Purpose
Everything under Time Tracking Settings > Schedule: the notification suite for employees and reporting managers, and the rules that tie clock-in behavior to scheduled shifts. Two of those rules can block an employee's clock-in entirely, so read them before turning them on.
When to use this: you are rolling out scheduling and want alerts and punctuality rules configured before the first published week. Or an employee "can't clock in" and you suspect a schedule rule is the reason.
Who can do this: users with Schedule and Time Tracking Settings company access set to Full Access (typically the Employer Admin). Users with View Access can open the tab but cannot change it.
Where: log in to the employer portal, open Time Tracking Settings from the left navigation, then the Schedule tab. The tab lists Employee Notifications first, then Reporting Manager Notifications, then a General Settings section with the shift-timing and clock-in rules.
Notifications
Each notification can be delivered by Email, SMS, or Push Notification, checked independently. Most rows also have a timing threshold (X minutes, maximum 360). Once any delivery channel is checked on those rows, the threshold becomes required; the row will not save without it. Two rows have no threshold because they are triggered by an event rather than a time: Shift publish and No Show.
To employees
| Notification | Trigger | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Reminder to start shift on time | X minutes before shift start | "Your shift for {company} starts at 09:00 AM EST." |
| Reminder to end shift on time | X minutes before shift end | "Your shift ends at 05:00 PM EST." |
| Shift publish | Immediately when a shift is published (see below) | Email lists the date range and a table of dates and start/end times. Push and SMS: "A new schedule has been published." |
| Early shift start alert | Clock-in more than X min before shift start | "You have clocked in 50 minutes early from your scheduled shift." |
| Late shift start alert | Clock-in more than X min after shift start | "You have clocked in 50 minutes late from your scheduled shift." |
| Early shift end alert | Clock-out more than X min before shift end | "You have clocked out 50 minutes early from your scheduled shift." |
| Late shift end alert | Clock-out more than X min after shift end | "You have clocked out 50 minutes late from your scheduled shift." |
| No Show | The employee never clocks in by the time the shift is scheduled to end. Attendance is marked "No Show". | "You have not clocked in to your shift 09:00 AM – 05:00 PM." |
When the Shift publish notification fires. It goes to the assigned employee when:
- you create a shift with Save and Publish;
- you publish a draft shift, one at a time or with the Publish button;
- you edit a published shift and choose Save and Publish (the employee receives the notification again, with the new times).
It does not fire when you save a draft, when you publish an open shift (nobody is assigned yet), or when you delete a shift. There is no "shift changed" or "shift removed" notification. If you remove a published shift, tell the employee yourself.
Default: until you change this row, the Shift publish notification is sent by Email and Push to every employee whose shift is published. Turn it off here if you do not want employees notified.
To reporting managers
| Notification | Trigger | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Employee has not started shift | The employee has not clocked in within X minutes of shift start. An early warning for lateness and no-shows. | "Jack, Daniel, and 5 more are running late for the shift scheduled from 11:00 AM to 07:00 PM EST." |
| Employee has not ended shift | The employee has not clocked out X minutes after shift end. Guards against forgotten clock-outs and unplanned overtime. | "Few employees have not clocked out at 05:00 PM." |
| Early shift start | An employee clocks in more than X min early | "John Doe has clocked in 30 minutes early at 08:30 AM from the scheduled shift start time 09:00 AM." |
| Late shift start | An employee clocks in more than X min late | "John Doe has clocked in 30 minutes late at 09:30 AM…" |
| Early shift end | An employee clocks out more than X min early | "John Doe has clocked out 30 minutes early at 04:30 PM…" |
| Late shift end | An employee clocks out more than X min late | "John Doe has clocked out 30 minutes late at 05:30 PM…" |
| No Show of shift | Shift end time passes and the employee never clocked in. The final absence alert. | "John Doe, Patric Wilson has not clocked in to the shift 09:00 AM – 06:00 PM." |
These alerts go to the employee's Reporting Manager of record.
Shift-request notifications: swap, offer, and open-shift-claim notifications (requested, accepted, rejected, approved, denied) are event-driven. They fire on the action itself and are not configured here. See Managing Shifts, Shift Offers and How to Approve Them, and Creating and Filling Open Shifts.
[Screenshot: Schedule tab, notification settings]
Tip: A good starting set is the Shift publish notification, the manager's "Employee has not started shift" alert, and the employee's Late shift start alert. These tell employees when a schedule is ready and tell managers who has not arrived. Add the other reminders later if the team needs them; too many alerts are quickly ignored.
General Settings: shift timing and clock-in rules
These sit in the General Settings section at the bottom of the same tab. The first two are on/off restrictions that can block a clock-in outright. The rest tune timing behavior. The clock-in rules are enforced on punches from the web, the UZIO Mobile App, and the Time Kiosk.
| Setting (on-screen label) | Behavior |
|---|---|
| "Restrict clock in without published shifts." | Blocks any clock-in on a day the employee has no published shift. The setting's own help text: "Prevent employees from clocking in when no shift has been published for the day. Employees can only clock in if a shift is scheduled and published for them." Turn this on only if everyone in time tracking is scheduled. An unscheduled or unpublished employee cannot punch at all while it is on. |
| "Restrict clock in into unscheduled shifts." | When the employee has a published shift that day, blocks clocking in under "Unscheduled". They must clock in to their assigned shift. Help text: "Prevent employees from clocking in under Unscheduled shifts when a published shift exists for that day." Days with no published shift are unaffected. |
| "Prevent employees from clocking in [N] minutes prior to shift starts." | Early clock-in block. With 15 minutes and a 9:00 AM shift, no clock-in before 8:45 AM (N up to 360). Clocking in under "Unscheduled" bypasses it, unless you have also restricted unscheduled clock-ins above. |
| "Mark employees as late if they clock in [N] minutes after their shift starts." | Marks the entry Late past the threshold (15 min and a 9:00 AM shift: late after 9:15 AM). This is a flag for attendance review and reporting. It does not block anything. |
| "Automatically clock out employees [N] minutes after the shift ends." | If the employee is still clocked in N minutes after the scheduled shift end, the system clocks them out at shift end + N minutes. The entry shows a system source in the audit trail. Leave it blank or 0 to disable. |
| Schedule view start day | The weekday the Schedule page's weekly and monthly views start from. It also sets the week boundaries used by Wages/Hours budgets. You can change it at any time; the grid updates immediately. |
| Shift default timing | Default shift start and end times (15-minute steps). They pre-fill the Add Shift window and the rows of the bulk-import template. Editable per shift before saving. |
Note: settings you might not see. The early clock-in restriction and the automatic clock-out are platform-gated. The UZIO platform your account runs on can hide either one. Their absence from your Schedule tab is expected, not a fault.
DSP note: the "Prevent employees from clocking in [N] minutes prior to shift starts" setting was introduced for the Amazon DSP platform and is enabled there. On other platforms it appears only where the platform flag is on.
Where the block messages are: when one of these rules blocks a punch, the employee sees the message at the clock. What employees see and what they should do is covered in Clocking In and Out. Platform-wide punch restrictions (restrict clock in, clock out, and breaks per device type) and the "Prevent employees from clocking in before [time]" floor for days without a shift live on the Time Clocks tab instead. See Time Clocks and General Settings.
[Screenshot: Schedule tab, General Settings section]
Common problems
Why can't my employee clock in?
If the punch is blocked (not just flagged), match the message the employee reports:
- "Clock in is not allowed without a scheduled shift." "Restrict clock in without published shifts." is on and the employee has no published shift today. Publish their shift, or turn the restriction off. A created shift is not enough; it must be published.
- "Clock in is not allowed in the unscheduled shift." "Restrict clock in into unscheduled shifts." is on, the employee has a published shift today, and they tried to punch in under Unscheduled. They need to select their assigned shift.
- "You cannot clock in {N} minutes before the shift start time." The early clock-in threshold has not opened yet. They can clock in once they are within N minutes of shift start.
- "The selected shift does not exist for today." The employee selected a shift dated another day, or the shift was deleted or changed after they opened the clock screen. Ask them to refresh and pick today's shift.
Geofence and device-type blocks look similar to the employee. They are covered in Clocking In and Out and Time Clocks and General Settings.
An employee was clocked out and says they didn't do it
Check "Automatically clock out employees [N] minutes after the shift ends." If set, the system records a clock-out at shift end + N minutes for anyone still punched in. The entry's audit trail shows a system source. If the employee genuinely worked longer, correct the entry on the Employees Timesheet.
Why didn't a notification go out?
A time-based notification only fires when at least one delivery channel (Email, SMS, Push) is checked and its minute threshold is filled in. Also confirm the recipient: employee alerts go to the employee, the second table's alerts go to the employee's Reporting Manager of record. If the employee has no reporting manager, nobody receives the manager alert.
Employees got a "new schedule" notification I didn't expect
The Shift publish notification is on by default (Email and Push). It also fires when a published shift is edited with Save and Publish. Turn the row off here if you want to publish silently.
Why does the schedule week start on the wrong day?
Schedule view start day controls it, for the grid and the budget week. Anyone with Full Access to schedule settings can change it. The grid updates immediately.
Still stuck?
If a setting described here is hidden on your Schedule tab and you need it, or a notification is configured correctly but never arrives, please reach out to us at support@uzio.com or call +1-571-601-1752. Include the setting or notification name, a screenshot of the Schedule tab, the affected employee's name or ID, and the date and time of the shift involved.
Related articles
- Getting Started with Scheduling
- Managing Shifts: Creating, Publishing, Editing, and Deleting
- Scheduling Grid: Views, Filters, Budgets and Hours
- Time Clocks and General Settings: platform-level punch restrictions and the no-shift early-clock-in floor
- Clocking In and Out: what the employee sees when a rule blocks the punch
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