Planned hours

Planned hours say when an employee works — for example from 15:00. How long the day is stays the work time norm.

Overview

The work time norm answers how many hours an employee works on each day. Planned hours add when: a start time for each working day. Use them where the time of day matters — evening and night work, a period on different hours, a day moved at short notice — and so employees can see when they are expected to work.

Planned hours never change how long a day is:

• A planned day expects the norm. It runs from its start for the day’s norm hours, with lunch counted as paid: a 7h24 day starting at 08:00 is planned 08:00–15:24 and still expects 7h24.
• Working other hours than planned is flexitime. Starting later or leaving earlier than planned changes flex exactly as it would on a day without planned hours.
• Flex, the timesheet’s difference, timesheet statements, what a day of time off costs, FTE and accrual all stay on the norm.

Nothing changes until a work time policy turns planned hours on. A day without planned hours works exactly as before.

How it works

Where a day’s planned hours come from

For each day, mTime uses the first of these that applies:

1. A single planned day, set in the timesheet
2. The start times on the work time norm that applies to the employee — from the employment, the employment terms or the work time policy, whichever the norm comes from
3. None — the day has no planned hours

Only days with norm hours can have a start time, and planned hours only show where one of the employee’s work time policies turns them on. Hours that run past midnight belong to the day they start: a plan from 22:00 on Monday is Monday’s plan.

Public holidays

A full public holiday cancels the plan: the day expects nothing and shows no planned hours. On a partial holiday, the holiday calendar reduces the expected time as it would without planned hours, and the planned hours stay.

Configuration

Turn planned hours on

1. Go to Settings › Policies and open the work time policy
2. In Planned Hours , set Planned hours :
   • Disabled — the default. No planned hours: start times are not offered and nothing is planned
   • Optional — start times may be set, day by day
   • Enabled — every working day is meant to have a start time. The work time norm editor warns about a working day without one
3. Click Save

Where several work time policies apply to an employee, the most permissive one wins. With Optional or Enabled , employees can plan their own hours in open periods — see Who can change planned hours.

Set start times on the work time norm

Start times are part of the work time norm, so you set them wherever the norm is edited: on the employment in the Update Employment panel, on employment terms in Work Time , or in the work time policy’s Work Time Norm . The fields only appear where a work time policy turns planned hours on.

1. In the Work Time Norm editor, turn on Split across days — a start time belongs to a day’s hours
2. For each working day, enter a Start . End shows the start plus the day’s hours, and Ends the next day when that runs past midnight. Changing the end changes the day’s hours — that is a change of norm, not of plan
3. Click Save

On an employment, the start times apply from the date you choose under Applies from , together with any other change in the panel — see Changing something from a date. Entering start times on an employment that follows its terms’ norm gives the employment a norm of its own. The employment then shows the planned hours after the norm, for example Mon–Fri 08:00–15:24.

For rotations over several weeks, each week of the pattern has its own start times — see Rotations over several weeks.

Without access to the employment

Someone who may plan hours but not edit the employment, such as a manager, gets a pencil (Edit planned hours ) beside the planned hours on the employment instead. It changes only the start times, not the norm’s hours:

1. On the employee’s profile, under Employments , click Edit planned hours
2. Enter or change the start times
3. Set Applies from , the first day the new start times apply. A past date must be in an open period and no more than three months back
4. Click Save

The pencil only appears on an employment with its own norm split across days. For an employee whose norm comes from the terms or the policy, ask HR to set the start times there, or plan single days in the timesheet.

Who can change planned hours

Changing planned hours takes the planned-hours:update permission. It is separate from editing the employee record, so you can give it to a role such as a shift planner without letting them change anything else — see Custom roles.

Planned hours in a submitted or approved timesheet period are locked for everyone. Reopen the period to change them.

Planned hours in the timesheet

When any day of the week has planned hours, the weekly timesheet shows a Planned row pinned above Check in/out , with each day’s start over its end. On a phone, the planned hours appear in short form in the calendar at the top.

Click a planned cell, or the day, to open the day. Under Planned it shows the planned hours and the norm they place, for example 15:00–22:24 · 7h24. The dashboard’s time tracking widget shows today’s planned hours the same way.

Change a single day

If you may change the day’s planned hours, a pencil appears beside them:

1. Click the pencil (Edit planned hours )
2. Enter a new From . Leave To empty to end after the day’s norm, or enter an end to move it: the end only says when you work and never changes the expected time. An end at or before the start runs past midnight
3. The change is saved as soon as you leave the field

The single day wins over the start times on the norm. On a day that has its own plan, Reset to norm removes it again, so the day goes back to the norm’s start time.

Adding a check record

On a past day with planned hours and no records yet, a new check record starts at the planned hours, and Use planned hours registers them as they are in one click. Today, checking in still starts at the current time.

Auto-register norm time

With Auto-register norm time on the work time policy, an empty planned day is filled with a registration that starts at the planned start and lasts the day’s norm, so the day nets to ±0 flex.

Sick leave on a planned day

When sick leave is registered for a single day that has planned hours, and the sick leave policy lets you choose the duration, the request offers:

• Full day — covers the whole planned day and costs its norm
• Rest of day — only for today, while planned time is still ahead: from now until the planned end
• From–to — a span that starts on the planned hours, which you can adjust. It counts only the part that overlaps the planned hours, at most the day’s norm. A span entirely outside them registers nothing and cannot be sent

Half day is not offered on these days: against planned hours it raises the question of which half. Days without planned hours, sick leave over several days, open-ended sick leave and changes to an existing request work as before.

Troubleshooting