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Overtime and Lateness ​

Two punches and a shift produce a surprising number of arguments. The employee says they worked three hours extra; the system says their overtime is zero. Or the opposite: someone came in on their day off and the system credits them with the whole day, mission time and overtime both. Neither is a fault — they are two different branches of the same calculation, and which one runs depends on what kind of day it was and on two or three settings that are easy to miss.

This page is about how the hours are measured. What happens to them afterwards — how an overtime figure becomes money on a payslip — belongs to Performance Indicators and Salary Calculation Formulas, and is only summarised at the end here.

The figures the day produces ​

Punches are raw. Whether they come from a machine through Time Attendance or from the mobile app as electronic attendance, they are rolled up into one record per employee per day — Employee Attendance Information («معلومات الحضور والإنصراف»), which you reach as a list from the Time Attendance screen and can filter by employee and date range.

That daily record answers what kind of day it was — vacation, holiday, weekly day off, mission, absence, an added shift — and then carries the day's net figures:

FigureWhat it is
Net working hoursHours actually worked, after all the corrections below.
Net overtimeThe extra hours, calculated by one of the two rules in the next section.
Net late timeLateness at the start of a shift.
Net early leaveLeaving before the shift's last out time.
Net early arrivalArriving before the shift starts. This is recorded, but it is not overtime.
Net mission timeHours covered by a mission document.
Net excuse timeHours covered by a leave permission.
Net partial vacation timeHours covered by a partial vacation.
First in / last outThe day's earliest punch-in and latest punch-out.

Underneath the net figures the same set is kept three times, once per shift part — a working day can have up to three time ranges, and every figure (expected hours, actual hours, overtime, late arrival, early leave, early arrival, mid-day out time, excuse time, mission time, and the no-check-in / no-check-out flags) is held per part. That is why the system indicators come in Shift1/Shift2/Shift3 flavours as well as day totals.

Several of these columns carry no English or Arabic label

The net columns were only ever translated into French, so on an English or Arabic screen a few of them show their internal name instead of a caption. The order is the one in the table above.

The two ways overtime is measured ​

One switch on HR Configuration decides which rule runs: Over Time calculated after last Work Time («حساب الوقت الإضافي من إنتهاء الدوام») value.overTimeAfterWorkTime. It is off by default.

Off — hours beyond the expected hours. The system adds up what the employee actually worked in the shift and subtracts the shift's expected hours. If the result is positive, that is the overtime. An employee whose shift is eight hours, who arrives an hour late and leaves two hours late, has worked eight hours and gets no overtime at all — which is the single most common reason for "the system swallowed my overtime". The lateness is recorded separately, and the late hour and the late departure cancel out.

On — only time after the shift ends. Overtime starts at the shift's official end (or at the punch-in, if the employee arrived after the shift had already ended) and runs to the actual punch-out. The same employee, one hour late and two hours late leaving, now gets two hours of overtime and an hour of lateness. Choose this rule when staying late is what earns overtime and arriving early or working through a break does not.

Which rule do you want?

"Hours beyond expected" rewards total time and forgives a late arrival that was made up later. "Time after the shift" rewards staying late specifically and never lets a late arrival be worked off. Most customers who complain about overtime disappearing are on the first rule and expected the second.

Two more settings decide what counts as worked time before that subtraction happens:

  • Consider Leave Permission in Overtime Calculation value.leavePermissionAddsOvertime — the hours covered by a leave permission are added to the worked hours. Without it a permission simply reduces the day.
  • Consider Missions in Overtime Calculation value.missionsAddsOvertime — mission hours are added to the worked hours.

Both only apply under the "hours beyond expected" rule. Under "time after the shift", overtime is measured from the clock, and neither permissions nor missions enter into it.

Days that are not working days ​

On a weekly day off, a holiday or a vacation day, there are no expected hours to subtract, so the rule changes completely: every punched hour becomes overtime, and no lateness, early leave or early arrival is calculated at all. The same happens on any day the employee has no shift.

Two options let you take holidays and vacations out of that rule:

  • Calculate Normal Work Hours For Holidays (Overtime will not be all day)value.calculateNormalWorkHoursForHolidays
  • Calculate Normal Work Hours For Vacations (Overtime will not be all day)value.calculateNormalWorkHoursForVacations

Switch either on and that kind of day is measured like an ordinary working day instead.

There is no equivalent option for the weekly day off

Weekends and weekly rest days are always treated as all-overtime days. Whatever you set for holidays and vacations, work on a day off is credited in full as overtime, and there is no setting that changes it. This is deliberate, but it catches people who assume the three day types behave alike.

A mission on a day off produces equal overtime and mission time. When the day is a rest day, a holiday or a vacation and Consider Missions in Overtime Calculation is on, the day's overtime is set to the mission time rather than added to it. So a three-day delivery run that crosses a Friday shows that Friday with, say, nine hours of mission time and nine hours of overtime — the same nine hours reported in two columns, not eighteen hours of credit. Neither figure is wrong: the employee worked their day off. If that ends up paying twice, the fault is in how the salary components read the two indicators, not in the attendance figures. Rest-day work is best separated by indicator type — OverTime In Week Ends and Hours Missions are different indicators precisely so they can be priced differently.

A related trap lives on the indicator rather than the document: the indicator flag Not Included In Week Ends zeroes the whole indicator for that day type, so it also throws away ordinary punched rest-day overtime. It is not a mission switch. See Leave Permissions and Missions.

Hours outside official working time ​

When a day has no time ranges at all — no shift to measure against — the setting unOfficial Working Time value.unOfficialWorkingTime decides what the punches are worth:

ValueResult
IgnoreThe hours are dropped.
OverTimeThey are added to the day's overtime.
NormalThey are added to the day's actual worked hours.

Lateness, early leave and the gaps in between ​

On a working day, four separate figures are measured against the shift's time range:

Late arrival — the time between the shift's start and the actual punch-in. It is only measured when the employee punched in after the shift started, and it has one important correction: if the line immediately before the attendance is an excuse — a leave permission covering the same shift range — the excused time is subtracted before the lateness is recorded.

That correction has a stronger form. When Leave Permission Starts The Dayvalue.leavePermissionStartsTheDay is on and the preceding record is a leave permission, no lateness is recorded at all. Its label spells out what it means: (Late arrival does not consider time between leave end and actual attendance start). This is the setting for the employee who has a permission to arrive at ten, arrives at ten past, and should not be marked late for the ten minutes.

Early arrival — the time between the punch-in and the shift's start, when the employee arrives early. It is recorded as its own figure. It is not overtime under either rule, though it does increase actual worked hours, which can produce overtime indirectly under the "hours beyond expected" rule.

Early leave — the time between the actual punch-out and the shift's last out time. As with lateness, an excuse on the following record that falls inside the same shift range is subtracted first, so a permission to leave an hour early does not also count as an hour of early leave.

Mid-day out time — the gaps in the middle: the time between a punch-out and the next punch-in within the same shift. This is what catches an employee who leaves for two hours in the afternoon and comes back, where neither lateness nor early leave applies.

Missing punches ​

A punch-in with no punch-out (or the reverse) leaves the day incomplete, and the system flags it rather than guessing: the day carries no check-in and no check-out flags, both per shift part and for the day. There are two ways to resolve them.

A Forgot Check Out permission. A leave permission of the Forgot Check Out type suppresses the no-check-out flag for that day — which is how the employee's own explanation gets into the record instead of a manual edit of the punches.

Automatic pairing. Merge Lines Missing Punch In With Lines Missing Punch Outvalue.mergeLinesMissingPucnhInOrOut pairs an orphaned punch-in with an orphaned punch-out, as long as the gap between them is no more than Max Difference In Hours To Merge Lines Missing Punch In Or Out value.maxDiffInHoursToMergeLinesMissingPucnhInOrOut, which ships at 18 hours. Turn this on where a reader drops punches regularly; leave it off where you would rather see the gap and have a supervisor account for it.

Two other settings shape how punches are attached to a day at all — the window before the shift within which an early punch still belongs to that work day (Consider Arrival Time For Work Day When Arriving Before Attendance Time With Period, 2 hours) and the window after it (Do Not Consider Arrival Time For Work Day When Arriving After Departure Time With Period, 10 hours) — and Max Continuous Attendance Hours, 23 by default, above which a line is treated as an error rather than a very long shift. All three are on HR Configuration.

When the day is several things at once ​

A date can be a public holiday, a weekly day off and a vacation day simultaneously, and since the day type decides whether the whole attendance is overtime, the tie has to be broken. Four settings do it, and they ship generously — holiday wins over both a day off and a vacation, and a vacation wins over a day off. The full table is in When two day types collide.

Overlapping records are a different problem with a different answer. An attendance line, a mission, a leave permission and a partial vacation can all cover the same minutes; Handle Overlap Between Attendance, Missions, and Leave Permissions is on by default and resolves them by priority, which ships as mission first, then attendance, then permission, then partial vacation. Switch it off and the same hours are counted — and paid — more than once.

From hours to money ​

Nothing on the attendance record touches a payslip by itself. The route is always the same:

  1. The day's figures are measured, as above.
  2. A Performance Indicator of the System type names one of the built-in readings — OverTime, OverTime Normal Day, OverTime In Week Ends, OverTime In Holidays, OverTime In Vacations, OverTime Shift1…3 for the overtime side, and Late Hours, Late Arrival Shift1…3, Early Leave, Under Time and the missing-punch readings for the deduction side.
  3. Optionally a System Indicator Approval clamps and signs off the measured value before it counts — the usual guard against an unreviewed overtime reading inflating pay.
  4. A Salary Calculation Formula of the Related To Performance Indicator type turns the approved figure into an addition or a deduction on the salary document.

Each of those steps is documented on Performance Indicators.

Diagnosing "the overtime is wrong" in order

  1. Open the day on Employee Attendance Information and check what kind of day the system thinks it was — vacation, holiday, weekly day off or ordinary. That alone decides which rule ran.
  2. Compare the day's actual hours against its expected hours. Under the default rule there is no overtime until the first exceeds the second.
  3. Check whether Over Time calculated after last Work Time is on. It changes the answer completely.
  4. Check whether the permission and mission switches are on, if either is involved in the day.
  5. Only then look at the indicator: its Shift Type, its Not Included In Week Ends flag, and whether an approval document capped it.

Messages you may see ​

MessageWhyWhat to do
Employee {0} has no attendance plan on day {1} — «الموظف {0} ليس له خطة دوام في اليوم {1}»A leave permission, mission or vacation document covers a day on which the employee has no attendance plan, and the matching Prevent … With In No Attendence Plan option is on.Give the employee a plan covering those dates. If a plan exists but is not matching, check the six dimension switches that control attendance-plan matching.
Employee {0} has no Attendance Plan in {1} — «الموظف {0} ليس له خطة دوام في يوم {1}»The same gap, found while attendance was being calculated rather than while a document was being saved. Without a plan there are no expected hours, so neither overtime nor lateness can be measured.Create or extend the plan for that period, then recalculate attendance.
Leave permission {0} overlaps with {1} for the employee {2}, From Date {3} — «إذن الإنصراف {0} يتداخل مع إذن الإنصراف {1} للموظف {2} من تاريخ {3}»Two leave permissions cover the same time for one employee.Shorten or delete one of them. Overlapping permissions would otherwise both be excused against the same lateness.
Full day mission must include week endsA full-day mission was saved with Not Include Week Ends ticked. A full-day mission runs round the clock from its start date to its end date, so every day in between was worked, weekly rest days included.Clear Not Include Week Ends. Use it only for a multi-day hours-based mission. No Arabic text exists for this message.
Cannot calculate indicator {0} for employee {1}The attendance figures could not be turned into an indicator value — most often because the day has no plan or the employee has no HR information for the period.Check the employee's attendance plan and HR information for those dates, then recalculate. No Arabic text exists for this message.
The employee {0} has a repeated attendance code {1}, please change itTwo employees share one attendance machine code, so a punch cannot be attributed.Give one of them a different code. If the duplication is across companies, Consider Legal Entity To Find Employee on the configuration resolves it without renumbering. No Arabic text exists for this message.
Could not find employee with attendance machine code {0}A punch arrived with a code no employee carries.Add the code to the right employee's HR information, or correct the machine. No Arabic text exists for this message.
This document can not be used if the option manual attendance is selectedAttendance Manual Calculation is on and this document only works with automatic calculation.Switch manual calculation off, or stop using the document. No Arabic text exists for this message.