Prevent shift changes during payroll processing
You'll find this feature particularly helpful if you're an admin or part of the payroll team. It allows you to stop users from modifying shifts or approved hours while payroll is being processed.
Shifts can be locked in four different ways, these are:
- For all shifts
- By Operation
- For an Office Code
- Or for a specific Roster
Once an admin user locks shifts, they cannot be edited unless:
- The shifts are unlocked
- Changes are made by an admin user with the permission 'Edit payslips'. This user will continue to be able to make changes to locked shifts - which is useful for Payroll managers, etc
The ability to lock shifts depends on user permissions. Only users with the permission 'Access Lock Shifts' will be able to perform this function.
In this article, we will cover:
- User permission to control the ability to lock shifts.
- Locking and unlocking shifts in Approve shifts.
- Permissions affecting lock shifts and views for permissions with/without shift locking.
If you found this article helpful, you might also enjoy checking out our two other popular articles on Approving Shifts and the convenient Approve Shifts CSV export feature.
If you need to prevent changes to shifts during payroll processing, you'll want to lock them. Once shifts are locked, the rostering and approval manager cannot make edits and will see that shifts are locked as the shifts will display a 'Locked shift' message instead of the edit icon. They will then need to contact a payroll team member to make changes.
Key points on the Lock shifts feature:
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- Lock shifts can be locked by operation, roster and office code. This will be handy if you process payroll in a similar manner.
- A user with 'edit payslips' permission can continue to make changes even with the shifts being locked.
Please note: If you do not see the 'Lock all shifts' button, you don't have the relevant permission to lock shifts. Please refer to the Permissions section later on in this article.
How to lock shifts:
- Navigate to Time and Attendance > Approve Shifts, and select the appropriate week from the date selector.
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Navigate to the 'Lock All Shifts' button. From the drop-down arrow, you'll have the choice to:
- Lock by operation
- Lock by office code
- Lock by roster
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Lock all shifts - lock for all rosters, office codes and operations.
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Select the timeframe you wish to lock:
- For a week
-
For a fortnight
Hot tip: It is a good idea to lock the relevant shifts for a pay period (weekly or fortnightly). Once complete, you'll notice the date range you select will appear in the blue box for clarity.
- Next, select the specific Operation/s, Office code/s or Roster/s.
- Once you are happy with your selections, select Lock shifts in the bottom right-hand corner.
In the below example, we have chosen to lock the shifts from 29 April 2024, for one week, and we have selected 1 roster in particular (Bar roster of Twelve Birds Operation).
Please note: Locking shifts will apply to shifts of all statuses. This means that shifts will appear as locked whether they are:
-
- Declined
- Approved
- On leave
- or Unapproved (still showing as white)
Considering this, you may not want to lock shifts that have yet to be managed or use the filters to ensure you are only locking shifts that have been approved/declined.
Hot tip: To assist you with getting shifts approved, you can set up a weekly reminder. This reminder will automatically be sent to specific admins when a roster contains shifts that have not yet been approved. You can find a guide on how to set it up here.
Lock shifts demo
In the example below, you'll see how to lock shifts (by a certain roster) and unlock shifts.
Hot tip: Note the tip on the lock, indicating that 'Users with the 'Edit Pay' permission enabled can still modify locked shifts'. This means users with this permission enabled will not need to unlock shifts to make changes.
You may find you need to unlock some locked shifts.
For example, if you need a rostering/approval manager to make changes to shifts and they don't have access to unlock shifts or 'edit pay' permissions to make changes to shifts while they are still in a locked state.
To unlock shifts:
- Navigate to the Lock All Shifts button. This will say 'Unlock all Shifts' if locked shifts are present.
- Select the Unlock Shifts button in the modal that pops up.
The unlocked shifts will now show without the lock icon. You can now edit any shifts by selecting the pencil icon as normal.
Hot tip: Unlocking shifts will unlock all shifts for previous periods. It is a good idea to relock shifts once you have completed your changes. This will prevent any changes to shifts being made in the past.
Like many features within foundU, platform permissions will play a role in who can access this feature.
User permissions will affect:
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- Which users can lock shifts, and
- Which users can edit shifts whilst in a locked state.
Access to lock shifts would be typical of any admin in Payroll manager as they will likely want to lock shifts when they are ready to process pay. You may also want your rostering shift approval managers to have this permission as well.
To grant access to Lock shifts:
- Open the full menu and select Platform Settings > Users.
- Select Permission groups and the pencil icon to edit the relevant permission group the Admin has assigned.
- Select Access Lock Shifts to enable. Then select Update.
All users with this permission group will now see the lock shifts option in Approve Shifts.
Different views of locked shifts
Users with different permissions will have different views of the Approved shifts page when shifts are locked. To give you a greater understanding of the views of your admin users we have examples shown below.
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- For example, as a user who has 'edit pay' permission enabled.
This user will see the lock icon next to shifts and will still be able to continue to edit shifts even when the lock is on. There will be no need to unlock shifts to make edits.
- For example, as a user who has 'edit pay' permission off.
This user will not be able to make any changes without a super user unlocking the shifts for them, or making changes on their behalf.