quick link next to this field at the top of the form to add, copy, delete,
or lookup a Sign Policy.The Sign Policy form is used to configure rules for signing a timecard. The settings determine if/when an employee and/or supervisor is required to sign a timecard, and what actions a sign/unsign action may trigger.
The Sign Policy determines whether the Sign and Unsign buttons will be visible on the Self Service and Supervisor Review timecards. These settings will determine whether employees can sign their own timecards and whether supervisors can sign their employees’ timecards.
The Sign Policy also determines whether the Sign button will check for hours exceptions (such as underreported or overreported hours) that prevent the timecard from being signed. See Time Card Check for more information.
When a supervisor views an employee's timecard, the signing permissions will be based on the employee's Sign Policy settings. For example, if the employee's Sign Policy has the Supervisor Sign Option set to DAY, the supervisor cannot sign the employee's week or pay period.
You may configure your Sign Policy and Recalculation Policy to have the ATTENDANCE service or RECALCULATION service sign an employee's timecard. Make sure you enable these services on the Service Instance form. For the RECALCULATION service, the employee's Recalculation Policy must have the Affect Signatures box checked.
This policy can be assigned to a single Employee/Person via the Employee Setting form, to an Employee Group with type POLICY_GROUP or FACILITY via the Employee Group Setting form, or to all users via the System Settings form. An Employee setting overrides an Employee Group setting, which overrides a System Setting. See Settings Precedence for more details.
See Also:
How Payroll Lock Affects Signing
Sign Policy Field Descriptions
Add, Copy, or Delete a Sign Policy Name
Modify the Settings in a Sign Policy
You can configure the system to display a pop-up form when an employee or supervisor attempts to sign a timecard. To do so, you need to assign the Employee Authentication on Sign and Supervisor Authentication on Sign settings to the employee or supervisor.
When this setting is Enabled and the employee or supervisor presses the Sign or Unsign button on the timecard, the system will display a pop-up form and prompt the person for their application login password. For more information see Authentication on Sign.
When a day is payroll locked, no transactions can be added or modified on the time card by the employee or the supervisor. To unlock a timecard, an administrator must use the Payroll Lock form or service.
Employees and supervisors may be able to sign/unsign a payroll locked timecard, depending on the Sign on Payroll Lock setting in the employee's Sign Policy.
Sign Policy Name
Name of the Sign Policy. Use the
quick link next to this field at the top of the form to add, copy, delete,
or lookup a Sign Policy.
Sign Category
Identifies the type of signature to which the settings apply.
EMPLOYEE: This record applies to non-supervisor (employee) signatures.
SUPERVISOR: This record applies to supervisor signatures.
Sign Mode
Indicates when the employee or supervisor is required to sign the timecard.
Disabled: The Timecard does not require a signature. Whenever an employee posts an event, no sign or unsign is posted. There will be no signature applied.
Always: The person is always required to sign the timecard.
If the timecard is signed and a new transaction is posted by the employee, supervisor, or the RECALCULATION service, the timecard is automatically unsigned. If the ATTENDANCE service posts an automatic clock-out, the timecard will be unsigned unless Clk Out Affects Sign in the Clock Policy is not checked.
You must also specify a Sign Option to indicate if the person is always required to sign a day, week, or pay period. You can specify a Sign Trigger that will occur when the record is signed.
Automatic: The timecard is automatically signed by the ATTENDANCE service or whenever an employee or supervisor posts an event on the employee’s timecard. The person does not have to sign it. The ATTENDANCE service must include the ATTENDANCE_SIGN_DAY task if you select the Automatic Sign Mode option. See Service Instances for more information on the ATTENDANCE service and its tasks.
Exception: Applies only to the EMPLOYEE setting. The employee is responsible for signing the timecard only when changes have been made in the timecard by anyone other than the employee (for example, the supervisor modifies the timecard or the RECALCULATION service changes the timecard). You must specify a Sign Option to indicate if the employee is required to sign a day, week, or pay period.
When an employee posts events, the system will employee-sign the day. The ATTENDANCE service will employee-sign gap days. Also, if a day has no schedule and the employee has performed no sign actions (signing and/or unsigning), the ATTENDANCE service will employee-sign the day.
If a supervisor modified the employee’s timecard, or the RECALCULATION service changes the timecard, the employee’s signature will be removed from the modified days. If the ATTENDANCE service posts an automatic clock-out, the employee’s signature will be removed unless Clk Out Affects Sign in the Clock Policy is not checked. The employee must sign the timecard manually to indicate he/she is aware of the changes.
If the employee changes the timecard, a signature is not required because the employee made the change. The employee is allowed to sign the timecard even if changes have not been made.
The ATTENDANCE service must include the ATTENDANCE_SIGN_DAY task if you select the Exception Sign Mode option. See Service Instances for more information on the ATTENDANCE service and its tasks.
Employee Lock
The Employee Lock option is only available when the Sign Mode is Always.
If Employee Lock is checked for the EMPLOYEE Sign Category, an employee signature will “lock” the employee's timecard. The employee will no longer be able to post any new transactions or make changes to any existing transaction for that post date. However, the employee can still sign or unsign the timecard, depending on the Sign on Payroll Lock setting.
If Employee Lock is checked for the SUPERVISOR Sign Category, a supervisor signature will “lock” the employee's timecard. The employee will no longer be able to post any new transactions or make changes to any existing transaction for that post date. However, the employee can still sign or unsign the timecard, depending on the Sign on Payroll Lock setting.
Employee Lock is different from Payroll Lock. If a day, week, or period is Payroll Locked (e.g., via the PAYROLL Sign Trigger), this Payroll Lock overrides the Employee Lock setting.
Supervisor Lock
The Supervisor Lock option is only available when the Sign Mode is Always.
If Supervisor Lock is checked for the EMPLOYEE Sign Category, an employee signature will “lock” the timecard for the supervisor and other services (such as the ATTENDANCE service). The supervisor will no longer be able to post any new transactions or make changes to any existing transactions for that post date. However, the supervisor can still sign or unsign the timecard, depending on the Sign on Payroll Lock setting.
If Supervisor Lock is checked for the SUPERVISOR Sign Category, a supervisor signature will “lock” the timecard for the supervisor and other services (such as the ATTENDANCE service). The supervisor will no longer be able to post any new transactions or make changes to any existing transactions for that post date. However, the supervisor can still sign or unsign the timecard, depending on the Sign on Payroll Lock setting.
Supervisor Lock is different from Payroll Lock. If a day, week, or period is Payroll Locked (e.g., via the PAYROLL Sign Trigger), this Payroll Lock overrides the Supervisor Lock setting.
The table below displays the effects of the Employee Lock and Supervisor Lock setting combinations. Note that if a day, week, or period is Payroll Locked, this Payroll Lock overrides the Employee Lock and Supervisor Lock settings.
Sign Category |
Employee Lock checked |
Supervisor Lock checked |
Employee Activity Allowed? |
Supervisor Activity Allowed? |
Employee |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Employee |
Y |
N |
N |
Y |
Employee |
N |
Y |
Y |
N |
Employee |
Y |
Y |
N |
N |
Supervisor |
N |
N |
Y |
Y |
Supervisor |
Y |
N |
N |
Y |
Supervisor |
N |
Y |
Y |
N |
Supervisor |
Y |
Y |
N |
N |
Indicates whether an employee or supervisor can sign or unsign the timecard when it is payroll locked. Available options are NOT ALLOWED, SIGN, UNSIGN, and SIGN AND UNSIGN.
For the EMPLOYEE Sign Category:
NOT ALLOWED: When a day is payroll locked, it cannot be signed or unsigned by the employee.
SIGN: When a day is payroll locked, it can be signed but not unsigned by the employee.
UNSIGN: When a day is payroll locked, it can be unsigned but not signed by the employee.
SIGN AND UNSIGN: When a day is payroll locked, it can be signed and unsigned by the employee.
For the SUPERVISOR Sign Category:
NOT ALLOWED: When a day is payroll locked, it cannot be signed or unsigned by the supervisor.
SIGN: When a day is payroll locked, it can be signed but not unsigned by the supervisor.
UNSIGN: When a day is payroll locked, it can be unsigned but not signed by the supervisor.
SIGN AND UNSIGN: When a day is payroll locked, it can be signed and unsigned by the supervisor.
Sign Option
When the Sign Mode is set to Always or Exception, the Sign Option indicates whether the timecard can be signed and unsigned each day, at the end of the week, at the end of the pay period, or some combination of these options.
DAY - Allowed to sign and unsign individual days.
WEEK - Allowed to sign and unsign the entire week at once.
PERIOD - Allowed to sign and unsign an entire period at once.
DAY, PERIOD - Allowed to sign and unsign individual days or the entire period. Cannot sign or unsign a week.
DAY, WEEK - Allowed to sign and unsign individual days or the entire week. Cannot sign or unsign a period.
WEEK, PERIOD - Allowed to sign and unsign a week or a period. Cannot sign or unsign individual days.
DAY, WEEK, PERIOD - Allowed to sign and unsign individual days, an entire week, or an entire pay period.
Sign Trigger
When the Sign Mode is Always, use the Sign Trigger to select which actions will occur when the record is employee or supervisor signed.
To enable a Sign Trigger, move it from the Available column to the Selected column.
PAYROLL: When this Sign Trigger is enabled, an employee or supervisor signature will automatically payroll lock the record. A payroll lock "freezes" attendance and labor transactions for the applicable employee. When a day is payroll locked, the employee will not be able to post any additional transactions to the posting date. If an employee tries to post any transactions to a locked posting date, the message "This day is payroll locked" will display on the terminal or the web. A supervisor cannot make changes to a locked posting date. However, it is still possible to sign/unsign a payroll locked timecard, depending on the Sign on Payroll Lock setting.
The audit trail on the Sign Audit form will indicate that a payroll lock signed the timecard as well as the employee/and or supervisor. The Signed By column will display who triggered the payroll lock. The payroll lock action is also viewable on the Payroll Lock Audit form for auditing purposes.
CLASSIFY: When this Sign Trigger is enabled, an employee or supervisor signature will classify the timecard.
The CLASSIFY option should only be selected if your Pay Policy has Time Classification set to MANUAL. If you are using the EWT/Comp Time feature, you may want to use Manual Time Classification so you can wait and classify the timecard after all the hours have been worked and all EWT or Comp Time has been authorized. With this method, adjustments to the timecard will not affect the hours classifications.
Note: If your Sign Policy has both the PAYROLL and CLASSIFY Sign Triggers enabled, make sure your Recalculation Policy has Payroll Lock set to Require Locks or Ignore. When these Sign Triggers are enabled, a signature will lock the timecard first, and then classify it. However, classification is affected by the Recalculation Policy. Therefore, if Payroll Lock in the Recalculation Policy is set to Require No Locks, then classification will not occur because the timecard is already payroll locked.
Sign Check Ruleset
Use this field to select a ruleset that checks the timecard for hours exceptions when the user clicks the Sign button in the timecard. Hours exceptions can include such things as underreported or overreported hours and hours reported on an unscheduled day. See Timecard Check for more information.
Available options are defined in the Rulesets form with the Context Name Timecard Check Ruleset.
You can create separate Sign Check Rulesets for employees and supervisors, and assign each one to the appropriate Sign Category in your Sign Policy.
For information on the operands used to create the Sign Check Ruleset, see Timecard Check Rules Operands.
If you do not select a Sign Check Ruleset, the system will not check for hours exceptions before signing (the Timecard Check feature will not be used).
The Sign Check Ruleset in a person's Sign Policy will check for hours exceptions when a timecard is signed in the web timecard, Mobile Client, or Mobile Web Application.
Update Date, Updated By
These fields display when the record was created or updated, and the person who created or updated the record.
Click Main Menu > Configuration > Policies > Sign Policy.
Select the Sign Policy Name from the top of the form.
Click Find.
The Sign Policy's settings will appear in the grid.
Click Main Menu > Configuration > Policies > Sign Policy.
Click the
quick link next to the Sign
Policy Name field at the top of the form.
To find a specific policy, select Lookup from the quick link.
On the pop-up form that appears, select the policy you want to view and click OK.
To create a new Sign Policy, select Add from the quick link.
On the pop-up form, enter a name for your Sign Policy and then click Save. See Modify the Settings in a Sign Policy to continue.
To duplicate a Sign Policy, select Maintain from the quick link.
On the pop-up form, select the Sign Policy you want to duplicate and click Copy. Enter a name for the Sign Policy and then click Save.
The duplicate Sign Policy will have the same settings as the original.
To delete a Sign Policy, select Maintain from the quick link.
On the pop-up form, select the Sign Policy and click Delete. Click OK to confirm the action.
Click Main Menu > Configuration > Policies > Sign Policy.
Select the Sign
Policy Name from the top of the form. You can also use the
quick link next to the Sign Policy Name
field to Lookup a Sign Policy.
The policy's settings will appear in the grid.
Select the Sign Category of settings you want to modify (EMPLOYEE or SUPERVISOR) and click Modify.
Change the settings as necessary. You can change all the settings except the Sign Policy Name and Sign Category. Refer to the field descriptions above for information on these settings.
Click Save when you are done.