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Managing working patterns and automating proration
Managing working patterns and automating proration
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In this guide, you'll learn how to:

  • Create a new working pattern

  • Edit an existing working pattern

  • How we calculate the FTE of working patterns

  • The difference between Flex and fixed hour patterns


Creating a new working pattern

You can add a new working pattern to your organisation with the following steps:

  • In the Home menu, click Settings, then click Company.

  • Scroll to Working patterns, then click Add working pattern.

  • Add a name for this working pattern.

  • Select how many hours are within a full working week using the Full time hours / week.

  • Select how many hours are within a full working day using the Full time standard day field.

  • Decide on a Fixed hours or Flex hours pattern.

  • You can then add the Working days/hours for your pattern. For Fixed hours patterns you can add the specific amount of hours for each day, while for Flex you can check the working days. For more, see

  • If you want to add in multiple weeks of varying patterns, click Add week. For more, see Multiple week working patterns.

  • When you're ready, save the changes.


Editing a working pattern

You can edit a working pattern with the following steps:

  • In the Home menu, click Settings, then click Company.

  • Scroll to Working patterns, then click Edit next to the desired working pattern.

You can make edits to a working pattern you have already created. We only recommend doing this if there were mistakes made originally to the pattern, as these changes wiull backdate to the start of when they were first applied to users. If you are looking to update users to a new working pattern, we recommend that you create a new one instead.


Editing vs. updating a user's working patterns

When making changes to the working patterns of a user, it's important to understand which option to choose from.

When you want to move a user to a new working pattern, or add in a historical working pattern they were on, you can update the working pattern. This allows you to maintain a history of the other entries, while adding in the updated pattern.

If you are looking to fix a mistake within a working pattern, you can consider editing an existing entry or deleting an entry instead. This will remove any historical data regarding the previous pattern from applying the the employees profile.

To update a user's working pattern, you can follow these steps:

  • In the People dashboard, click the desired employee, then click Edit profile.

  • Click Employment, then under Working patterns, click Update working pattern.

  • Select a pre-made working pattern, or create a custom working pattern specific to this individual.

  • Select the effective date to assign when this new working pattern should start applying to the user. This can be scheduled for a future date, or backdated.

To edit a user's working pattern, you can follow these steps:

  • In the People dashboard, click the desired employee, then click Edit profile.

  • Click Employment, then under Working patterns, click Edit next to the desired pattern entry.

  • Select a pre-made working pattern, or create a custom working pattern specific to this individual.

  • Select the effective date to assign when the edited working pattern should start applying to the user. This can be scheduled for a future date, or backdated.


Fixed hours vs. Flex working pattern

Fixed hours allows you to select specific working days and assign a specific amount of working hours for each day. If the Fixed hours figure is more than the amount of hours within the Working hours, you will see an error message saying that the hours must be below 1 FTE. Once you split the hours out so that it is 1 FTE, the error will disappear.

A Flex working pattern allows you to have no fixed hours each working day. Instead, you can check the days that the employees can work.


Assigning FTE to working patterns

Working patterns allow you to create part-time schedules. The Full time hours/week allows you to identify what a full-time working week is valued at in your organisation. Then, you can identify the amount of hours contracted within the pattern.

With Fixed hours, you can assign specific amounts of hours to each day within the pattern. With Flex, you can add in the amount of hours in the Hours contracted field.

Our system will automatically compare the amount of hours contracted to the Full time hours/week that was set, and calculate the FTE of the working pattern.


Deleting a working pattern

You can delete a working pattern with the following steps:

  • In the Home menu, click Settings, then click Company.

  • Scroll to Working patterns, then click Edit next to the desired working pattern.

  • Click Delete this working pattern.

Only working patterns that have not been used by a user can be deleted. Fi you want to easily identify working patterns that are no longer used, edit the pattern and rename it to include text such as "Archived".

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