When managers and/or business owners create shifts, there are instances where certain rostering rules would be helpful in order to avoid scenarios such as overtime, fatigue management or breaches in employment agreements. By creating roster warning rules, the system is able to apply a defined criteria to created shifts, and subsequently show a warning against any shift that is triggered by a certain roster rule.
Only full access users are able to create and manage roster rules, however, both full access users and restricted users with rostering access will be alerted (within the roster) when these rules are breached.
NB: Roster warnings are only available to businesses that have subscribed to a plan that includes rostering as a billing inclusion.
This article will cover the following topics:
- Roster warning rule vs roster warning
- Creating a roster warning rule
- Available roster warning rules
- Editing a roster warning rule
- Deleting a roster warning rule
- Roster warnings within the roster
Roster warning rules vs roster warnings
Within the 'Roster warnings' functionality, there are 2 key components which are differentiated below:
- Roster warning rules: These are the specific business rules that will trigger a warning in the roster for all affected shifts. Only full access users can create/manage these. There are 4 roster warning rules available, and these are explained further in this section of the article;
- Roster warnings: Roster warnings are the outcome of a roster warning rule that has been triggered. Roster warnings are visible within the rostering page, and both full access users and restricted users with rostering access will be alerted when these rules are breached. View the Roster warnings within the roster section of this article for more information.
Creating a roster warning rule
In order to create a roster warning rule, navigate to the Payroll settings > Roster warning rules page. From here you are able to configure specific business rules that will trigger a warning in the roster for all affected shifts.
NB: Roster warning rules will not prevent the employee from being rostered but will highlight any issues associated with a shift.
The first field relates to the roster warning rule period. This is relevant because some rules will require an analysis of an employee's rostered shifts over a weekly period, for example where an employee works more than 30 hours in a week. This setting will determine the start and end day of the weekly period. By default the setting will copy the start of the week value set up in the 'Work week' field from the Business details page:
This setting will apply to all created roster warning rules, and is unable to be configured on a per rule basis.
To get started creating a roster warning rule, you can click the 'Add a rule' option to the right of the page, or, if you haven't added any rules yet, you can click the 'add a roster warning rule' hyperlink. Both options are shown below:
When either of these are selected, a new context panel will open to the right that includes the following fields:
- Roster warning rule name: This is a free text compulsory field. Max length of 100 characters;
- Roster warning rule message: This is a free text compulsory field, and is the message that displays in any shift triggered by the rule. As such, make sure the description is clear and concise so that it is understood by everyone with access to the roster. Max length of 100 characters;
- Rule: This is a dropdown list with four pre-configured options available for selection. When a specific rule option is selected, the appropriate settings for that option is displayed for further configuration. These additional fields must be completed in order to be able to save the warning. Specific information about each rule is available in the below 'Available roster warnings' section.
- Apply to locations: The value here will default to 'All', or alternatively, you are able to select one or more specific location that you want the roster warning rule to apply.
Once all the fields have been configured you can click 'Save'. Each roster warning rule will be listed by order of creation:
Available roster warnings
There are 4 roster warning rules that are available to be used. These include:
- Restrict hours by qualification;
- Determine overtime by hours worked;
- Minimum break between shifts;
- Pay category warning
Restrict hours by qualification
When this option is selected, the roster warning rule will pre-populate on the screen with the following fields:
- Where the employee's qualification is one of: This is a dropdown list of qualifications set up in the business. You are able to select multiple qualifications;
- Roster employees for no more than: This is a free text compulsory field where you are able to input the number of hours. Fractional values are also allowed to a max of 2 decimal places:
Reminder: This will rely on the "Roster warning rule period" setting in order to define when the week starts and ends.
- One or more of the qualifications assigned to them, and;
- The qualification is still current (i.e. it hasn't expired), and;
- The shift is for a location included in the 'Apply to locations' field, and;
- The employee's weekly rostered hours are in excess of the weekly hours set in the rule.
NB: This rule will disregard any shifts that assign a leave based work type, as this will not be taken as hours worked. For example, if an employee has been rostered using the work type 'Annual leave taken', those hours will not count toward the total hours for the purposes of the rule triggering.
Determine overtime by hours worked
When this option is selected, the roster warning rule will pre-populate on the screen with the following field:
- Roster employees for no more than: This is a free text compulsory field where you are able to input the number of hours. Fractional values are also allowed to a max of 2 decimal places:
In the roster, this rule will trigger a warning for any employee that has:
- The shift is for a location included in the 'Apply to locations' field, and;
- The employee's weekly rostered hours are in excess of the weekly hours set in the rule.
NB: This rule will take into account any shifts that assign a leave based work type for the purposes of totalling the rostering weekly hours.
Minimum break between shifts
When this option is selected, the roster warning rule will pre-populate on the screen with the following fields:
- A minimum 'X' hours break must be provided before the commencement of the next rostered shift: This is a free text compulsory field where you are able to input the number of hours. Fractional values are also allowed to a max of 2 decimal places:
- An additional checkbox allows you to select whether or not to ignore subsequent shifts on the same day when determining the next rostered shift:
- The shift is for a location included in the 'Apply to locations' field, and;
- A shift rostered (when looking at the previous shift) with less than the hours break requirement specified in the warning.
To use an example to illustrate the 3rd point, let's say the warning stated that a minimum 10 hours break must be provided before the commencement of the next shift, and (using the additional checkbox), the next shift must commence on the next day to trigger the warning. If the employee's roster is as follows:
- Monday 10am - 2pm
- Monday 10pm - 4am
- Tuesday 10am - 2pm
.......The Monday 10pm - 4am shift would not trigger a warning, because although there is less than a 10 hr break between the first Monday shift and the second Monday shift, the second Monday shift does not commence on the next day. The Tuesday shift however would trigger a warning because the previous shift commenced on the day prior and there is less than a 10 hour break between them.
Using the same shifts as above, but if the next shift does not have to commence on the next day in order to trigger the warning, the results would be:
- The 2nd Monday shift would trigger a warning because it started less than 10 hours after the previous shift's end time;
- The Tuesday shift would trigger a warning because it started less than 10 hours after the previous shift's end time.
In other words, when the next shift doesn't have to commence on the next day in order to trigger the warning, the system just needs to look at the end time of the previous shift (so long as the shift is on the same day or the previous day). If it's less than the configured 'minimum break time' time, it will trigger a roster warning.
Pay category warning
When this option is selected, the roster warning rule will pre-populate on the screen with the following fields:
- Display a warning where pay category is: This is a dropdown list of pay categories set up in the business. You are able to select multiple pay categories.
In the roster, the rule will trigger a warning for any employee whose shift:
- Is attached to a location included in the 'Apply to locations' setting, and;
- When costed, the shift is associated to the pay category listed in the roster warning rule.
In the instance where a shift has been costed to include a combination of pay categories, for example, a combination of 'ordinary hours' and 'overtime', so long as one of the pay categories specified in the warning is associated to the shift, the roster warning will be triggered.
NB: The warning will still be triggered even if the 'show shift cost' is not turned on, and additionally, restricted users that do not have 'view show costs' permission will still see this roster warning, however, they will still not see any actual costs associated with the shift.
Editing a roster warning rule
To edit an active roster warning rule, click the pencil 'edit' icon to the right of the rule:
The edit context panel will then appear that will allow you to
Deleting a roster warning rule
To delete an active roster warning rule, click the red 'delete' icon to the right of the rule:
You are able to restore a deleted rule at a later stage if required. To do this, go to the Payroll settings > Restore deleted items page and select 'Roster warnings' from the filter.
Rostering view of warnings
The Roster warning rules page contains a button which will direct the user to the Rostering page:
Once on the rostering page, any shift that has been triggered by a rostering rule will show a warning icon such as this:
In order to view additional details about the warning, there are 2 ways:
- You can click on the individual shift, which will open the shift context panel and will display the full roster warning description:
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The second option is to view roster warnings via the Roster actions > Roster warnings option:
This option will open a new dialogue box that will populate warnings relevant to all shifts that are displayed on the screen at the time, applicable to the displayed date period. Additionally, it will only include shifts for locations displayed in the roster at the time. This also applies to restricted users with rostering permission that only have access to specific employees/locations:
The roster warnings are listed by date, i.e. date of shift, and are ordered from the start of the week to the last day of the week.
Clicking the 'Expand all' option will allow you to see affected employees, and the full roster warning description:
Below are three different scenario's explained in order to highlight different processes when roster warnings are triggered.
Scenario 1
A manager creates an employee's shifts for the week and are as follows:
- Tuesday (i.e. warning rule period start date): 8 hrs
- Wednesday: 4 hrs
- Friday: 10 hours
- Saturday: 10 hours
As the employee is rostered to work for more than 20 hours, all of the shifts will display a roster warning.
Scenario 2
The employee works at multiple locations and so their roster can be managed by multiple employers. The first manager rosters the employee as follows:
- Tuesday (i.e. warning rule period start date): 6 hrs
- Wednesday: 6 hrs
- Friday: 6 hours
Scenario 3
- Tuesday (ie warning rule period start date): 8 hrs;
- Wednesday: 4 hrs;
- Friday: 10 hours, and work type = Annual leave taken (employee is on leave);
- Saturday: 8 hours
The employee's total weekly hours are 30 and are in excess of the 20. As such, the rule will be triggered and a warning will display on all of the employee's shifts for that week.
There is an important distinction between errors and warnings in the Employment Hero Payroll platform.
Warnings do not prevent an action from being processed. In the context of rostering, a warning is an indicator designed to draw your attention to a potential issue with a shift — for example, that an employee may be exceeding their weekly rostered hours, is missing a required qualification, or has insufficient break time between shifts. Warnings allow you to review and make an informed decision before publishing the roster, but they will not stop the shift from being saved or the roster from proceeding.
Errors will prevent an action from being processed. Unlike warnings, errors indicate that something must be resolved before the roster or related action can be completed. If you encounter an error, some action is required on your part before you can move forward.
In the case of roster warnings specifically, all configured warning rules will highlight affected shifts across the roster, but your team will not be blocked from being rostered on. This means you retain full control over the final decision.