Meal Break Exceptions
- Gurpreet Banwait (Deactivated)
- Michael Shumko (Deactivated)
The Meal Break Exception User Guide will review the features in the Meal Break Exception module.
Meal Break Exception User Guide
(Versions 8.0.14 and above)
Overview
This user guide discusses how breaks are tracked by eTime Xpress using the available Meal Breaks module. These may include meal breaks and rest breaks.
Breaks are recorded in real time by the employee using Voice Xpress and/or Team Xpress function.
The Time & Attendance module allows the eTime user to view a log of breaks by shift, and the Meal Break Expection Report allows the user to produce reports to analyze breaks.
Requirements
The eTime Xpress, eClock (Voice Xpress and/or Team Xpress), and Meal Breaks modules must be licensed.
Logging Meal Breaks
Employees can record their meal breaks using either of two methods: Team Xpress, Voice Xpress eClock, or a combination of the two.
The system allows a minimum break duration to be applied. It will prevent the employee from recording a break that is too short, and will tell the user how long he must wait before recording the end of his break. For example, "The minimum break length is 30 minutes. You must wait 4 minutes before recording your break end time."
The system will ensure that the break entries follow the prescribed sequence. That is, check in must happen before break start, and break start must happen before break end. The employee may record more than one break start/end sequence. Note that the system permits checking out when there is a break "in progress".
If the scheduled break length for the shift is zero, the system will automatically record the calculated break as the actual shift break value for the shift when the employee checks out of the shift through eClock.
Breaks that are entered using hardware-based scanning such as on a HandPunch are not included in the Meal Breaks feature, and are tracked and processed separately.
Team Xpress
The employee records his breaks on the same app or web screen as he uses to clock in and out for his shift. The Start Break slider will be available after the shift has been checked-in. The End Break slider will be available after a break has been started.
The employee can review his meal breaks using the LOG option.
Voice Xpress
The employee records his breaks in the same voice menu as he uses to clock in and out.
Two additional options, 2 and 3, are used to record breaks.
record a break start time
record a break end time
check in
check out
perform a safety check
After each choice, the employee must press 7 to confirm his selection.
Schedule Xpress
The scheduler can review the shift's breaks using the Employee Shift Log option on the shift edit menu:
Time & Attendance
You can review the break scans in the Time & Attendance screen. Right-click on any shift, and then select Shift Break Log:
You will see the current check-in and break records. There will be an indication when a Break Start does not have a corresponding Break End, and vice versa:
When the shift is complete and the breaks are matched, there will be a message comparing the scanned breaks to the actual break as shown on the Time & Attendance record.
Pressing the Sync button will update the Current Actual Break Value of the shift with the Sum of Calculated Breaks.
An employee may have more than one break:
View All Break Times
The Time & Attendance screen allows you to change a shift's In and Out times, as does Control Center.
If you change the shift times in such a way that any of the break scans are outside the shift's In and Out times, then the shift may appear not to have any breaks, or not as many breaks as actually took place. For example, if the Check-In time of the shift is updated to occur after a Break Start time, then the shift will appear to have an incomplete break. (In this case it will have a Break End without a Break Start, which could not happen via normal scanning.)
Check the View All Break Times option to see all the scans, including those that are 'outside' the shift:
Synchronize the Actual Breaks with the Calculated Breaks
The Calculated break is the sum of the recorded breaks as shown when the View All Break Times option is unchecked. The Actual break value is the amount that is currently shown on the Time & Attendance screen. You can synchronize these so that the Actual break value is set to the Calculated break value. This can be done only on shifts that are checked out and have complete breaks.
There are two ways to synchronize the Actual Break.
To synchronize the breaks of a single shift, right-click on the shift and select Shift Break Log.
Click the Sync button. This will change the Actual Break to be the same as the Calculated Break.
To synchronize the breaks of multiple shifts, use the Replace function. On the Edit menu, select the Replace item. Select the shifts to be replaced.
To select multiple items use the Select All button, or use Ctrl-click or Shift-click. In the Adjust box, select Time and Break: Synchronize, and then press OK. This will change the Actual Break to be the same as the Calculated Break on the selected shifts.
Meal Break Exception Report
Reports > Scheduling > Meal Break Exception
The Meal Break Exception Report displays the worked shifts and their break records, if any.
Selection Criteria
The common eTime report criteria are available for selecting the shift date range, Customers, Sites, Services, and Employees.
You can limit the selected shift records to only the sites that are in a specific state or province. For example, specifying CA will include only the shifts where the Site's state is California.
You can limit the output to shifts that do not comply with the listed meal break criteria.
You can specify the break length conditions to include in the report, comparing the sum of the calculated breaks to the actual break listed on the shift. This filter is applied only against shifts with complete break patterns.
An incomplete break pattern is defined as a shift that has a check-in and a check-out, but does not have one or more complete pairs of break start and break end. To filter by these conditions, select the appropriate Break Pattern filter.
Sample
Missing Break indicates that the shift is missing a Break Start or a Break End, or that the shift has no breaks at all.