Managing work schedules efficiently is essential to ensure accurate time tracking, attendance, and overtime calculations for your employees.  

This article walks you through setting a default schedule, assigning schedules in bulk or individually, and updating existing schedules. It also covers how changes to schedules can impact attendance balances and reporting. 

By following the steps in this article, you can manage work schedules smoothly and keep your employee data consistent and up to date. 

Note:
We're transitioning to our new attendance policies system. Some steps, navigation paths, or settings may not match what you see in your account. For more information on the new Attendance policies, read this article.

Before you start

• To edit work schedules, you need permissions to Account configuration > Attendance.
• To assign work schedules, you need edit permissions to the Attendance data of the employee you're assigning the schedule to.
• Before editing any work schedule, and especially your default work schedule, ensure you understand the impact this has on your employees.

Assign work schedules

After creating work schedules, you must:

1. Select which of them should be the default work schedule for your employees.
2. Assign other work schedules to specific employees, either individually or in bulk.

Set the default work schedule

Every employee must have a working schedule assigned at all times. For this reason, the system needs a default working schedule set up. This schedule is automatically assigned to all employees from their hire date and affects their time off, attendance, and overtime calculations.

Before you set the default work schedule, keep in mind: 

• If you don't set a default schedule, the system assigns the first work schedule in your list as the default one.
• You can only set a fixed schedule as default. You cannot set a multi-week schedule as default.
• We recommend disabling the Deduct hours daily if no time is tracked for the default schedule. This usually results in a high number of deficit hours for most of your employees.
• If you set a new work schedule as the default, the system recalculates the attendance balance of all the employees on the schedule from 1 November 2025 onward.
• If you need to update the default work schedule, we recommend creating a duplicate of it. This avoids balance recalculations for most of your employees.

 Follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Attendance.
3. Click the work schedule you want to set as default.
4. Click Set as Default.
5. Save the changes.

Assign other work schedules

Before you assign a work schedule, keep in mind: 

• If you set the effective date in the current year and after the granting date for time off entitlements (usually on January 1st), the system recalculates the time off entitlements. This is relevant for time off policies that prorate by weekly working days.

Assign work schedules in bulk

To assign a work schedule to several employees at the same time, follow these steps:

1. Click Organization > People List.
2. Optional: Filter the employees to narrow your selection.
3. Tick the checkbox on the left of all the employees you want to assign the same schedule to.
4. Click Edit time policies > Assign work schedule.
5. Select the appropriate work schedule and decide which date on this schedule should be applied from.
6. Confirm the change.

Assign work schedules individually

To assign a work schedule to a single employee, follow these steps:

1. Go to the relevant employee profile > Attendance.
2. Click the title of the work schedule widget > Change schedule.
3. Select the appropriate work schedule and decide which date on this schedule should be applied from.
4. Confirm the change.

Edit existing work schedules

Review work schedules

To see which work schedule is assigned to which employee at a glance, follow these steps:

1. Go to Organization > People List.
2. At the top of the list, click Columns and type "Work schedule".
3. Select the column.
4. The work schedule column appears on the right. It shows all employees you have access to. You may need to scroll to the right to see it. 

Creating a duplicate schedule vs updating current schedule

Every time you update a work schedule assigned to employees, the system recalculates their attendance and overtime balance from 1 November 2025 onward. This is especially relevant for your default work schedule, as it’s likely to be assigned to most of your employees from their hire date.

For this reason, when you save any edits to a work schedule already assigned to employees, the system offers you the possibility to create a duplicate schedule instead. Look at this table to understand the difference between the two options:

Edit a work schedule

To update an existing work schedule, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Attendance.
3. Click the work schedule you want to update.
4. Click the three-dots icon and make the necessary changes.
5. Save the changes.
6. If the schedule is assigned to employees, select if you want to create a duplicate or update the current schedule.
7. Review the new configuration, and save the changes.

Delete a work schedule

When you delete a work schedule currently assigned to employees, the system:

• Reassigns them their previous work schedule, from when you assigned the deleted schedule.
• Recalculates the overtime balance for that period, using the newly assigned work schedule. The calculation goes back to 1 November 2025.

To delete a work schedule:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Time off & attendance section, click Attendance.
3. Click the schedule you want to delete.
4. Click the bin icon in the top-right corner and confirm the deletion.