Attendance - Initial Setup Caution

Attendance Initial Setup Caution

Before you setup Gradience Attendance, you must first understand the three basic components of the software.

1. Time-Off Banks: These hold the Time-Off that your employees earn.

2. Time-Off Plans: These make automatic deposits of Time-Off into the Absence Categories / Time-Off Banks.

3. Absence Reason Codes: These make withdrawals from the Absence Categories / Time-Off Banks. These are the reasons people are absent.

The [only] way that your employees will automatically accrue Time-Off will be if you [assign] the appropriate Time-Off plan to the employees for each [kind] of Time-Off you want them to earn. This does not mean you need to create unique plans for every employee. Employees may share Time-Off plans. What it does mean is that each employee must have [ a ] plan assigned to him/her for each Absence Category / Time-Off Bank.

For example, the software comes fresh out of the box with a plan called [None]. This is a Time-Off plan that accrues [no] Time-Off at all. For example you would assign the [None] plan to the Vacation Absence Category / Time-Off Bank for an intern who [does not] earn Vacation Time.

Additionally, the program comes with the following three Time-Off Banks:
• Vacation
• Sick
• Personal

Some organizations prefer a single category called PTO or Paid Time-Off while other organizations prefer to have "Vacation" but wish to combine Sick with Personal and call it "Sick/Personal", while still other organizations prefer to add-in Comp Time or Floating Holiday or "Points". The program is capable of accommodating such customization.

Some people will add Absence Categories / Time-Off Banks like Jury Duty, Tardy, Unpaid Absence, etc. This is a mistake. After all, how much of these kinds of Time-Off do employees [earn]?

•  If someone is Tardy, apply the Tardy absence code to the date on the Calendar that the employee was tardy.
•  If someone is out on Jury Duty, apply the Jury Duty absence code to the date on the calendar that the employee was out for jury duty.
•  If someone is out on an "unpaid absence" apply the absence code for this to the date the employee was out.

So it is important you not rush through the setup based on faulty notions of what-drives-what. Otherwise, you risk setting it up wrong, getting unsatisfactory results and not know how to get out of the mess you've made. Regrettably, we are [not] in a position to walk you through the process of undoing the damage to get you back to square-one so you can start-off correctly.

--IMPORTANT-- Only enter one or two employees to get the software setup. Do not enter the rest of the employees until everything else is all set up.

You may also find these other Articles useful:

Quick Set-up Guide 

Accrual Help Hub