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GETTING FAMILAR WITH THE SCHEDULING FORM’S COMPONENTS
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Schedules
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 | When adding new employees to your organization, they will automatically be assigned to your ‘Default’ schedule. So, in this example, a new employee will be assigned to the ‘Shop Day Schedule’. If this option is selected after employees have already been added, you’ll want to update employee shifts in the 'Employee' tab in area #2 shown on Figure-1. It is highly recommended that you select the most commonly used shift as your default. It’s better to have a new employee assigned to the wrong shift, than not have them assigned to a shift at all. | |
 | This setting will determine if the employee gets paid for any time recorded before his/her schedule begins, and/or after his/her schedule ends. Regardless, the actual time is captured on the punch. So, the question here is: When an employee assigned to a shift that starts at 7:00 AM clocks-in at 6:45 AM, does your organization pay that employee for the extra 15 minutes outside of his/her shift? If the answer is “Yes”, then you want to check the ‘Allow Extra Time’ checkbox. | |
 | When an employee at your organization clocks-in at the beginning of his/her shift, is it known the moment they’re clocking-in what Project, Phase (aka: Work Order, Job), or Task they need to be clocking into? When selected, employees have the option to:
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 | When deselected, employees have the option to:
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 | If your organization provides paid breaks, selecting this option will display buttons in the application allowing employees to clock-in to the break. However, many organizations setup breaks to record a clock-in/clock-out at a set time automatically. Click here to learn more about configuring breaks. Note: in this example, the break is titled ‘COFFEE’. To customize the title of your breaks, see ‘F' and 'G’ below. | |
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 | When the ‘Unpaid Break' option is selected, a button will display in the application allowing the employee to record a clock-in to the unpaid break (’LUNCH' in this example), and an ‘END BREAK’ button to clock-out of the unpaid break. | |
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 | By default, the label that appears on the paid-break button is ‘PAID BREAK’. You can edit the text to display something different, such as ‘COFFEE', as shown in this example. |  |
 | The default label for the unpaid break button is ‘UNPAID BREAK’. You can edit the text in this field to display the label of your choice. In the example to the right, the unpaid-break button label has been edited to read ‘LUNCH’. |  |
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CREATE A SCHEDULE
Navigate to the Schedules form.
Right-Click in the Schedules panel to pop-up the Add/Delete menu.
Click ‘Add’
Give your schedule a Description and click OK. (Note: you can add an ID number of your choice or allow the system to automatically assign the next available number.)
Configure the schedule with the options outlined above, to fit your organization’s needs.
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Configuring Schedules
TIME PERIODS
There are two methods for creating your time periods. One involves adding workdays, start-times, end-times, and shift numbers via the ‘Periods’ tab (area #2 of figure-1), and the other utilizes a click-and-drag method on the workday timeline along the bottom of the Schedules form (area #3 of figure-1).
The click-and-drag is the fastest way to initially setup your time periods. Utilizing the Periods tab allows for more granular configuration but takes a little longer. So, we recommend you begin with the click-and-drag method first and fine-tune with the Periods tab, if necessary.
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CLICK-AND-DRAG
Select the schedule you would like to configure. In this example, we’re going to configure our ‘Office Shift’ Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
While holding down the left-mouse button, click-and-drag to highlight the days and range of hours you desire. Selected workday periods display in green, and there are now records showing in the ‘Periods’ tab. Now, we’ll remove the four extra 15-minute time blocks from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM to make our shift from 8:00 PM - 5:00 PM.
To remove time blocks, hold down your right-mouse button while clicking-and-dragging to select the time blocks you want to remove. Note: When holding down the right-mouse button, the selection area is red.
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Ensure that each of your periods has a unique ‘Shift’ number 👇 |
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ADDING A NEW TIME PERIOD FROM THE ‘PERIODS’ TAB
Select the Periods tab.
Right-click in the gray area and select ADD. A new record will be created, and it will default to Sunday.
Click in the ‘Day’ column of the row you want to edit, then select your desired day from the dropdown.
Edit the Start time.
Edit the End time.
Add a unique Shift number. (If using the click-and-drag method, the shift number is assigned automatically by the system.
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Each shift in a schedule needs to have a numeric link. |
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ADDING BREAKS
The easiest way to setup your breaks for a typical work week is to setup one day (i.e., Monday), and then duplicate that day to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, to minimize the configuration efforts.
For this example, we’ll setup a 15-minute morning break, a 60-minute lunch break, and a 15-minute afternoon break for Monday. Then, duplicate that Tuesday through Friday.
Click on the Breaks tab.
Right-click in the Breaks panel to open the pop-up context menu.
Select ‘Add’.
Edit the Description - Optional - (i.e., AM Break, PM Break, Lunch, etc.)
Select the appropriate Day from the dropdown.
Enter the Start time.
Enter the Duration (in minutes)
Automatic? - Select whether the system should automatically create a punch.
Paid? - Check the ‘Paid’ checkbox if this is a paid break.
Repeat steps 2-9 two more times, so there are three configured records for Monday.
They may look something like this:
Select ALL rows you want to duplicate (for this example, all three Monday rows will be duplicated)
Right-Click to open the pop-up context menu.
Select Duplicate.
Select the days you want to duplicate to (for this example: Tue, Wed, Thu, and Fri)
Click ‘OK’.
Your breaks are reflected in the workday timeline. However, click-and-drag scheduling only applies to Time Periods. Breaks must be edited via the ‘Breaks’ tab.
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| Info |
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Break Duration is measured in minutes. |
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Pro Tip: Setup one day the way you want it, then duplicate that day for the rest of the week. If you don’t get it right the first time, you can always delete the Breaks and start over. |
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ROUNDING
The Rounding tab allows you to configure how your employee’s punches are rounded. Any option that is set to zero is ignored.
EMPLOYEES
The Employees tab allows you to view and set the schedule that each employee is assigned to. Every employee should be assigned to a schedule, regardless of whether they punch a clock or not.
You can view just the employees assigned to a selected schedule by using the radio button
‘Selected Schedule’, or all employees by selecting the ‘All Employees’ radio button.Click the ‘Schedule’ link on any employee record to open the pop-up schedule list.
Select the appropriate schedule for the employee.
You can also assign an employee to a schedule from the Labor tab in the Employee form.
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OVERTIME
Laws governing overtime vary wildly depending on where you conduct business. To date, Crows Nest accommodates every combination of overtime that has been presented, thus far. Thresholds can be set on the weekday, week, combination of the two, and of course, Saturday, Sunday, and holidays too.
In addition, you can set hourly and weekly thresholds for ‘Double-Time' and ‘Triple-Time’.
Click the ‘Overtime’ tab and enter the appropriate thresholds (in hours) to meet your federal, state/province, and local regulations.
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Setting Overtime thresholds is critical. If you don’t have thresholds to match your Federal or State/Provincial regulations, all labor hours, including those in excess of the thresholds for ‘Regular’ time will appear in the ‘Regular’ time column on your timeclock. |
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