Rostering and attendance¶
Two records that look similar and mean different things.
Planned, and actual¶
A planned shift is a roster entry — who you expect to work, when, made in advance.
Attendance is what happened — who actually clocked in, and when.
Keeping them separate is the entire value. If the roster were overwritten by reality you would have a record of what happened and no way to see where it differed from the plan — which is the thing worth knowing.
Adding planned shifts¶
A planned shift needs the person, the date and a start and end time. Times are entered as HH:mm, and both are needed — the screen says so rather than guessing at one.
You need staff before you can roster them. Add the person on the Staff tab first; the screen says as much if you try it the other way round. See Add a staff member.
Reading the gap¶
The useful questions live in the difference:
- Someone regularly clocking in later than planned is a conversation, not a payroll adjustment.
- A shift with no attendance against it is either an absence or a missed clock-in, and those are very different problems.
- Attendance with no planned shift is someone covering — worth knowing before it becomes routine.
A shift on the roster is not a shift in Operations¶
The roster is a plan. The shift a person opens at a till is a working session with a drawer attached. They describe the same person's evening from two directions, and the operational one is what carries money. See Shifts and cash drawers.