Who's this for: Admin, HR Admin
Set up shift planning and absence policies to track your drivers' actual attendance and keep payroll accurate.
This guide covers the topics from your second Kenjo implementation session.
Enable employees for shift planning
Before you can create a shift, each employee must be individually enabled for shift planning. Until an employee is enabled, they won't appear in the schedule and you can't assign them a shift.
To enable an employee:
Go to Employees, open the profile of the employee in question.
Click Actions, then Enable shift planning.
Fill in the station, the work area(s), the role(s), and, if needed, tags.
Tip:
This activation only needs to be done once per employee. Once enabled, they stay available for shift planning.
Create shifts
A shift is a work slot assigned to one or more employees. From Shiftplan > Schedules, you have three ways to create one.
Create a shift by clicking the calendar
Click directly on a day in the schedule to open quick creation. There you can set:
The start time and end time (required fields, marked with a star).
The break duration.
The location, the work area (optional) and the role.
Multiple days and multiple employees at once.
Create a shift with a template
Templates save a standard schedule (for example 8am-5pm with a 1-hour break) that you can then drag and drop onto any day in the schedule. This is useful whenever several employees regularly work the same slot.
Create a shift with the AI assistant
Click Suggestion to let the AI assistant propose a schedule based on the needs you describe (employee, day, role). The more precise the description, the more relevant the suggestion; you can always adjust it before confirming.
To plan several weeks at once without recreating everything, use the advanced options when creating a shift and choose a recurrence (for example every week until a given date).
Publish and manage shifts
A shift you've just created isn't yet visible to the employee. Until it's published, the employee doesn't receive any notification and their personal schedule isn't updated.
Click Publish to activate the selected shift(s). Publishing automatically triggers a notification to the employee and updates their calendar.
From the Actions menu, you can also:
Clear the schedule to delete the selected shifts and start over.
Generate a PDF of the schedule.
Copy a shift to paste it onto other days or employees.
Use open shifts
An open shift is a slot created without an assigned employee. Employees can apply to take it. You choose how the assignment happens:
Mode | Behavior |
Require approval | Employees apply for the open shift; you or a manager must approve it before the shift is assigned. |
Allow auto-assignment to the first applicant | The shift is automatically assigned to the first employee who applies, without any approval from you. |
Open shifts are handy for covering a last-minute absence. If this feature doesn't fit your organization, you can simply not use it.
Set up shift planning settings
In Shiftplan > Settings, you can adjust:
Employees on rotation: check who is enabled for shift planning and edit their information (station, area, role, tags).
Notifications: turn on automatically sending a notification to the employee whenever a published shift is updated.
Display: choose which information is visible on each shift (name, role, location, tag), and whether employees can see their colleagues' availability.
Work locations: add a new station or work area. A new station must first be added in the company settings and in the attendance settings before it appears here.
Breaks: if enabled, the break duration is automatically deducted from the total shift duration shown, so the schedule reflects actual working time.
Shift swaps: allow employees to swap shifts with each other, with visibility settings to define who can see whose schedule.
Availability: if enabled, employees get a reminder (for example every 1, 2 or 3 weeks) to indicate their available or unavailable days. This is indicative information: it doesn't stop you from scheduling an employee on a day they've marked as unavailable.
Conflicts & automations: turn on automatic conflict detection, for example exceeding the legal daily hours limit, a mismatch between the assigned role and the employee's role, or an overlap with an absence.
Understand the link between shift planning and payroll
Each employee's profile contains a work schedule (a fixed work plan, for example Monday to Thursday). This plan is fixed: it doesn't change from week to week, even if the employee actually works to a variable schedule.
If you don't set up shift planning, Kenjo uses this fixed work schedule to calculate the days and hours paid during an absence. If the plan shows the employee working Monday to Thursday and they request time off on a Saturday, that Saturday won't be sent as paid to the payroll provider, even if the employee was actually scheduled to work that day according to their real schedule.
If you use shift planning, Kenjo relies on the shifts actually scheduled (rather than the profile's fixed work schedule) to determine which days were worked. This is the recommended method if your drivers don't have the same fixed hours every week, since it avoids sending worked days as unpaid to the payroll provider.
Important:
Never enter a profile work schedule that doesn't match reality (for example 7h/day Monday to Sunday) just to simplify data entry. Kenjo uses it directly to calculate the days and hours paid: an incorrect value leads to payroll errors.
Set up absence policies
An absence policy defines the rules for a type of absence: who can request it, how its balance is calculated, and how it's deducted from payroll. Absence types fall into two categories: paid (paid leave, sick leave, maternity/paternity leave, on-call, compensatory rest, etc.) and unpaid (suspension, sick child leave, unpaid authorized absence, strike, etc.). You don't have to use all the available types: only set up the ones your company needs.
To create a policy, go to Time Off > Settings and click New policy.
Set up the allocation
Allocation: in days or in hours. (for DSPs using ADP, you must always choose the allocation in days)
Allocation type: fixed (a set number of days, for example for paid leave) or unlimited (typically for sick leave).
Annual cycle: the date the allocation renews each year (January 1st for most companies).
How to accrue the allocation: allocation granted all at once at the start of the cycle, or accrued monthly (for example 2.5 days at the start or end of each month).
Additional allocation (optional): extra days granted based on seniority, for example 3 extra days after 3 years with the company.
Set up proration
Proration adjusts the allocation of an employee who joins or leaves the company partway through the cycle, or who doesn't work full-time.
Proration basis | Options |
Employee's contract start / end date | No proration, daily proration, or monthly proration. |
Employee's work schedule | Proration based on weekly working days, or on weekly working hours. |
For an employee who doesn't work full-time, proration based on weekly working hours is more accurate than proration based on days, since it accounts for the exact percentage of working time rather than just the number of days. Thanks to this feature, there's no need to create several policies for different contract types (full-time, part-time, etc.).
Set up the balance
Negative balance limit: allow a negative balance or not, and set a limit if so.
Carryover: allow carrying over unused days into the next cycle, with an optional maximum and expiration date.
Balance rounding: round the current balance to whole days or not.
Important:
Only enable balance rounding if you're sure you need it. An employee with a balance rounded up may see a number of days they're not actually allowed to take at once, which creates inconsistencies.
Set up the deduction
The deduction determines which days count as worked (and therefore payable) when an employee requests time off.
Deduction based on | Behavior |
Work schedule | Deducts based on the schedule or work schedule assigned to the employee, public holidays excluded. Recommended if you use shift planning. |
Calendar days | Deducts for every calendar day requested, weekends and public holidays included. |
Custom work week | Deducts based on working days and hours per day that you define yourself, independent of the employee's profile. |
For most DSPs, the recommended combination is: deduction based on work schedule, with up-to-date shift planning. Kenjo then knows exactly which days were actually worked and sends the correct information to the payroll provider.
Set up requests and approval
Two ways to manage time off requests:
Employees submit their request directly in Kenjo; you or an HR admin approve or reject it.
Only admins or HR admins create and edit absences; employees contact you outside of Kenjo (email, phone) and you enter the absence yourself.
Set up visibility and supporting documents
Visibility: allow employees to see their colleagues' absences on the calendar or not.
Justified / unjustified absence: categorizes the absence for tracking purposes, independent of pay.
Attachment: you can require supporting documentation (for example a medical certificate) from the first day or from a given day (for example the 3rd day of absence).
Assign the policy and set restrictions
Once the policy is created, assign it to all relevant employees or to a specific group (for example only drivers, or only full-time employees). You can create several policies for different groups of employees.
You can also add a restriction to temporarily block requests on a policy, for example during a peak season (e.g. from November 1st to December 31st).
Record and correct absences day to day
To record an employee's absence on the same day:
Go to the employee's profile, Time Off section.
Select the relevant day.
Choose the reason: unpaid absence if the employee didn't show up without justification, or justified absence if they were sick or on leave.
Shift planning shows the expected hours; the employee's clock-ins then show the hours actually worked. You can compare the two and correct attendance directly from the employee's profile, Attendance section.
An employee can clock in even if they don't have a shift scheduled under their name: prior scheduling isn't required to clock in.
Pay an unused backup driver
If a driver scheduled as backup shows up but ends up not being used, you have two options to pay them:
Manually add attendance hours on their profile (for example 2 hours).
Create an absence policy dedicated to on-call, with a custom work week deduction that assigns a fixed number of hours (for example 2 hours) without recording attendance.
Frequently asked questions
Is the schedule I create in Kenjo the one sent to drivers?
Yes. Once published, the schedule is the one passed on to the employee and shown in their app. Kenjo also uses it to know which days the employee should work.
Does a driver need a scheduled shift to be able to clock in?
No. An employee can clock in even if they don't have a shift scheduled under their name, for example if they're covering for a colleague at the last minute.
What happens if an employee requests time off on a day their profile work schedule shows as a non-working day, but they were actually scheduled to work that day?
If the policy's deduction is based on the work schedule and you use shift planning, Kenjo relies on the shift actually scheduled. If you don't use shift planning, Kenjo relies on the profile's fixed work schedule and that day won't be sent as paid.
How do I pay a backup driver who came in but didn't work?
Manually add attendance hours on their profile, or set up an on-call absence policy that automatically assigns a fixed number of hours.
Do I need to set up a policy for every absence type available in Kenjo?
No. Only set up the absence types your company actually needs; you don't have to enable the others.