of days notice required for shift replacements and swaps: staff can’t ask for a replacement or swap for a shift starting within this many days. Managers can still create them. Set it to 0 to turn this off.
See Shift Replacements.
Shift Acknowledgement
Enable Shift Acknowledgement: asks staff to confirm their shifts once the rota is published. See Shift Acknowledgement.
Vacant Shift Claiming
Enable vacant shift claiming: publish vacant shifts that staff can claim in the app. To publish one, the shift needs a team, a start time and an end time.
Vacant shift claiming requires manager approval: if this is unticked, shifts go to whoever claims first.
Secondary Teams: staff can be secondary members of a team and pick up its vacant shifts if the main team members can’t. You add secondary teams when you edit a staff member.
Vacant shifts aren’t sent to staff who already have a clashing shift or who have a blocking rota validation. See Vacant Shift Claiming.
Roster Building Features
Untick a feature to hide it from the rota and rota planning pages. Anything you’ve already set up isn’t deleted.
Enable roster patterns: repeating shift patterns you assign to staff.
Enable roster templates: save rotas and reuse them.
Enable build from regular hours: build shifts from staff’s regular hours.
Enable instant build: fill an empty rota by copying the last period and assigning available staff.
Enable roster ratios: turn your Data Streams into staffing needs for your teams.
Enable day part ratios: import staffing ratios to shape demand-based rotas.
Validation
Manage Roster Validations and Set Up Natural-Language Rules open the Rota Validations settings (see Rota Validations below).
Advanced (click Show Advanced Settings...)
Rota Start On: the day your rota week starts. A change can take up to an hour to process, so avoid editing rotas while it does. It’s best to change it at the end of the working day.
Use a consistent roster cycle start date for all users: changes the order regular hours are shown on staff profiles. It doesn’t change their existing regular hours.
Assisting Teams: staff from one team can count towards another team’s Predictive Workforce requirements.
📝 Note: Under Settings History, at the bottom of the page, you can see past changes to these settings.
Rota Validations
Check rotas against your organisation’s rules before they’re published. For each rule, you can choose:
Blocking: stops the rota being published.
Warning: highlights the problem.
Disabled: turns the rule off.
You can also set limits such as maximum shift length or hours per week, and add custom validations for some of your staff. See Rota Validations.
Rota Agent Settings
Give the Rota Agent standing instructions to follow every time it’s used.
Standing rules & knowledge: rules the agent applies whenever they’re relevant.
Session kickoff: what the agent does first, when you start a new build or start a chat about a rota.
Use Editing for to choose the whole organisation or a single location. A location’s own instructions are added on top of the organisation-wide ones and don’t replace them. Click Save Org-Wide Instructions to save.
Rota Planning
All your rota tools in one place, split into two parts:
Get Ready to Roster: for example Roster Patterns, Usual Roster, Manage Events, Shift Groups, Budgets and Data Streams.
Manage an Existing Roster: for example Shift Acceptance, Shift Claiming and Publish Requests.
Demand settings
Choose how sales are forecast, then click Update Settings. You can change this at any time.
Average of past dates: uses the average of past dates. By default this is the last 3 weeks, but you can choose any dates.
Use Workforce Forecasting: our forecasting tool predicts sales from your actual data.
Use your own forecasts: import your own forecasts by CSV, SFTP or the API.
13. Attendance
Go to Settings > Attendance. Click Update Settings to save your changes.
Punctuality
These settings decide when a clock-in or clock-out counts as on time in attendance stats.
Clock-in punctuality leeway: a clock-in within this many minutes after the shift starts still counts as on time. The default is 5 minutes.
Clock-out punctuality leeway: a clock-out within this many minutes before the shift ends still counts as on time. The default is 5 minutes.
Clock-in punctuality outliers: a clock-in more than this many minutes away from the rostered start time is left out of the stats completely. The default is 60 minutes.
Clock-out punctuality outliers: the same as above, for clock-outs. The default is 60 minutes.
📝 Note: These settings only change attendance stats, such as how often someone is late or leaves early. They don’t change timesheets or pay. To round clock-in times, use the rounding settings under Timesheets.
Point System
The point system gives staff points automatically for attendance, for example being late.
Tick Enable point system.
Click New Rule Set to set up your rules.
If someone doesn’t clock in, the Late rule with the most minutes is used. If you edit a timesheet, the points for the changed shifts are worked out again.
For more detail, see Point System, and Attendance Points Email Notifications.
📝 Note: Under Settings History, at the bottom of the page, you can see past changes to these settings.
14. Activities
Go to Settings > Activities. Click Update Settings to save your changes.
Activity Codes
Activity codes are the activities staff can record against their shifts. Click Manage Activity Codes to create and edit them.
Activities
Let workers clock their activities: staff record the activities they do during a shift from the time clock.
Autofill activities from the rostered schedule: if someone clocks a full shift without any activities, the activities from their rostered shift are copied across.
Extend the last copied activity to cover unrostered time: if someone works past their rostered finish, the last activity copied from the rota runs to the end of the shift. Activities that staff clock themselves are never changed.
📝 Note: Under Settings History, at the bottom of the page, you can see past changes to these settings.
See Activity Codes.
15. On-Cost Config
On-costs are extra employer costs on top of wages, such as employer pension contributions and National Insurance. Adding them makes the wage costs on your rotas and reports more accurate.
Go to Settings > On-Cost Config. Each on-cost is listed on the left. Click one to edit it, or click New config to add one.
For each on-cost, set:
Name: for example, Employer Pension Contribution.
Tags: the staff it applies to. Leave it empty to apply it to everyone.
Location: the locations it applies to. Leave it empty to apply it everywhere.
Value (%): the percentage added on top of wages.
Only apply on-cost to ordinary hours: the on-cost isn’t added to overtime.
Is a National Insurance (NI) on-cost: the on-cost only applies once someone’s earnings pass the NI threshold. Turn this on for employer National Insurance.
To remove an on-cost, click Delete on-cost config.
📝 Note: On-costs only change the costs shown in Workforce.com. They don’t change what staff are paid.
📝 Note: Under Settings History, at the bottom of the page, you can see past changes.
16. Time Clocks
Go to Settings > Time Clocks. The Device Management area has five pages.
Time Clocks
See all your Time Clock devices, with each one’s location, app version, when it was last heard from and its status. A warning shows at the top if any are offline.
Search by device name or location.
Filter by All, Offline or No issues.
Click Clock-ins to see a device’s clock-ins.
To add a device, click Activate new Time Clock.
Mobile Time Clocks
The mobile app devices staff use to clock in, shown in the same layout as Time Clocks.
Deactivated Time Clocks
Time Clocks that are no longer in use.
Shift Questions
Ask staff a question when they clock in or out, or start or finish a break, for example “Why are you clocking in early?”. You choose what happens with the answer: add it as a timesheet comment, set a shift tag, or create an allowance. Click + Add new shift question to create one. See Shift Questions.
Clock-in Restrictions
Stop staff clocking in or out outside the times you set, for example too early before their shift. Click + Add new restriction, then choose:
where it applies (Time Clock or mobile app)
which action to block
when to block it
who it applies to
how many minutes of lenience to allow
17. Communications
Go to Settings > Communications. Click Update Settings to save your changes.
Chat Settings
Enable Live Chat: turns on direct chats between staff, and group chats for teams or locations. If you turn it off, you can still send announcements.
Who can employees start chats with? Choose No one, Employees in teams they are in, Employees in locations they work at or Anyone.
Who can managers start chats with? Choose No one, Employees in teams they manage, Employees at locations where they manage a team or Anyone.
These two settings only control who someone can start a new chat with. Staff can always reply in a chat someone else started with them.
Push Notifications
When should staff receive push notifications for posts in chats? Choose Never, While clocked in, While clocked in or rostered or Anytime. Staff can change this for individual chats.
When should staff receive push notifications for announcements? Choose from the same options. This doesn’t affect email notifications.
Send push notifications to staff while they are on leave: if you turn this off, staff on leave don’t get push notifications.
Outside the times you choose, no push notifications are sent. Staff can still read their messages in the app.
📝 Note: Under Settings History, at the bottom of the page, you can see past changes to these settings.
FAQs
Who can change these settings?
Who can change these settings?
Only people with the Admin permission level.
How do I set up leave years and starting balances?
How do I set up leave years and starting balances?
First turn on Enable Leave Years in Settings > Customise & Extend Workforce > Feature management. Then set your Leave year start date in Settings > Leave. See Starting Leave Balances.
Why can’t a manager see costs or wages?
Why can’t a manager see costs or wages?
Turn on Allow team managers to see staff costs in Settings > Permissions, or turn on Can see staff costs on that manager’s profile.
Why can’t a manager see or edit another team’s rota?
Why can’t a manager see or edit another team’s rota?
Team Managers only see the teams they manage. On the manager’s profile, go to Teams and add the team under Manager of. See Assign Permissions to Staff.
Why is a break rule stopping me publishing the rota?
Why is a break rule stopping me publishing the rota?
A rota validation is set to Blocking. In Settings > Rotas > Rota Validations, change that validation (for example Minimum break during shifts) to Warning, or fix the shift.
Why can’t staff see a vacant shift?
Why can’t staff see a vacant shift?
To be published, a vacant shift needs a team, a start time and an end time. It isn’t sent to staff who already have a clashing shift or who have a blocking rota validation. See Vacant Shift Claiming.
Why can’t someone clock in?
Why can’t someone clock in?
Check two places:
Clock-in Blocking Checks in Settings > Timesheets. For example, they may not have finished onboarding.
Clock-in Restrictions in Settings > Time Clocks.