How Attendance Works Day to Day

This guide explains how it all fits together. For one job at a time, the short articles in this topic have the exact steps.

Attendance In the Console

See who is in today and who didn't come in, authorise an absence, approve extra time, look at flagged punches and accept or reject them, add a missed clock-in or clock-out, correct a time, keep leave, approve and lock timesheets, make payroll files, open one person's attendance, and export daily hours.

Console → Attendance is where HR and managers follow staff attendance. It's on every plan, for people whose role lets them see everyone's attendance (Owners, Admins, HR, Site admins for their own sites, and Auditors, who can look but not change anything). Site admins see only their own sites. Settings also holds your attendance rules: your working day, breaks, overtime, work-rule sets, leave year and how timesheets are approved.

See Who Is In

Attendance → Today lists everyone on attendance at your sites, with where each person stands: in since a time, on a break (where break punches are on: On break, 12 min, still on site), left at a time, left early, on leave, on a public holiday, not in yet, or absent. It keeps itself up to date while it's open.

• Late, not in yet and absent come from shifts: the published roster, or a weekly fixed shift on days the roster doesn't cover. Someone is late when they clock in after their shift's start and its grace period, and not in yet once their shift has started without them. They're absent only once their shift has ended with no clock-in, and never on approved leave or a public holiday you observe. A rostered day with no shift is a rest day. Shifts come with Growth and above; without one, Agoo never calls anyone late or absent.
• Left early shows when someone's last clock-out was before their shift's end by more than the early-leave grace in your rules.
• On a public holiday, Today says so: nobody is counted absent, and time anyone works is still counted.
• Choose a site, or go back a day with the arrows, to see a past day: who came in, when they left and how long they worked.
• Filter by In, On break, Left, Late, Not in or On leave, or search by name, job or department. Select a person to open their attendance.

Approve Timesheets

Attendance → Timesheets is where each period's timesheets are approved and locked, on every plan. Choose the period, see each person's status, totals and what's left to fix, then Approve several at once, Send back one with a note, or Reopen an approved one with a reason. Open a person for their totals, the steps, the history and every day with its punches. Once approved, the person's days in that period are locked: punches, leave, roster shifts and decisions on those days can't change until the timesheet is reopened. Line managers see Team timesheets. See Timesheets and payroll.

Make a Payroll File

Attendance → Payroll (Pro and above) turns a period's approved timesheets into one CSV or Excel file for payroll, for the whole organisation or chosen sites. Each hour and day is under your own pay code, with each person's employee number, name, department and site; an Excel file adds each day and a sheet of notes. Agoo lists anyone not in the file and why, and won't make a file while any time has no pay code. Every file is kept to download again, and a timesheet reopened after its file was made comes back in the next file as a correction. The page also holds your pay codes and your own layouts. HR, Owners and Admins make payroll files. See Export for payroll.

Export Daily Hours

1. 1

   Open Attendance → Daily hours

   Choose the dates (this week, last week, this month, last month, or your own dates, up to three months), and a site or one person if you like. Each row is a person, with the days they worked, their hours and overtime, late starts and anything to look at. Select a person to see each day, and a day to see its punches. A day in an approved timesheet shows a lock, with a link to that period's timesheet.

2. 2

   Check the flags

   Missing clock-outs aren't counted: Agoo pairs each clock-in with the next clock-out within 24 hours and never guesses one. A day with one missing offers Add the clock-out right there (see Add a missed punch). Filter by Needs a look to see only the people with something flagged.

3. 3

   Export

   Choose Export, then CSV, Excel or PDF. The file has the worked time per person and day (as hours and minutes, and as decimal hours for payroll), already net of unpaid breaks, with each day's paid break, unpaid break and where the unpaid one came from (automatic, clocked out or punched), the nursing hour taken and the breaks to look at, the day's counted, regular and overtime hours, rest-day and holiday work, extra time waiting or not approved and, if you count it, night time, with totals for each person (see the export's columns), and every punch, with how it was made, its checks, reviews, voids, and who added or corrected it and why. Each export is recorded in the audit trail.

Review Flagged Punches

Attendance → Needs review has two lists, for the last 14 days (or 7, or 31), a third once people punch their breaks, and a fourth when extra time is waiting.

• Worth a look: punches that count as they are but deserve a glance: a phone outside the site's area (let through on the site's Wi-Fi), no location, not on the site's Wi-Fi, a clock-in with no clock-out, a clock-out with no clock-in before it, a punch that synced over an hour late, or a flag raised by the device.

• Breaks to look at: days whose break was left open (Add the End break puts it right), ran long, came up short of the scheduled break, or a long day with no break at all. Nothing is corrected by itself.

• Extra time waiting: days with time past the day's hours that you can decide, with Approve, Approve part and Decline on each, as on Overtime.

Where a punch has a selfie, Open the selfie shows it. Opening one is recorded in the audit trail.

Add a Missed Punch

When someone forgets to clock in or out, or the kiosk was down, a manager adds the punch they missed, with a reason.

1. 1

   Find the day

   In Daily hours, a day with a missing clock-out offers Add the clock-out; open any day for Add a missed punch. You can also start from Add a missed punch on the person's attendance, or from a "No clock-out" punch in Needs review.

2. 2

   Say when, and why

   Choose a clock-in or a clock-out, the day and time it happened (in the site's time), the site, and your reason, such as "Forgot to clock out at the gate". The reason is required: the person sees it, and so does anyone who reads the timesheet.

3. 3

   Add it

   The punch counts like any other: worked time, lateness from their shift, the summary and your exports. It's marked Added by you, with your reason and when you added it, everywhere it's listed, and in the files and connected systems that receive punches (its method is "Added by a manager"). The person gets a notification in Agoo Workspace, and sees it in Me. Adding is recorded in the audit trail.

Agoo keeps the sequence sensible. The time must have passed and be in the last 31 days. A clock-in can't fall while the person was already clocked in, a clock-out needs a clock-in in the 24 hours before it that nothing has closed yet (add the clock-in first when both are missing), and no two punches can be within a minute of each other. Nobody adds or corrects their own punches, except Owners.

Correct a Time

If a punch happened but its time is wrong, such as a kiosk that was restarting, choose Correct the time on it, then the right day and time, and your reason. Nothing is edited: the wrong punch is voided with your reason, and a punch at the right time replaces it, marked Corrected by you. Both stay listed, linked to each other, so anyone can see what changed, when and why. The person is told in Agoo Workspace, and the correction is recorded in the audit trail.

Void a Punch

If a punch shouldn't count at all, such as someone clocking in twice at the kiosk, open it in Daily hours or the person's attendance and choose Void, with your reason. The punch is never deleted or changed: it stays in the list, struck through and marked with who voided it and why, and stops counting everywhere (worked time, lateness, the summary and the evacuation list). Voiding is recorded in the audit trail.

Managers with Manage shifts, corrections and leave add, correct and void punches, at the sites they look after.

Authorise an Absence

When someone's shift ended with no clock-in, they show as Absent. If they had a good reason, select Authorise beside them on Today, in Daily hours or on their attendance, and choose:

• Authorised, paid, such as a doctor's appointment you agreed;
• Authorised, unpaid, for time off you allowed without pay;
• Unauthorised, to put it back as Agoo recorded it.

Authorising needs a short note. The decision stays with the day, shows in Daily hours and its export, and on their timesheet, and is recorded in the audit trail with who made it. Whoever manages attendance at the person's sites can decide, and so can their line manager. Nobody decides their own.

If they did come in and forgot to clock in, add the missed clock-in instead: the day becomes a worked day.

Your Team

If people report to you, Today has Everyone and My team, so you can see just your own people. A manager whose role doesn't show everyone's attendance, such as an Employee who runs a team, sees My team, Team daily hours and Team timesheets in the menu: their own people, at every site, with the same authorising of absences, and decides their team's extra time on Overtime and approves their timesheets. See Managers and HR.

Breaks

Daily hours shows each day's breaks beside its worked time: "30 min paid" counts as worked, "1 h unpaid, automatic" came off because your rules have a day in two parts, "42 min unpaid, clocked out" is time the person spent clocked out, which was never counted, and "42 min unpaid, punched" is a break they punched, which replaced the automatic one. A nursing break shows as "58 min nursing, paid", and a day whose breaks need a look says why: Break not ended, Long break, Short break or No break recorded. You can add a missed Start break or End break the same way as a missed clock-out. Each person's row has their unpaid breaks for the period, and Hours worked says how much came off.

Leave

Attendance → Leave is where HR keeps leave, on every plan. It has six tabs:

On Today, Daily hours and timesheets, approved leave shows on the person's working days, and a weekend inside annual leave stays a rest day. Days of certified sickness during annual leave show as sick leave. A person's attendance has a Leave panel with their balances, every line behind them and their requests. To a line manager, private kinds of leave, such as sick or maternity leave, show as Away on Today, Daily hours, timesheets and the roster.

Home shows how many leave requests are waiting for you, and the bell tells you when one arrives. Who approves leave in Attendance → Settings chooses the steps, how long a request waits before it moves up (If nobody decides) and the daily summary; approvers name a deputy for the days they're away under Cover while you're away. See Leave.

Rosters

Attendance → Rosters (Growth and above) is the planner for each site: people down the side, a week, fortnight or four weeks across, and shifts you drag to move, copy or resize, by mouse, keyboard or touch, with Find someone to narrow a long list. Patterns and rotations fill it eight weeks ahead, or Import brings in a spreadsheet as drafts. Each shift carries its warnings, including the Labour Act's rest and consent rules. Nothing reaches staff until you Publish, which shows what changed and how many shifts carry each warning, and tells each person once, in Agoo Workspace or by email. Print lays the roster out on A4 for the notice board. Today, Daily hours and shift reminders follow the published roster.

Open shifts and swaps lists, for the site, the open shifts and their claims, the swaps and claims waiting for a decision, offers still out and what was decided lately. Approve or decline from there, or in the Workspace app's Team → Approvals. A person's page in People has their Roster across every site, where HR records consent to night work or overtime. See Rosters.

Overtime

Attendance → Overtime is where managers decide extra time, on every plan: time someone worked past the day's hours, or on a rest day or public holiday outside a published shift, while your rules ask for approval. Each day shows the person, the site, their shift or standard day, their first clock-in and last clock-out, the counted time, the day's hours and the extra time.

• Approve counts it all; Approve part counts the minutes you choose; Decline needs a reason the person sees. Select several to approve them together. Undo puts a decision back to waiting.
• Waiting lists the oldest day first; Decided shows who decided, when and their note. Filter by site, by dates (up to three months at a time) or by My team.
• You decide for your own team (as their line manager, or further up) and for people at the sites where you manage attendance. Nobody decides their own, except Owners. Each decision is recorded in the audit trail as Decided extra time.
• The menu, the bell and Home's Waiting for you show how much extra time is waiting for you, and line managers get a notification on their phone and a morning email while some waits.

How a day is counted, weekly overtime, averaging and work-rule sets are on Shifts and overtime.

Days Being Worked Out

Agoo works out each person's day from their punches, shift (on the published roster, or their weekly fixed shift), leave, the public holidays and your rules, including overtime, within seconds of any change, including a roster you publish. Straight after a change, a day can show Updating in Daily hours for a moment, with its punches' own numbers until it's done.

A Person's Attendance

Open someone from Today, Daily hours, their timesheet, the review queue, or Their attendance on their page in People. You see their hours and overtime, a typical day, late starts, missing clock-outs, absences and flags for the period, the work-rule set they follow, how they usually clock in, and every day with its punches and breaks, including days they were absent, on leave or on a holiday, with each day's overtime, extra time and its decision, rest-day or holiday work and night time. Export it the same way as Daily hours; the export has each day's status, breaks, overtime and any early leave.

HR, Owners and Admins also see Nursing hour there: switch it on for a nursing mother from a date, for up to a year (Labour Act, s.57), change the dates or switch it off. When her approved maternity leave has ended, Agoo suggests it. It's paid and never taken off worked time, and each change is in the audit trail. She sees it too; her manager doesn't.

Clock-In Posters

A clock-in poster is a tracked QR code for a site's staff entrance. Scanning it opens a page that tells staff to clock in with Agoo Workspace on their phone, with a link to get the app. The poster itself never clocks anyone in: phone clock-in checks the person is at the site, and the kiosk's own code changes every 30 seconds so a printed copy can't stand in for being there.

Make one from Attendance → Settings → At each site, from Clock-in poster on Today, or from the site's page in Settings → Sites. It counts as one of your tracked QR codes, and stops working if the site is removed.

Shifts and Overtime

How shifts flag lateness, and how Agoo counts overtime, rest-day and public-holiday work by the Labour Act, with extra time approved in the Console or the app before it counts.

Without shifts, Agoo records when people clock in and out, and counts their overtime against your standard day and week. With shifts, it also knows when people were due, so it can flag late arrivals, early departures and missed days, and measure each day's overtime against the shift itself.

• Overtime is on every plan, because worked time is: daily and weekly hours, averaging, work-rule sets, snap and rounding, extra time approved before it counts, rest-day and public-holiday work, and night time for an allowance.
• Shifts and rosters are on Growth, Pro and Enterprise. Shifts come from your rosters: templates, repeating patterns and rotations, and a planner per site in Console → Attendance → Rosters, published to staff in the Workspace app, where they claim open shifts and swap with colleagues. Lateness, not in yet, absence, early leave and overtime follow the published roster, and the roster warns where a shift would break the Act's rest rules or need a woman's consent (below).

Key Terms

Set Up Shifts

1. 1

   Add your shift templates

   In Console → Attendance → Rosters → Shift templates, add each shift you run at the site, with its start and end times, break, grace period, colour and an optional label. Overnight shifts that end the next morning are fine.

2. 2

   Build a pattern or a rotation

   Put people on a repeating pattern, such as Monday to Friday on the day shift, or a rotation such as 2 days, 2 nights and 4 off, each person at their own point in the cycle. For irregular work, drag shifts onto the planner day by day, or import them from a spreadsheet. See Rosters.

3. 3

   Check your lateness and overtime rules

   Your lateness and early-leave grace are in the attendance rules, and so are your overtime rules. Ghana's public holidays are loaded for you, so work on a holiday is counted on its own.

4. 4

   Publish

   Employees see their shifts in the Workspace app and are told once about what changed. From the next shift, Agoo flags late arrivals as the shift starts and absences once the shift has ended with no clock-in, and counts each day's overtime against its shift.

Overtime

Under the Labour Act, overtime is the time someone works after the hours fixed by your organisation's rules (s.35(1)). Agoo starts from the Act's 8 hours a day and 40 a week (s.33), which you change to your own in the attendance rules. Agoo counts the hours; your payroll pays them, at your rates.

How Agoo counts a day

Once a worked day is finished, Agoo works it out in this order, and works it out again whenever a punch, a shift, a holiday or your rules change:

1. Counted time. Worked time (already net of any unpaid break), after snap and rounding (below).
2. What kind of day it is. A public holiday (one you observe, or one of your closed days), a rest day (a day with no shift for someone on a roster, or a day outside their working week), or a working day.
3. The day's hours. On a shift, the shift's paid length: its length less an unpaid break. With no shift, your standard day's paid length: from its start to its end, less an unpaid break if your day is in two parts, and never less than your daily hours (8 by default). So an 08:00 to 17:00 day with a paid half hour is 9 hours, and extra time starts after 17:00; the same day with an unpaid lunch hour is 8. For someone with contracted hours in People, it's their hours a week divided by their working days.
4. Extra time. On a working day, counted time past the day's hours. On a rest day or a public holiday, all counted time that wasn't inside a published shift (a shift you published was approved when you published it).
5. Approval. Where your rules ask for it (the default), extra time waits for a manager and doesn't count until it's approved. Approved extra time on a working day is daily overtime; on a rest day it's rest-day work; on a public holiday it's holiday work.
6. Regular time. Counted time on a working day, less its extra time.
7. Weekly overtime. Regular time past the week's hours (40 by default), worked out at the end of each week.
8. Night time, if you pay a night allowance.

Every minute lands in exactly one place, so nothing is paid twice: counted time is regular time, plus daily and weekly overtime, plus rest-day and holiday work, plus extra time that wasn't approved.

Extra time and approval

Overtime approval is on by default, so nothing counts as overtime until a manager has agreed to it, and nothing worked is lost either: extra time waits until someone decides.

• Approve counts all of it. Approve part counts the minutes you choose, such as 1 hour of 1 h 20 min. Decline needs a reason, which the person sees, such as "Not agreed in advance". Declined time stays on record as worked, but isn't counted as overtime.
• Undo puts a decision back to waiting.
• Who decides: the person's line manager (or a manager further up the line), a deputy the line manager named to cover for them, or whoever manages attendance at one of their sites. Nobody decides their own extra time, except Owners.
• A day that changes later. If a punch is corrected and the day's extra time grows, the new part waits for a decision and the part already approved stays approved. If it shrinks, the approved part shrinks to fit.
• Rostered time is already approved. A published 12-hour shift doesn't need a second approval for the hours on it, and nor does a published shift on a rest day or a holiday. Only time outside it waits.
• With approval off, extra time counts as soon as the day is finished.

Each decision is recorded in the audit trail as Decided extra time, with how much was approved and the reason.

Weekly overtime and averaging

Weekly overtime is regular time past the week's hours, Monday to Sunday: 40 hours by default, or the person's contracted hours. Agoo takes it from the last days of the week first, so it carries real dates for payroll. It never needs approval, because it comes from time that is already approved or rostered. Rest-day and holiday work don't count towards the week; they're counted on their own.

For shift workers on longer days, the Act lets the week average out over four weeks or less (s.34(b), and s.36 for shifts on an established timetable). Choose Averaging of 2, 3 or 4 weeks and the Monday the periods count from: the hours are the weekly hours times the weeks, such as 160 hours over four weeks, so a 48-hour week followed by a 32-hour week has no weekly overtime.

Either kind can be switched off: with Daily overtime off, a working day has no daily limit and all its counted time is regular (the week can still make overtime); with Weekly overtime off, only the day counts.

Rest days and public holidays

Work on a rest day and work on a public holiday are categories of their own on the timesheet and in its export, so payroll can pay each at its own rate. They never count towards the week's hours, so no minute is counted twice. A public holiday you observe is one on Ghana's list or one of your organisation's closed days.

Night time

If you pay a night allowance, switch on Night time and Agoo counts each day's counted time between 22:00 and 07:00 (or the hours you choose). It's off by default. The Act defines night work only for women (s.55 and s.57), and sets no general night premium, so this is for an allowance your organisation pays.

Snap and rounding

• Snap (10 minutes by default, up to 30): on a day with a shift, a first clock-in up to that many minutes before the start counts from the start, and a last clock-out up to that many minutes after the end counts to the end. Someone who comes in a few minutes early for the handover isn't owed extra time for it. Arriving late and leaving early are never snapped.
• Rounding (off by default): every other punch rounds to the nearest 5, 6, 10 or 15 minutes, up or down, never only one way.

Neither changes the punches or worked time; they decide counted time.

Work-Rule Sets

Some organisations have groups with different hours: office staff on 8-hour days, and guards or ward nurses on 12-hour shifts averaged over four weeks. A work-rule set gives a group its own working time and overtime rules, on every plan. Everyone else follows your organisation's own rules.

A set holds its own work days and standard day, kind of day and break, daily and weekly hours, daily and weekly overtime, averaging, snap, rounding and night time. Lateness grace and alerts, overtime approval, public holidays, leave and timesheets stay the same for the whole organisation.

1. 1

   Make a set

   In Console → Attendance → Settings → Work-rule sets, choose New work-rule set, give it a name and a short description, such as "Ward nurses: 12-hour shifts, averaged over 4 weeks", and change what's different. Anything you leave starts from your organisation's rules.

2. 2

   Move people to it

   Choose the people and the date they start on the set: today, up to 31 days back or up to a year ahead. Each person follows one set at a time, or your organisation's rules.

3. 3

   Change it when you need to

   A change makes a new version from the date you choose, like your organisation's rules: days before it keep the version they had. Archive a set you no longer need, and its people go back to your organisation's rules from today; you can restore it later.

Making, changing, archiving and restoring a set, and moving people, are recorded in the audit trail. Whoever can change your attendance rules can change sets; everyone who can see attendance can read them.

Approve Extra Time

In the Console

Console → Attendance → Overtime lists the extra time waiting for you, oldest day first, then what's been decided. Each day shows the person, the site, the shift (or the standard day), their first clock-in and last clock-out, the counted time, the day's hours and the extra time, and whether it was a rest day or a public holiday (with its name). Approve, approve part or decline each one, or select several and approve them together. Filter by Waiting, Decided or All, by site, by dates (up to three months at a time) or by My team.

Extra time waiting also shows in Needs review, in Daily hours, on the person's timesheet with each day's decision, and on the person's attendance, and the menu, the bell and Home's Waiting for you say how much is waiting for you.

A timesheet can't be approved while extra time in its period is waiting, so decide it first. Once a timesheet is approved, extra time on its days can't be decided or undone until someone reopens it.

In Agoo Workspace

Managers decide on their phone too, on iPhone, iPad and Android. When someone who reports to you works past their hours and it needs your approval, a notification says so, such as "Ama Mensah worked 1 h 20 min past her shift at Main Campus on Mon 12 Oct". Tap it to open Extra time, where you approve, approve part or decline with a reason, the same as in the Console. Deciding needs a connection.

People see their own extra time and overtime on Me in the Workspace app, day by day ("1 h 20 min extra time, waiting for approval", "45 min of 1 h 20 min extra time approved", "6 h worked on a rest day", "3 h at night"), and the month's Overtime and Extra time waiting. They're told when a manager decides, in the app or by email if they don't have it, with the reason if it wasn't approved.

Notifications

Each person can turn these on or off for themselves in Account → Notifications.

In the Timesheet and Its Export

Daily hours, each person's timesheet and their attendance show every day's counted time, overtime, extra time and its decision, rest-day and holiday work and night time, with each person's totals for the period. The Daily hours export, on every plan, has these columns beside worked time and breaks:

Each person has a totals row, and the file's note explains the rules it was counted by. Payroll pays the hours at your rates. On Pro and Enterprise, the payroll export puts each kind of time under your own pay code and multiplier, such as OT at 1.5 for overtime, so payroll can pay each at its rate.

The Labour Act

The roster also warns when someone's rostered hours go over their weekly hours (s.33, or their contracted hours or work-rule set). How each warning works, and recording a woman's consent, are on Rosters.

The law sets no overtime rate. Paying time and a half is common practice in Ghana, not the law, so Agoo never applies a rate: it counts the hours, and your payroll pays them by your own policy or agreement. The multipliers in your pay codes start at 1.5 for overtime and rest-day work and 2.0 for public-holiday work, and are yours to change.

What Managers See

• Late, early and absent flags on the attendance board as they happen, not at the end of the month. Someone is absent only once their shift has ended with no clock-in; until then they're not in yet.
• Extra time to decide, in the Console and on their phone, and each person's overtime on the timesheet.
• Missed clock-outs, so you can correct them before payroll.

Reminders On Their Phone

People with the Agoo Workspace app get two reminders about the shifts they're rostered on (on a published roster, or a weekly fixed shift), as notifications in the app only:

• You choose the times. Owners and Admins set them in Console → Settings → Organisation → Clock-in reminders: Shift starting (how long before) and Forgot to clock out (how long after), or Don't remind to turn either off.
• Nobody on leave is reminded, and each reminder goes once, on the site's clock (an overnight shift ends the next morning).
• They ignore quiet hours, because they're about work people are rostered for. Each person can still turn them off for themselves in Account → Notifications.
• Free on every plan. Reminders never use your SMS allowance. People without the app aren't reminded.

Missed clock-outs still show to managers on the attendance board and timesheets, reminder or not.

Correcting Punches

Managers can correct a punch, for example when someone forgot to clock out. Every correction keeps the original, records who changed it and why, and appears in the audit trail. The day's overtime is worked out again at once.

• Rosters: Plan, repeat and publish who works when.
• Attendance rules and setup: Your daily and weekly hours, approval and averaging.
• Timesheets and payroll: Approve hours and export them.
• Plans and limits: What's on each plan.

Line Managers and HR

Give each person a line manager, a start date and their employment details, so managers see their own team and HR keeps the records.

Attendance, leave and timesheets all need to know two things about a person: who they report to, and the basis they work on. Both live on the person's page in Console → People, under Employment, on every plan.

Employment Details

Open someone in Console → People and edit their details. The Employment part holds:

Groups with different hours, such as guards on 12-hour shifts, can follow a work-rule set of their own from a date, chosen in Attendance → Settings → Work-rule sets; everyone else follows your organisation's rules.

Owners, Admins and HR can change these for anyone, and Site admins for people at their own sites. Each change of manager is recorded in the audit trail as Changed someone's line manager, and every other change as Person updated.

Choosing a manager

• One manager each. Pick them by name. They must be an active person in your organisation; they don't need to sign in to Agoo.
• Never themselves, never a loop. Agoo refuses a choice that would make someone report to themselves, directly or through others, and says who closes the loop.
• When a manager leaves, the people who reported to them show under No manager in People until you choose someone new.

Set Managers for Many People at Once

1. 1

   Find who has no manager

   In Console → People, filter by No manager. It lists active people on attendance with no manager, or whose manager has been deactivated. Home's staff time checklist shows the same count.

2. 2

   Select them and choose a manager

   Tick the people (up to 200 at a time), then pick the person they report to, or clear their manager. Each change is recorded on its own in the audit trail.

You can also set managers and employment details in a CSV import (Growth and above), with the manager, started_on, employment_type and contracted_hours columns. The People export has Manager, Started on, Left on, Employment type and Contracted hours columns.

What a Manager Sees and Does

Being someone's manager isn't a role. It works with whatever role the manager has, even Employee, and covers everyone below them: their direct reports, and those people's reports in turn.

• Their team in People. A person's page shows Reports to (their manager, and that manager's manager, up the line) and Their team (the people who report to them).
• Their team's attendance. A manager can see their team's punches, shifts and leave requests, and in the Console My team (Attendance → Today), Team daily hours and Team timesheets, with who is in, late, not in yet or absent. They can authorise an absence for their people, approve or decline their extra time in Overtime and in the Workspace app, and approve or decline their leave requests in Team leave (or Attendance → Leave, if their role reads attendance). Private kinds of leave, such as sick or maternity leave, show to a manager only as Away, everywhere, and a manager never sees anyone's certificates.
• Alerts about their team. On their phone, the manager hears when someone's shift ended with no clock-in (on by default), when someone worked past their hours and it needs their approval, when a period ends with timesheets waiting for them, when a shift swap or a claim for an open shift waits for them (Growth and above, with rosters), and, if your organisation turns it on, when someone isn't in yet. While extra time waits, a morning email lists it. Each person chooses how in Account → Notifications.
• The Team tab in the app. Anyone with people reporting to them, and HR, gets Team in the Workspace app: who is in today, not in yet, on a break, absent or on leave; Approvals for leave and timesheets (and, on Growth and above, shift swaps and claims for open shifts), with a swipe to approve; the team calendar; and Cover, to name someone to approve while they're away.
• Approvals. On their phone or in the Console, managers approve or decline their team's leave, by the steps your organisation chooses in who approves leave, their shift swaps and claims for open shifts in the same way, with any Labour Act warnings shown, and their extra time. At the end of each period they approve their team's timesheets, or send one back with a note, by the steps chosen in the attendance rules. Nobody approves their own.
• When a manager is away, their approvals go to their own manager and then to HR while they're on approved leave, and come back when they return. A manager can also name a deputy for some dates, who also decides the extra time of the people they cover, and a request nobody decides moves up a level after the time your organisation sets (72 hours by default). See When an approver is away.

The HR Role

HR is a built-in role on every plan for the people who keep staff records, leave and timesheets. It covers People and attendance at every site, the attendance rules and work-rule sets, deciding anyone's extra time, and leave: leave types, recording and ending leave, balances and their adjustments, certificates and the year end. It decides any step of a leave request, a timesheet, a swap or a claim, chooses who approves them, names deputies for anyone, reopens an approved timesheet with a reason and moves a period's payroll date. It records a woman's consent to night work or overtime, and is among the few who see the roster's consent warnings, which come from maternity leave. On Pro and Enterprise it makes and downloads payroll files and sets the pay codes and layouts; HR limited to some sites makes files for those sites only, and can't change the codes or layouts. It keeps people's HR records, departments and positions, and makes and decides job changes, and it sees full statutory numbers and account numbers by giving a reason. It has nothing to do with billing, security, settings or visitors, and it isn't an admin seat.

Owners and Admins give the HR role; Site admins can't. See Roles and permissions.

• Attendance rules and setup: Your working day, breaks, leave year and timesheets.
• Roles and permissions: What each role, HR included, can do.
• Leave: Leave types, balances, approvals and the year end.