We're introducing a new Attendance Policies setup that replaces the current work schedules and tracking profile configuration.
The current setup bundles different rules into one work schedule, which makes configuration challenging to manage at scale. The new setup breaks those settings into three independent policy types:
- Work schedule policies
- Time tracking policies
- Overtime policies
This makes it easier to configure, reuse, and change attendance rules without duplicating the same settings across your account.
The new setup doesn't change any calculations, assigned policies, or employee-facing behavior. Only the admin experience for setting up and assigning attendance rules changes.
We will roll this out to existing accounts gradually and automatically. Keep reading this article to understand what will change and what you will need to do to make sure the transition goes well. Once we roll this out to your account, you can't roll back to the old experience.
Key improvements
The table below summarizes how the attendance setup is improving with the move from work schedules and tracking profiles to attendance policies.
| Topic | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Policy structure | Work hours, time tracking, and overtime rules were bundled into one work schedule, sometimes leading to hundreds of near-duplicate configurations. | Three independent policy types: work schedule, time tracking, and overtime. You can configure and assign them separately, so you only need to manage each set of settings once. |
| Default policies | A default work schedule applied to every employee across past, present, and future. Changing the default rewrote everyone's history. | Default policies are pre-selected for new employees only. Existing assignments stay as they are unless you reassign them. |
| Editing policies | Editing a work schedule applied the change to all past calculations. To stay safe, you had to duplicate schedules instead of editing them. | When editing policies, you now create policy definitions that let you set a future effective date for any change. Past calculations stay intact. |
| Conflict handling | There was no way to see conflicts between work schedule, contract hours, and break rules before confirming an assignment. | Blocking conflicts and warnings show up during assignment, so you can fix issues or exclude employees before confirming. |
| Policy assignment | Assignments couldn't be made temporary, and there was no way to preview a policy before assigning it. | Temporary assignments are supported, and you can preview the policy you're about to assign before confirming. |
| Tracking profiles | Tracking profiles settings (clock in/out, location tracking, Entrance app) lived on a separate page and needed a separate assignment. | Tracking profiles settings are part of time tracking policies, so you configure and assign all time tracking settings in one place. |
| Settings overview | Work schedules were listed without sort or filter options. Only free-text search was available, which made large lists hard to manage. | A structured policy overview with columns you can sort, search, and filter, so you find what you need in seconds. |
| Archiving | Unused work schedules couldn't be archived, only deleted. Deleting risked losing historical data. | You can archive policies that aren't in use and restore them later. Deletion is reserved for policies that have never been assigned. |
| Custom schedules | Custom work schedules were tied to a single employee and couldn't be reused, which inflated the number of schedules in the system. | Policies are reusable across employees by default. Shared policies replace one-off custom schedules. |
| People list columns | The People list showed work schedule and tracking profile, with no visibility into overtime settings. | The People list shows three columns, work schedule policy, time tracking policy, and overtime policy, for a complete view of who is on what. |
| Adding new employees | The default work schedule was assigned silently if no selection was made during employee creation. | Default policies are pre-selected during employee creation, so you can see and adjust them before saving. |
| Audit log | Audit log entries for schedules and tracking profiles were limited, which made troubleshooting time tracking and overtime calculations difficult. | The audit log captures create, update, delete, assign, rename, archive, restore, and set-default events for all three policy types. |
Transition communications
You will receive an email announcement about this transition:
- The first email contains information about the new settings experience. You’ll have access to a preview in your account, so you can see how your current setup changes with this update.
- Until the update is rolled out to your account, you can keep previewing the upcoming changes. You may also receive a reminder email a few days before the rollout.
We are targeting to complete the transition by the beginning of July.
The new attendance policies
After the transition, attendance rules are organized as three policy types in your Personio account.
| Policy type | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Work schedule policy | On which days employees are scheduled to work and for how long. You can find a full list of the settings available in the new work schedule policies here. |
| Time tracking policy | How employees track time, including time tracking options and break rules. You can find a full list of the settings available in the new time tracking policies here. |
| Overtime policy | How overtime and deficit hours are tracked, including deficit hours and monthly overtime cliff. You can find a full list of the settings available in the new overtime policies here. |
Keep in mind:
- You always need to assign a work schedule and a time tracking policy to employees. You can't leave an employee without one.
- Overtime policies are optional. If you’re not tracking overtime, you don’t need to assign them.
What we do
During the transition, our system:
- Maps settings of existing time tracking profiles and work schedules, including custom ones, into the three new policy type system.
- Merges policies with duplicate settings, when possible.
- Names the new policies according to the policy naming conventions outlined below.
- Updates employees’ assignments to reflect the new policy names and structure. Policy assignment dates and periods stay the same.
- Archives policies not currently assigned to anyone.
For example: You have five working schedules with different working times, but with the same time tracking and overtime rules. After the transition, you’ll have:
- Five different work schedule policies.
- One time tracking policy.
- One overtime policy.
Custom work schedules transition
The system moves all custom work schedule settings into the three new policy types. From the transition on, you can't create new custom work schedules. During the transition:
- A custom work schedule with settings identical to another policy is merged into it.
- A custom work schedule with unique settings becomes a standalone policy.
Policy naming conventions
When merging multiple policies, the system automatically uses the name of the most recently created work schedule or time tracking profile, as described in the table below. You can find the names of all the work schedules or tracking profiles that contained the settings merged into the new policy in its description.
| Policy type | Naming convention |
|---|---|
| Work schedule | [Work schedule name] |
| Time tracking | [Tracking profile name] – [Work schedule name] |
| Overtime | [Work schedule name] |
Custom work schedules use a different naming convention:
| Scenario | Naming convention |
|---|---|
| One employee | Custom – [Employee name] |
| Two employees with same settings | Custom – [Employee name 1] + [Employee name 2] |
| Three or more employees with same settings | Custom – [Employee name] + number of other employees on it |
| One employee with different custom schedules | Custom – [Employee name] – from [date] |
What you need to do
Before the transition
Before the transition, you receive an email announcement and an in-product banner. You don’t have to take any action, but we recommend the following:
- Go to Settings > Attendance.
- Open the in-product preview to see how your current setup looks with the new attendance policy structure. The preview is read-only and shows your actual settings.
- Preview how your new attendance policies are named, keeping in mind our naming convention. Make a note of any naming changes you might want to apply after transition.
- Share feedback using the in-product feedback button available at the end of the in-product preview. Your feedback goes directly to our Product teams for review.
After the transition
You don’t have to take any action, but we recommend the following:
Rename your policies
Review all the new policies and rename them to reflect the settings they contain. Naming policies after their settings makes it easier to reuse them for other employees. For example:
- Work schedule: "Full-time, 40 hours, Mon–Fri"
- Time tracking: "Clock in/out, 8-hour daily cap"
- Overtime: "Daily OT, deficit off"
If you use the Personio API
The policy merging logic also affects the values returned by the v1 API. The work_schedule object in List employees and Get employee by ID still returns the same fields : ID, assignment date, target hours, and work schedule name. You don't need to make any technical changes to your integration.
However, after the migration, the work schedule ID and name returned by these endpoints can differ from what you saw before. The employee's target hours and assignment date stay unchanged, and the change behaves the same way as a regular new work schedule assignment.
Archive unused time tracking and overtime policies
If you don’t use time tracking and overtime settings, you might have policies that you don’t actually need:
- If your employees don’t track work hours, you can archive or delete all time tracking policies, except one default policy.
- If your employees don’t track overtime, you can archive or delete all overtime policies. You don’t need to leave a default policy.
- If employees tracked time or overtime in the past, archive the policies instead of deleting them. This preserves historical data.
If you use custom work schedules
Previously, users with Attendance data edit permissions were able to create custom work schedules for individual employees. In the new experience, creating an attendance policy requires Attendance configuration permissions, instead. This means that non-administrators users who relied on creating custom schedules can no longer do that on their own.
You have two solutions:
- Use flexible work schedules as a solution:
- An administrator creates a set of flexible schedules covering common workday variations in the company (for example: 3 different flexible work schedules for 3, 4, and 5 days).
- Users with Attendance data edit permissions can then assign these as needed and configure individual working times after assignment.
- Grant Attendance configuration permissions to the users who need to create work schedule policies. This would also allow them to create other attendance policies.
We recommend using the flexible work schedules solution for two reasons:
- The employee who used to create custom schedules keeps the same permissions level.
- You reduce the number of extra policies to be managed in the settings and assignment flows.
Review the new assignment flow
Have a look at the new assignment flows:
Make sure to not save any changes at this stage.