What happens if we update an employee’s schedule for a day when they’ve booked time off?

You might sometimes need to update an employee’s office or shift schedule after they’ve booked time off for that day.

If changing schedules alters the duration of time a user can book off in a day, bookings and timesheets may need to be updated with the new scheduled values, and payroll may need to be recalculated.

If you’re using new time off, Replicon will automatically update time off bookings, and the associated timesheets, to use the new schedule duration, where necessary. If you’re using legacy time off, you’ll have to update bookings and timesheets manually.

For example:

  1. You scheduled a user to work 8 hours on a certain day.
  2. The employee uses the Full Day option for an hours-based time off type to book that whole day off. 8 hours is subtracted from their balance as of that day, and 8 hours of time off is added to that day in their timesheet.
  3. You then change their schedule to 6 hours for that day.
  4. With new time off, the booking and its timesheet automatically reopen, 6 hours is subtracted from their balance instead of 8, and 6 hours of time off is added to their timesheet instead of 8.

However, if you’re using legacy time off, you have to make these updates yourself.

If an automatic change is made, a comment highlighting the change will be added to the Approval History of affected bookings or timesheets

What types of bookings and timesheets do schedule changes impact?

Hours-based bookings made for a specific number of hours (e.g. 5 hours off) do not change if the scheduled duration of a day changes, because in this case, the number of hours booked off remains the same.

However, the following kinds of bookings will trigger an automatic update when related schedules change:

  1. Bookings that use an hours-based time off type and a ‘relative’ duration option to select the amount of time off (i.e. 1⁄4 Day, 1⁄2 Day, Full Day, etc)

In new time off, a booking like this and its associated timesheet will automatically reopen and update to match an updated schedule.

  1. Bookings that use a days-based time off type

Timesheets track exact hours used in a booking. So, if time was booked off in days, but the duration of that day changes, the number of hours in the timesheet will update automatically to match the schedule, in new time off only.

The time off booking does not need to be updated since time off is tracked in days, and the number of days booked off has not changed.

If you update a shift schedule, any automatic adjustments will only occur when you publish the changes.

FAQs

Do bookings and timesheets need to be reapproved after they are reopened and updated?

You can choose how items are routed for approval after time off is updated. Refer to Defining how approvals proceed when bookings are reopened for more information.

What happens if you add or delete a shift entirely, and the user had that day booked off?

Employees can’t add bookings to unscheduled days, since there is no working time to take off, so adding a shift has no impact on time off.

If you delete a shift, the employee’s booking remains, but it will be updated to have a value of 0 hours, so no time off will be deducted.

You can remove these 0-hour bookings manually, though some managers retain them as a reminder that the employee wants the day off, in case they want to make further changes to schedules for that day.

Why can’t bookings be returned to an unsubmitted state, like timesheets?

Because time off bookings don’t have an unsubmitted state – as soon as they are created, they are submitted.

Related links

How time off works
Booking or editing time off on behalf of a report
Viewing your team's planned time off
Reviewing your team's time off balances
How do I edit items before approving them?