So recently we introduced a series of blogs talking about how to get more from the basic schedule application in Workforce Timekeeper. In this entry, we will talk about schedule patterns. We won't be going through the basics of building a pattern, or applying a pattern to an employee's schedule. We are assuming you already know that. For now, here is a quick review.
Patterns are simply a series of scheduled shifts and/or pay code edits that repeat over a specific period of time.
That's it. By digging into this brief definition, a few things come up.
A Series - A set that will repeat over a period of time. A good example is a basic one: an 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday shift. The series has seven entries. Yes, seven. Remember that you need to include the day off, Saturday and Sunday, in your pattern, so it would look something like this:
Sunday and Saturday are blank, they are the off days, then schedules for Monday through Friday.
Repeat - In our example, the series of shifts and off days repeats every seven days or one week if you prefer. The "Recurring" field takes care of that setting. You have a lot of options for your recurrence. You can choose weeks or days.
Scheduled Shifts or Pay Code Edits - Yes! I am sure most users apply shifts to their patterns with no difficulty, but did you know you could apply pay code edits? Look at this:
What? Jury Duty as a pattern? That's right. Now think of the other uses: vacation for a week, FMLA for a month, sick time for a scheduled surgery. There are a lot of uses here, so don't limit yourself to simply shifts. Saving patterns like this as templates keeps them around for easy access, because employees like to take vacation, right?
A Specific Period of Time - So what is that period of time? It is the dates between the Pattern Start Date and the End Date. Here you go:
By the way, the names were blurred to protect the scheduled. You may not recognize the End Date field because so many users simply leave the Forever radio button selected. The End Date field is used when setting shorter patterns, like the week long pattern for jury duty shown above.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what patterns do, we can start talking more about how to use them more effectively. Ah, but that is for our next entry.
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