Ensure you and your managers are scheduling compliant shifts based on your business and earnings rule requirements with Workforce.com’s schedule validation feature.
Customize the values, and choose to warn managers, or block publishing of the shifts when certain validations have been breached.
This help guide covers:
Validations on the schedule
When schedule validations are enabled, they'll appear on a shift with an orange or red icon:
Orange is a warning that a validation has been breached, but shifts can still be published
Red shows that a shift validation is breached, and cannot be published
Clicking on the icons that appear will show the validation rules the shift has breached, as well as the recommended scheduling practices to resolve the errors.
When a shift has breached a custom validation rule set, the relevant set name will be included in the description (in the example above, the Casual validations rule set has been breached).
Block schedule publishing
Certain validations can be configured to prevent shifts from being published until validation errors have been resolved. This blocking setting applies to all users, irrespective of permission levels.
Should a user attempt to publish a schedule breaching the validations, the Publish button will be disabled until the errors are resolved. All other shifts can be published by deselecting the affected Teams or Staff.
Validation toggles
Customize All Staff validations to determine which should warn managers, and which should block schedule publishing.
The Blocking toggle cannot be switched on without the Enabled toggle also being on.
Each of these validations, including where the related value is configured in your account, have been explained below:
Validation name | Description | Where to configure |
Shift Clash | Triggered when two shifts are overlapping |
|
Leave Clash | Triggered when a shift overlaps a pending or approved leave |
|
Unavailability Clash | Triggered when a shift is scheduled with overlapping pending or approved leave |
|
RDO Clash | A shift is overlapping with a scheduled day off |
|
Preferred Hours Under | Total hours scheduled for a week are less than half the total preferred hours by an employee | 'Preferred weekly hours for scheduling' field under the Personal tab in staff profiles
|
Preferred Hours Over | Total hours scheduled for a week exceed the total preferred hours by an employee | 'Preferred weekly hours for scheduling' field under the Personal tab in staff profiles
|
Qualification Invalid | A qualification is expired, pending approval, not currently effective, or has had maximum hours breached | Qualifications tab in staff profiles |
Overtime | The scheduled shift will incur an overtime rate or penalty | Applicable earnings rules and overtime rates for each employee found in 'Earnings Rules' on staff profiles |
Under Scheduled | Total hours scheduled do not meet an employee's contracted minimum hours | Based on the value under Employee Profile > Regular Hours > Edit regular hours > Minimum base hours
|
Missing Regular Hours of Work | Staff that have permanent part-time shift acceptance applying do not have regular hours configured | Add regular hours under the Regular Hours tab of employee profiles |
Unfilled Regular Hours of Work | Scheduled shifts do not match the regular hours configured on staff profiles | Based on values under the Regular Hours tab of employee profiles |
Breaks Don't Match Automatic Break Rules | When automatic break rules have been enabled in your account, any manual breaks that do not match will be flagged | Configure break rules through Settings > All Settings > Shift Breaks |
Consecutive Days Off | An employee doesn't have two consecutive days off in a week |
|
Additional validations
On top of the above toggles, schedule validations can be based on specific values, and configured to apply to individual staff.
Default rule set
A default validation rule set will apply to all staff not covered by a custom rule set.
Here, you can enter values for:
Maximum shift lengths (in hours)
Minimum shift lengths (in hours)
Minimum hours between shifts (in hours)
Earliest start time for a shift
Latest finish time for a shift
Maximum number of shifts per week
Maximum number of hours per week
Maximum number of shifts per day
Maximum span of hours per day (for back-to-back/multiple shifts in one day)
Maximum hours in a day
Set these validations to block schedule publishing with the toggle underneath.
Custom rule sets
You may wish to apply certain validations to only a few staff based on employment type, age, mutual agreements, and other factors.
When creating a new validation rule set, you'll need to enter:
Name of the validation
Who it applies to
When it applies
Validations they should receive
Any overtime conditions that should be blocking
Who it applies to
For custom validation rule sets, you can restrict who it applies to based on:
Minimum and maximum ages
Classification tags
Locations they work at
Hover over the x employees match these filters box to see which staff will have these rules applied.
When it applies
Applicable days or periods that the rules should apply can be based on:
Date ranges (Note: date ranges must apply to the full week selected)
Days of the week
Leaving this section empty will have the validation rules apply to the relevant staff at all times.
Validations they should receive
Value-based validations are split into two sections - shift validations that look at the individual shifts, and schedule validations that look at an entire schedule week. Values can be entered for:
Maximum shift lengths (in hours)
Minimum shift lengths (in hours)
Minimum hours between shifts (in hours)
Earliest start time for a shift
Latest finish time for a shift
Maximum number of shifts per week
Maximum number of hours per week
Maximum number of shifts per day
Maximum span of hours per day (for back-to-back/multiple shifts in one day)
Maximum hours in a day
Breaches to these conditions can be set to block publishing with the toggle below.
Overtime conditions that should be blocking
Customize which overtime conditions or penalty rates, based on your Earnings Rule template, should block schedule publishing.
Blocking can be set for the following overtime conditions:
After certain hours per day worked
After a certain span of hours per day
After certain hours worked in a period
Beyond set fixed hours for part-time staff
Minimum scheduled work hours per day
Minimum scheduled work hours per week
After certain days worked in a week
After certain days worked in the second week
After certain days worked in a period
After consecutive days worked (in an overtime period)
Rest between shifts
Minimum break during shifts
These conditions are based on the values against each earnings rule template the applicable staff for the rule set are on. View the values of specific earnings rule templates through Compliance > Manage next to the template > Edit in the Ordinary Business Hours or Maximum Shift Length boxes.