Shift Policies
Create shift policies in Holiday Ocean 360 for attendance tracking: work hours, grace periods, overnight shifts, and assigning or editing policies.
What a shift policy controls
A shift policy is the rulebook that tells the system when an employee should clock in, how late is too late, and how violations are converted to deductions.
You can have multiple policies (e.g., Office 9-5, Warehouse Night, Field Sales) and assign each one to specific employees, departments, or roles.
Creating a policy
Go to Policies → Shift Policies → click New Policy.
The wizard asks for:
| Section | Fields |
|---|---|
| Basics | Name, description, timezone |
| Schedule | Start time, end time, working days, break duration |
| Grace periods | Minutes allowed late before flagging, minutes allowed early-leave |
| GPS | Required / optional / off; allowed coordinates with radius |
| Violations | What counts as late / early / absent |
| Deductions | Per-violation monetary penalty or percentage of daily pay |
Grace periods
The grace period is the buffer between scheduled start and “officially late.”
5 minutes for office staff. 0 minutes for shift workers where coverage matters. 15+ minutes only if attendance is informal.
Late arrivals inside the grace window are recorded but don’t generate a violation. Late arrivals after the grace window do.
Overnight shifts
If end time is earlier than start time (e.g., 22:00 → 06:00), the system treats it as an overnight shift. Violations and worked hours are calculated correctly across midnight.
Assigning policies
After saving the policy, two ways to assign it:
- By department — open the department in
Org Structure, switch to the Schedule tab, pick the shift policy - By individual employee — open the user, set their override policy
An employee can only have one active shift policy at a time. The individual override (if set) wins over the department default.
Editing or deleting
- Editing updates future violations only — past records keep their original rule.
- Deleting is allowed even with assignments; the system cascades and removes attendance records and violations tied to the policy. Use with care.