A daily work schedule is a description of the duration and location of working time for an employee on any given workday. A daily work schedule contains the specifications for a workday.
The specifications include the following elements:
- The start and end of working time
- Planned working hours
- Scheduled breaks
- Whether general overtime approvals are permitted
You can also add variants to a daily work schedule to create, for example, a shortened version of the daily work schedule. These versions are called daily work schedule variants. A daily work schedule variant can be used, for example, when employees work a reduced schedule prior to a public holiday, or on a half-day working day such as a Saturday. In the daily work schedule definition, you can specify whether or not these alternative versions of the daily work schedule are to be used.
Daily work schedules can contain predefined, fixed working hours or flexible working hours (flextime work schedules).
Flextime work schedules contain a period of time within which employees may clock in and clock out (where actual times are recorded). You can also define core hours for flextime work schedules. Core hours are the specific hours when employees are required to be at work.
Daily work schedules can also contain begin and end tolerances. This prevents clock-in or clock-out hours that differ only slightly from the normal start or end of working time from being interpreted as overtime or working time violations.
Daily Work Schedule Classes
A daily work schedule class is assigned to a daily work schedule, which is used as the valuation basis for the daily work schedule. Daily work schedule classes specify the conditions and rules for generating time wage types, and determine how absences and attendances are counted.
The No planned working hours checkbox is used to indicate daily work schedules containing days off. You can assign daily work schedule classes 0–9, to distinguish between the individual work schedules.
Daily Work Schedule Variants
A daily work schedule variant is an alternative version of a daily work schedule. It has the same name as the original daily work schedule. However, it has an additional indicator, a letter or a number, which distinguishes it from the corresponding daily work schedule.
Daily work schedule variants can be included automatically when the system generates the monthly work schedules. To do so, you define rules that determine the conditions to be met so that the daily work schedule variant can be used on a specific day, such as on a day preceding a public holiday. For example, employees with flexible working hours – who work Monday through Friday according to the daily work schedule FLEX – work fewer hours than usual prior to public holidays. This scenario can be set up by using a daily work schedule variant. The daily work schedule variant in this example must be called FLEX. It must include an additional indicator, such as FLEX B or FLEX 1, to distinguish it from the regular daily work schedule.
Daily Work Schedules and Variants
Because some employees work a reduced schedule prior to public holidays, you must also define alternative versions of the daily work schedules, known as daily work schedule variants.
The conditions upon which the variants depend are defined in specific rules.
The smallest unit of the work schedule is the daily work schedule, which contains information on the individual work days. This information includes breaks and daily work schedule variants.
You set up the daily work schedules in Customizing for Time Management under Work Schedules → Daily Work Schedules.
Daily Work Schedule Variant Rules
Rules for daily work schedule variants are indicated by a two-digit number (rule). The daily work schedule specifies the selection rule that is used to determine the daily work schedule variant. Therefore, a rule must already exist.
A rule can be assigned to several daily work schedules. Corresponding variants must exist for these daily work schedules – such as FLEX B and NORM B.
If a rule is applicable, the daily work schedule variant for the corresponding day (the current day) is referenced when the work schedule is generated.
Rules are defined for daily work schedule variants depending on the following characteristics:
- The public holiday class of the current day
- The public holiday class of the following day
- The day of the week (for the current day)
A rule may contain several subrules. All subrules of the rule are run through sequentially until one of them applies. If no subrule is applicable, a daily work schedule variant is not referenced. In the example shown in the preceding animation, the rule 01 variant consists of two subrules: 01 and 02.
According to subrule 01, a daily work schedule with variant B is referenced when the current day is a half-day public holiday (public holiday class 2). This occurs regardless of whether the following day is a public holiday (not depending on the public holiday class), and regardless of the day of the week for the current day.
According to subrule 02, a daily work schedule with variant B is referenced when the current day is not a half-day public holiday (all public holiday classes except 2 are selected). This occurs regardless of whether the following day is a public holiday (not depending on the public holiday class), and if the current day is a Friday (day 5).
