How Generating the Roster Works
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Generating turns each employee's roster lines into a day-by-day roster: the shift for every day, and which days are week-offs or half-day week-offs. It runs when you answer Yes after saving in Allocate Roster, and from Generate Roster.
Which line applies on a day
An employee can have several roster lines. On each day, of the lines that cover that day, the one with the latest Date From applies. (Two lines of one employee cannot start on the same date.) A day that no line covers gets no roster day.
Example — Sunita has two lines: GENERAL SHIFT from 1 April with no end date, and NIGHT SHIFT from 1 November to 30 November. In November the night shift applies, because its Date From is later. From 1 December, GENERAL SHIFT applies again: it is the only line covering those days.
Where the week-offs come from
Each day takes its week-offs from one pattern:
SHIFT
The line's Week-off Pattern; when it is (SHIFT'S OWN), the shift's own pattern from Setup Payroll Shifts
ROTATION
The pattern of the rotation step running that day; when it is (SHIFT'S OWN), that step's shift's own pattern
With no pattern found, the day has no week-off. If a pattern gives both a full day off and a half-day off on the same date, the full day off wins.
Rotations and cycles
A rotation starts on the line's Anchor Date (or its Date From when blank), on the Anchor Step, and then runs its steps in order, round and round.
A rotating cycle week-off pattern (for example 6 days on, 1 off) counts its day 1 from the same anchor date: the line's Anchor Date, or its Date From when blank. On a rotation, the cycle counts from the line's anchor, not from the start of each step.
Example — A rotation has two steps: DAY SHIFT for 7 days, then NIGHT SHIFT for 7 days — a 14-day cycle. Ravi's line starts on 1 November with Anchor Step 2. So he works NIGHT SHIFT from 1 to 7 November, DAY SHIFT from 8 to 14 November, NIGHT SHIFT again from 15 November, and so on.
Branch holidays and the employee's holiday list
Generating writes the full-day week-offs into the employee's own holiday list — the list payroll and attendance already read for employee-wise holidays. Half-day week-offs are kept on the roster day only; they are not added to the holiday list. When attendance is saved for a half-day off, the off half is charged to a leave — see Setup Week-off Patterns.
Follow Branch Holidays = Yes on the line: the branch's holidays (Setup Holidays) are added to the employee's list too. On a rostered day a branch holiday counts — it takes the place of any week-off that day — but a branch weekly-off does not: the roster decides the week-offs.
Follow Branch Holidays = No: no branch holidays are added. The employee gets only the roster's week-offs and any holidays entered by hand.
The first time an employee is rostered, they switch to employee-wise holidays. This payroll year's branch holidays are copied into their own list first, so the days already passed keep the holidays they had.
Holidays entered by hand in Setup Employee Wise Holidays are never changed or removed by generating, and on such a date no week-off is added.
Days that are never changed
Generating never changes:
days before today (today itself is generated again),
days in a payroll period already processed for the employee,
days before the employee joined or after they left.
Days changed by hand in Roster Calendar keep the shift and week-off set by hand.
If an employee cannot be generated — for example a shift, rotation or week-off pattern their line uses can no longer be found — nothing is changed for that employee, and the others still go through. The message says why.
When you change something
Changing a pattern, shift, rotation or line does not change days already generated. Generate again for the employees concerned. Save in Allocate Roster offers this, and Generate Roster does it for many employees at once.
Deleting all of an employee's lines keeps the days already generated. To put the employee back on the branch's holidays, use Switch to Branch Holidays in Allocate Roster. It removes their roster days from today on (or from after the last processed payroll period), and is refused while they still have holidays entered by hand from today on.
A new payroll year: generating proposes to run up to the end of the payroll year that covers today; in Generate Roster you can change that date. At the start of a new year, run Generate Roster with All Rostered Employees to extend everyone's roster.