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Working-hours templates

Define working patterns once — 4-day weeks, part-time, half days — and assign them per person or per department. Allowances pro-rate automatically.

Updated 11 July 2026

Everyone starts on Mon–Fri full-time. Working-hours templates describe any other pattern — and because leave deducts only on days someone is scheduled to work, getting hours right is what makes allowances and bookings accurate. Templates live at Settings → Working-hours templates (admin-only) and also appear as step 5 of the setup wizard.

What a template is

A template is a name (for example “4-day week”) plus a seven-day schedule grid. Each day is Full, AM, PM or Off, with start and end times. People assigned to a template follow it: editing a template updates everyone assigned to it.

Create one

  1. Under New template, give it a name.
  2. Set each day in the grid.
  3. Click Add template.

The list shows every template with how many people are on it. Edit changes it — if people are assigned you’ll see a “Change [name]?” confirmation listing exactly whose hours will change. Deactivate retires a template; anyone on it keeps their current hours and becomes Custom.

Assign hours to people

Three ways:

  • Per person — admins open People → Schedule for that person and pick a template, or edit their days directly. Editing a person’s hours directly switches them to Custom, detaching them from template updates.
  • Department default — set a Default working-hours template on a department. It’s applied automatically to new members; moving someone in never changes their hours silently (you get an “Apply department hours?” prompt), and Apply to all members updates existing people after showing who’s affected.
  • Staff CSV import — reference the template by name when bulk-adding people.

Why it matters for leave

  • Part-time and half-day patterns pro-rate the annual allowance automatically.
  • A booking that falls on someone’s day off deducts nothing.
  • Hours-mode bookings deduct exactly the overlap with scheduled hours — see Book time off.

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