This guide is intended for administrators who set up and maintain All Hours in their company. It explains the basic concepts, the recommended order of setup and the tasks an administrator performs regularly. For details on each step, follow the links to the more detailed guides.
Basic concepts
Before you start, it helps to understand how the parts of All Hours fit together:
User – an employee or co-worker whose working time is recorded.
Department – an organisational unit used to filter views and reports and to limit managers' access.
Authorization role – a set of permissions that defines what a user can see and edit in the app.
Global time rules – the default calculation rules for the whole company.
Time policies – deviations from the global time rules for a specific group of employees.
Work plan – defines which time policy applies to a user on a given day.
Events – clockings, absences, and adjustments and interventions.
Counters – totals such as the hour balance, vacation balance or allowances that are exported for payroll.
Approval workflow – defines who approves employees' requests.
Recommended setup order
Create departments and add users.
Assign authorization roles to users.
Review the global time rules and, if needed, create time policies and work plans.
Review the holiday calendar and absence types.
Enter vacation quotas.
Set up approval workflows.
Decide how employees will clock (web and mobile app, time clock, clocking points).
Send invitations to employees.
1. Users and departments
Departments
In Users > Departments, create your company structure. The main department with your company name is created automatically; add sub-departments with + Add. Assign departments to users individually on the Time & Attendance tab of the user profile, or in bulk using Actions in the Users view.
Adding users
Add users individually with + Add user, or in bulk by importing a file. For each user, set:
first and last name (required),
email address, which is also the username for signing in,
permission to sign in, if the user will use the app,
the authorization role,
department, work plan, calendar and calculation start date (Time & Attendance tab).
Important: The calculation start date must not be earlier than the date from which the calculation rules apply; otherwise the user has no rules for that period and cannot be calculated.
Invitations
A user can sign in only after setting a password through the invitation. You can send invitations when adding a user or later, also in bulk: in Users, select the users and choose Actions to resend the invitation. A Quick Start Guide for Employees is available for your employees.
When an employee leaves
Archive users who no longer work for the company, so that all their data is kept. Deleting a user is permanent and also removes their entire history.
2. User permissions
Authorization roles are managed in Users > Authorization Roles. Your account includes three predefined roles that you can adjust. The key settings are:
Adding clockings and absences – whether employees add entries themselves and whether these must be approved (Authorization roles).
Managers' data access – a manager without restrictions sees all employees in the company. You can limit a manager to selected departments on their profile (How to limit administrators/managers to departments).
Locking and unlocking calculations – permissions required by the administrator who locks calculation periods.
Overview of all permissions: Authorization roles.
3. Calculation rules
Calculation rules define how clockings and absences are converted into hours on timelines, in reports and in the payroll export. Settings exist on two levels:
Global time rules (Settings > Global Time Rules) apply to all employees who have no other rules assigned.
Time policies (Settings > Time Policies) inherit the global settings; change only what differs for a specific group.
Recommendation: Set the global time rules so that they suit most employees. For deviations, create time policies and change only the rules that really differ.
Work plans (Settings > Work Plans) consist of one or more time policies and determine which schedule applies on a given day – automatically, based on the first arrival clocking, or according to a predefined cycle. Assign the work plan to a user on their profile.
Whenever you change rules, the Period selection dialog asks from when the change applies. Changes do not affect locked periods.
Details: Calculation rules overview, Advanced use of Work Plans, How to configure the Required time rule.
4. Calendars, absences and vacation
Holiday calendar – in Settings > Calendar Groups, check the public holidays and, if needed, create a calendar for another country (Creating a new calendar). Assign the calendar to a user on their profile.
Absence types – in Settings > Event Definitions > Absences, edit existing absence types or add new ones and set the calculation method, for example entry by hours (Entering absences by hours).
Vacation quota – when you start using All Hours, enter each employee's current and last year's vacation balance, individually with an adjustment or by importing a file (Vacation balance, Importing Annual Vacation Quota). By default, unused vacation from last year expires on 1 July, and on 1 January the vacation balance is transferred to last year's vacation.
Overview of the whole process: Absence Management.
5. Approving requests
Create approval workflows in the Approval Workflows settings. In a workflow, define:
approvers by level – each level is activated after approval at the previous one; on the same level, approval by one approver is enough,
exceptions – a different flow for specific events, for example annual leave approved by the director,
automatically approved events – for example sick leave, with a notification to the manager.
Assign the workflow to a user on their profile or in bulk using Actions in the Users view. Details: Approval Workflows: Multi-Level Event Approval.
6. Ways of clocking
Employees can record their working time:
in the web app,
in the All Hours mobile app,
on a time clock (terminal) using an identifier, such as a card or key fob.
With clocking points and geolocations, you can limit mobile clocking to specific locations.
7. Regular tasks
Approvals – review and approve employees' requests in the Requests menu.
Record checks – check timelines for missing clockings and violations.
Payroll export – prepare payroll data in Reports. Configure the pay types for the export in the Payroll settings.
Locking periods – after payroll is completed, lock the calculations so that later changes do not affect the calculated period.
Automatic reports – in Settings > Report Automation, schedule reports to be sent by email.
8. Integrations
To exchange data with other systems (for example HR or payroll software), create an API key in Settings > Advanced. Details: Enabling API access.
Need help?
All Hours support is available by email and through the chat in the app.