Work Patterns

A Work Pattern is a repeating cycle of contracted hours per day. It tells biotime how much an employee is expected to work on any given date, not when those hours fall, and not which shifts they cover.

Think of it as the answer to “what is this person contracted to do in a normal cycle”:

38 hours a week: 7 hours 36 minutes, Monday to Friday.

A nine-day fortnight: 8 hours 30 minutes a day, with every second Friday off.

Part-time: 4 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, nothing on the rest.

A pattern doesn't do anything on its own. Your award rules read it, commonly for overtime after contracted hours, premiums, public holiday entitlement and time off. Which rules read it, and how, is set up with the biotime team when your award is configured. So if you have Work Patterns, keeping their hours accurate is what keeps those rules right.

Depending on how your rules are configured, a pattern can be used to:

A Work Pattern doesn't roster anyone. Building one puts no shifts anywhere. The two aren't alternatives, though: an employee can be rostered from a Master Roster while a Work Pattern supplies the contracted-hours figure their pay rules read.

1. Go to Configuration → Rosters, open the Work Patterns tab and click the +.
2. Give it a Name and Description. Both are required, and the name must be unique. Name it for the arrangement rather than the person: “Nine-day fortnight”, not “Sam's hours”.
3. Set the Start Date. Day 1 of the cycle falls on this date, and the pattern doesn't apply before it, so set it far enough back to cover the periods you need.
4. Set the Length. The slider runs from 5 to 168 days and defaults to 7. Match it to how the arrangement repeats: a nine-day fortnight is a 14-day pattern, not a 9-day one.
5. Tick any days under Skip that shouldn't carry hours, and tick Holidays if public holidays fall outside the contracted cycle.
6. Type a figure into the All box to fill every day that isn't skipped, then adjust the individual days that differ. Do the Skip ticks before the fine-tuning. Changing one refills the whole grid from the All box and resets the days you've adjusted.
7. Check each day reads the way you expect, then save.

If the hours already exist as a rotation, Copy from Master fills the grid from a Master Roster and sets the length to match. It's a snapshot. Later changes to that roster don't flow through, so you'll need to copy it again.

A pattern does nothing until it's applied. Set it for a whole award, or for individual employees.

On the award, under Defaults → Work Pattern, pick a named pattern and everyone on that award uses it. Current Employee Master uses each employee's own master roster instead.

1. Open the saved Work Pattern and click Assign To Employees.
2. In Apply Work Pattern to Employees, click Select, choose the employees, then confirm. The picker's Pattern column shows what each employee is on before you change it.

On the employee record, set Work Pattern Override → Pattern: a named pattern, As Defined in Award to follow the award, or Use current master roster to use their rostered shifts. This is the safer route for a single change.

• Tick Skip and Holidays before you fine-tune individual days. Changing a Skip tick refills the whole grid from the All box, resetting any per-day adjustments you've already made.
• Name patterns for the arrangement, not the person. For example “Nine-day fortnight”, not “Sam's hours”. Patterns are meant to be shared, and names sort alphabetically in the list.
• Treat Copy from Master as a one-time snapshot. It won't stay in sync with the roster it came from, so copy again if that roster changes.
• Check the new pattern's Start Date before moving someone onto it. The switch recalculates their open history from that date, and anything earlier drops to zero hours.

Open ones, yes, back as far as the Start Date. Anything locked or reviewed keeps the figures it already holds, so periods you've signed off are safe unless you unlock them again.

Usually not. An employee is linked to one pattern at a time, and that link carries no dates. Move them to a new pattern and their open history recalculates against the new Start Date, so anything before it drops to zero hours.

Adjust the pattern they're already on, or give the new one a Start Date early enough to cover the history you need.

That depends on the Holidays tick under Skip. Tick it and the pattern gives the employee no contracted hours on a public holiday. Leave it unticked and the holiday counts like any other day in the cycle.

Yes. Roster them from a Master Roster as normal. Then, under Work Pattern Override, choose what supplies their contracted hours: a named pattern, or Use current master roster to use their rostered shifts.

The length runs from 5 days to 168 days, so long rotations fit comfortably. A four-week, four-week, five-week rotation comes to 91 days, well inside the maximum.

A Work Pattern supplies the contracted hours per day that pay and award rules read: a number, with no shift times attached. A Master Roster defines the actual shifts employees work: start and finish times, breaks, positions and jobs. See Master Roster Templates for how to build and assign one.

• Master Roster Templates
• Overtime & Excess Hours
• Rosters, Grace, Rounding & Exceptions