Virtual TimeClock Knowledge Base

Troubleshooting Shift Rules

Whether you're using shift rules to control unwanted employee overtime, track employee tardiness, or automatically clock out employees who forget to punch out, if your shift restrictions don't appear to be working there are several troubleshooting steps you can take to help solve the mystery. Below are the five most common reasons time clock shift rules may not be working as expected.

1. Shifts have not been assigned to users.
Once you create a new shift and customize the shift rules, you must assign the shift to your employees. If you forget to assign the shift to your employees, the rules will not take effect. Shifts can be assigned to individual workers using Schedules, or you can assign a shift to multiple employees using Display Group settings. Learn more by reviewing the Assigning Shifts to Users article.

2. The shift start and stop times are not configured correctly.
If the start and stop times in the shift settings don't match your actual shift times, your shift rules will not work as expected. In the example below, the name of the shift (9am - 3pm) is different than the actual shift hours (8am - 5pm), which can cause confusion. Review the Creating a New Shift article and double check your shift time settings.

Shift settings showing shift name and shift times not matching

3. Time clock is in Administration Mode.
All shift rules are ignored when Administration Mode is turned on. This allows managers and time clock administrators to override employee shift restrictions when needed. Once administration mode is turned off, your time clock will be in User Mode and your clock in and out restrictions will once again be enforced. Select Turn Administration On or Off from the File menu to toggle between administration and user modes.

4. Changes were made to employee shift rules during the workday.
If you change shift rules after an employee is already clocked in, the new rules will not go into effect until the following day, when the shift schedules have reset.

5. Shift rules are not resetting for the new workday.
Your time clock resets your shift schedules for a new day based on parameters in the Time Settings. If your shift rules are not working, the hours clocked out before restarting daily totals value may need to be lowered. If this number is to high, the time clock will assume the shift is continuous and will not apply the rules even if it's a new day. To adjust this value, enable administration mode and select Time Settings from the Configure menu. Change the hours clocked out... number to the default which is 6 hours.

Time clock time settings showing hours off the clock
These are the most common reasons that Virtual TimeClock users can have difficulties getting shift rules to work as expected. If you go through these troubleshooting steps and are still having issues, please reach out to our technical support team for assistance.