The master data for the module can be found under Administration > Overtime & Absences. Before going live, store the absence reasons, public holidays, mail templates, and special times there.
Absence Reasons
Categories
The absence reasons can be found under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Absence Reasons. There are five categories that differ in their effect on the hour account:
Annual Leave: Each recorded holiday day is deducted from the employee's holiday entitlement. One holiday day corresponds to the number of hours assigned to the weekday, which is credited to the hour account. If a time is specified, the proportion is converted into days according to the regular working time.
Paid Absence (e.g. illness): One absent day corresponds to the number of hours assigned to the weekday, which is credited to the hour account.
Unpaid Absence (e.g. illness without continued pay, parental leave): One absent day corresponds to the number of hours assigned to the weekday, which is deducted from the target working time.
Flextime: Informative only, no effect on the hour account.
Absence Documentation (e.g. home office): Informative, not a real absence. The break regulation with core working hours applies on days with absence documentation.
Note: Absence reasons of the “Absence Documentation” category behave differently in three respects: they do not block the booking of hours, can also be entered on weekends, public holidays, and non-working days, and are visible to all employees regardless of their permissions – so that colleagues can see, for example, that someone is reachable in the home office. Additional absence reasons can be recorded alongside absence documentation (e.g. home office full day + holiday 50 %). Furthermore, the setting “Time recording on a full absence day possible” = “No” does not apply to this category.
Editing Absence Reasons
For each absence reason you can specify the following properties:
Colour: Displayed in the calendar. Only administrators and controllers see different colours in reports.
Short form: Can be renamed via the pencil icon in the overview.
Multilingualism: Labels can be stored in German, English, and French. Depending on the language setting of the employee or project, the corresponding label is displayed.
Public short form: If activated, all employees can see the absence reason in shared calendars of other employees and in the absences overview.
Approval required: Absences with this absence reason must be approved by an administrator or department head. Optionally you can specify whether the employee should be notified by email about the approval or its revocation.
Every employee may record absences themselves: Controls whether this absence reason is available for selection in the employee's absence calendar. If not activated, recording is only possible via Employee > [Employee name] > Administration > Calendar by administrators or department heads – these also do not have the absence reason available for selection under Absences & Appointments.
Absence duration: “Full day” is always activated. Optionally you can additionally allow “50 %” and “Time” per absence reason.
Holidays
Managing the Holiday Calendar
The public holidays can be found under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Holidays. Select a year and click Execute to display the holiday calendars for that year. Empty tables mean that no public holidays have yet been entered for the selected year.
Note: Public holidays must be entered for each calendar year in good time before employees record holidays and working hours.
Carrying Forward Holidays to the Following Year
Click on Continue all holiday calendars from YYYY for YYYY+1 to carry all calendars with the public holidays of the current year forward to the following year. Moveable public holidays are recalculated to the correct date in the new year.
Alternatively, under Administration > System > Tasks you can schedule the task “Continue all holiday calendars for the following year”. It creates the public holidays annually on 1 January at 12 noon for the following year. If the message “0 Public Holidays created” appears, either the source year had no public holidays, or the public holidays were already entered manually.
Creating a Holiday Calendar
If you have employees at different locations with different public holidays, you can create several holiday calendars. Click on + Create new holiday calendar, enter a name, and save.
Note: Do not forget to assign the created holiday calendar to the relevant employees under Employee > [Employee name] > Regular Working Hours if you do not want to use the default holiday calendar.
Entering and Calculating Holidays
After creating a calendar click on Calculate holidays for [calendar name] for [year] and select country and region (federal state or canton). The calculated public holidays can then be added to or deleted manually – e.g. for regionally valid public holidays or collective agreement public holidays.
When recalculating, only missing public holidays are added; existing entries are not deleted.
Caution: If absences have already been entered for a public holiday to be generated, the calculation is aborted with an error message. Identify the affected employees via Reports > Employees > Absences Overview, delete the absences, and restart the calculation.
Value and Surcharge
The value of a public holiday determines the target working time on that day:
Full public holiday: Target working time is 0.
Half public holiday: Target working time corresponds to half the regular working time for the weekday.
Max. hours: The target working time corresponds to the entered maximum value, but at most the regular working time for the weekday.
For each public holiday you can additionally store a surcharge in percent. This information is carried over when transferring to the following year. Whether public holiday surcharges are added to the overtime account as time surcharges is controlled in the Basic Settings Absences & Overtime.
Public Holiday Surcharge on the Following Day
If work was performed on the public holiday, the surcharge also applies on the following day up to the configurable time. Work on a public holiday is defined as work from 0 to 24 hours on the public holiday as well as work on the following day from 0 until the configured time, provided the shift began on the public holiday.
Holiday Exceptions
Via holiday exceptions you specify that for individual employees a particular date is treated differently from the standard holiday calendar – e.g. as not a public holiday, as a half public holiday, or as a full public holiday.
When creating an exception you can select several employees at the same time (e.g. all employees of a department). The following additional actions are available:
Transfer exceptions to other employees: Mark the desired rows and select “Transfer marked holiday exceptions for other employees”.
Transfer exceptions to the following year: With “Transfer marked holiday exceptions to another year” moveable public holidays are also transferred to the correct date in the new year.
With the Locations & Departments module the table of holiday exceptions is grouped by departments.
Mail Templates
Under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Mail Templates you customise the standardised email texts for the following areas:
Absence mail templates: Notifications about deleted, approved, or withdrawn absences.
Absence request mail templates: Notifications relating to absence requests (request submitted, withdrawn, reminder, rejected, approved).
Overtime mail templates: Notifications for too many overtime hours per day and for a negative overtime balance.
Via general placeholders (e.g. %EMPLOYEE%, %PERIOD%) specific information can be embedded dynamically in the emails. Each template can be sent as a test in German, English, or French to your own email address.
Special Times
Special Times can be found under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Special Times. These are freely definable time segments (e.g. night time, Sunday time) that are shown separately in the Month-End Report.
Creating a Special Time
For each entry specify the following:
Label (e.g. “Sunday time”, “Night time”)
Day (weekday or public holiday)
Period (from / to within the day)
If a special time should span midnight (e.g. 23:00–06:00), create two separate entries: once 23:00–24:00 and once 00:00–06:00 – both with the same label. A shared column for this time will then appear in the Month-End Report.
Whether additional time surcharges are calculated for special times and added to the overtime account is controlled in the Basic Settings Absences & Overtime.
Creating a New List of Special Times
If your special times change from a certain date, create a new list with a new start date of validity. Time surcharges are calculated from the introduction date of the module or the last Month-End Closing and in dependence on the validity of the respective list.
