Auto Shift Assignment
What is the Auto Shift Assignment Feature?
The Auto Shift Assignment feature in Zoho People automatically assigns employees to shifts in real time, based on their check-in time. This feature ensures seamless shift management without manual intervention and is especially useful for organizations with rotating or flexible shift schedules.
How does it work?
Once enabled, the system auto-assigns a shift to employees only for the current date entry (past records remain unaffected). This is based on the time of check-in and the selected auto-assign shift preference.
Setting Up Shift Auto-Assign Preferences
To enable auto shift assignment, navigate to Settings > Shift > Configuration > Auto Shift Assignment tab and enable the Auto shift assignment option.
Next, you can choose one of the following three dropdown options to control how the system determines which shift to assign:
- Closest Shift (based on time)
The system checks the time of the employee's check-in and compares it to all available shifts. The shift whose start time is closest to the check-in time will be assigned.
Example:
General shift: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Noon shift: 2:00 PM – 10:00 PM
If an employee checks in at 12:00 PM, the system will assign the Noon shift (as 2:00 PM is closer than 9:00 AM).
- Shift that Started Recently
The system assigns the shift that started most recently before the check-in time.
Example:
General shift: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Noon shift: 2:00 PM – 10:00 PM
If an employee checks in at 1:30 PM, the system will assign the General shift (which started earlier at 9:00 AM).
- Shift that is About to Start
The system assigns the next shift that is about to start after the check-in time.
Example:
General shift: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Noon shift: 2:00 PM – 10:00 PM
If an employee checks in at 9:30 AM, the system will assign the Noon shift (as it is the next upcoming shift).
Notify Employees
Enable this to automatically notify employees when a shift is assigned or updated:
Email, Feed notification or both can be enabled and used together.
You can also customize the email template for notifications by clicking on the Customize Email Template link
Setup and Handle Approvals
Navigate to Settings > Shift > Approvals and configure an approval process for Auto Shift Assigned Requests (using the provided drop-down) Learn more about approvals in Zoho People.
Once the approval process is setup and the system initiates a auto shift change request, administrators and managers (as configured) can review and approve them from either:
Operations > Shifts > Auto-Shift Assignment Requests, or
Attendance (under user services in the left panel) > Team tab.
Manage Applicability
Configure applicablity by using the provided options:
All users – Applies the rule globally to everyone in the organization.
Specific users – Allows targeting the rule to specific employees or groups. For example, to make auto shift assignment applicable only to "Team Member" role of "Support" department from "Mumbai" location, configure as indicated in screenshot below:
Specific users can also be selected using the Add Employee option. Exceptions can also be configured by using the Add Crtiera option available under Exceptions.
Specific users – Allows targeting the rule to specific employees or groups. For example, to make auto shift assignment applicable only to "Team Member" role of "Support" department from "Mumbai" location, configure as indicated in screenshot below:
Specific users can also be selected using the Add Employee option. Exceptions can also be configured by using the Add Crtiera option available under Exceptions.
NOTE
By default, employees are assigned to their designated mapped shifts.
By default, employees are assigned to their designated mapped shifts.
Managers or administrators can manually override any auto-assigned shifts.