Manage schedules: set your team's working pattern

What this guide covers

Manage schedules is where a manager sets when the people they manage are expected to work - the recurring weekly pattern, and one-off custom schedules for specific dates. It is the screen that defines the hours the Manage hours screen later measures against, so the two go hand in hand.

It's one of the Managers screens (People ▸ Managers), alongside Manage hours, Organigram and the Leave report.

Who can open it: you must be a manager of at least one department (or an HR administrator). You only ever see - and can only edit - the people inside your management chain (your department and its sub-departments). Picking someone outside your scope is refused.

Definitions

Base Schedule (policy) — the rules attached to a person: break length, which clocking terminal counts, and whether overtime is allowed. HR-only - managers see it but cannot change it, because it controls pay policy across the department.
User Schedule — the employee's recurring weekly working pattern: which days are working days and the start/end times. It can be a single repeating week or a multi-week rotation. This is what sets the weekly contracted (ordinary) hours.
Rotation Weeks — how many weeks the pattern cycles over. 1 = the same week every week; 2+ = alternating weeks (e.g. week A / week B). The Reference Date is the Monday week 1 started from.
Time at work / Working hours — the weekly totals derived from the day grid - "Time at work" is clock-in to clock-out; "Working hours" subtracts the unpaid break.
Custom schedule — a one-off change to the employee's hours for a single day: starting earlier, finishing later, or working a day they aren't normally rostered. It does not change the standing schedule. Sent to the employee to accept.

There is no longer a Schedule Override tool on this screen. The override form (specific-date changes with Once / Range / Permanent scope) was removed from the schedule editor. Use Propose Edit or Propose Template Change for a lasting change, and Assign Custom Schedule for a single day.

How it connects to Manage hours

The User Schedule is the baseline for everything on the Manage hours screen:

The day grid's weekly total is the Expected (ordinary) hours a person is measured against each week.
Work above that weekly total can become overtime; falling below it is a shortfall that's deducted.
So if someone's expected hours look wrong on Manage hours, the fix usually lives here - their User Schedule or a missing custom schedule.

Using the screen

Pick an employee from the Team Hierarchy tree on the left (search by name or department). Their schedule opens on the right, in three tabs.

Tab 1 - Attendance & Shifts (the recurring schedule)

This is the main tab. It shows:

Base Schedule - read-only context (the policy/OT rules HR set).
User Schedule - the rotation settings (Rotation Weeks + Reference Date) and the day grid: a Working-Day switch and start/end times for each day. The weekly totals update as you edit. If a person has no schedule yet, a Create User Schedule button seeds a Mon-Fri 08:00-17:00 default.
Propose Edit - once you've adjusted the grid, this sends the change to the employee (see the flow below).
Propose Template Change - instead of editing day-by-day, swap the whole pattern to a shared rotation template from the library. Also requires the employee's acceptance.

Tab 2 - Assign Custom Schedule

Give the employee a one-off custom schedule on a specific date: pick the Date, Start Time and End Time, and an optional Message to Employee. A hint tells you which kind it will be: "Future date — this will be a pre-approved custom schedule" or "Past date — the employee must approve this before the hours are authorised." Click Assign Custom Schedule; it goes to the employee as an Assigned Shift card on their Pending Approvals.

The tab explains the pay consequence: once the employee accepts, those hours become authorised and count toward their weekly hours; any authorised hours beyond the weekly contracted hours are paid as overtime (subject to the weekly cap). Hours worked without an approved custom schedule show as unauthorised until a manager authorises them.

Tab 3 - Custom Schedules

The custom schedules you've assigned to this person - active ones (PENDING, APPROVED, CANCEL PENDING, COUNTER PROPOSED, COUNTER ACCEPTED) with date, time and reason, and a collapsed History of REJECTED, CANCELLED and CANCEL REJECTED ones. Click Cancel on a row to open the Cancel Custom Schedule dialog, give a reason, and confirm with Cancel custom schedule (or Keep it):

A custom schedule that isn't approved yet is withdrawn immediately and disappears from the employee's pending approvals.
An approved one asks the employee to acknowledge the cancellation before the overtime is removed from their day; until then the row shows "awaiting employee".

The two-party rule for recurring changes

Changing someone's recurring schedule is effectively changing their working agreement, so it is never a silent, one-sided edit. You propose; the employee accepts.

While a change is pending, an orange banner appears and the day grid is locked so it can't be edited again until the employee decides. After they accept, a blue "upcoming change" banner shows the date it will take effect - it then goes live automatically from the next working day (today's schedule keeps running until then). If they reject it, or you cancel the proposal, nothing changes and you can propose again.

Custom schedules follow the same idea for a single day: the employee accepts the assigned day, and acknowledges the withdrawal of an approved one. Nothing about a person's expected hours changes without their agreement.

Good to know

You can't edit the Base Schedule. Break, clocking terminal and OT policy are HR-managed. Ask HR if those need to change.
Write a clear Message to Employee on a custom schedule. It is what the employee sees on the card, and it is kept as the reason on the Custom Schedules tab (e.g. "early start for stock-take").
A pending change blocks further edits. If the grid is locked, there's an outstanding proposal - wait for the employee, or cancel it first.
Rotations need the Reference Date right. For a 2+ week rotation, the Reference Date (the Monday week 1 began) is what keeps "week A / week B" aligned to the calendar.
A custom schedule is not overtime. It sets the day's expected window; whether any hours become overtime is decided by the weekly calculation - see Custom schedules & assigned shifts (and why they're not overtime).

Manage hours: authorise and decline your team's time - the screen that measures worked hours against the schedule you set here.
My Schedule - what the employee sees, including accepting or rejecting your proposed changes and their own custom-schedule requests.
Manage your team's leave - approve and reject leave for the same team.
Attendance status field definitions - what each attendance badge means.