# Attendance Policy

The rules a day is judged by: grace periods, overtime, auto clock-out, working from home and the rest, per office or company-wide.

A shift says when somebody is expected. The attendance policy says what to make of it when they arrive fifteen minutes late, work past six, or forget to check out. It is the longest screen in the panel and nearly all of it is optional.

> **Note:**
>
> **Work hours and the working week are not here**
>
> They belong to the shift, because they vary between patterns rather than between offices. This screen holds the rules that judge whatever the shift expects.

## Choose whose rules you are editing

![The top of the Attendance Policy screen, headed Attendance Policy above the line Grace periods, overtime, regularization, and related rules. Work hours and weekly off are set per Shift. A Policy Scope section follows, explaining Editing the company default. Applies to employees with no office, or an office that has not diverged, above a picker reading Company default.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/worklink/settings/policy-scope.png)

*The scope picker comes first, because everything below it applies only to the scope you are on.*

**Company default** governs employees with no office and every office that has not diverged. Pick an office and you are editing that office alone; the others carry on with the default until they are edited in turn.

## The timezone is shown, not set

![The Timezone section of the Attendance Policy screen, reading Employees follow their Work Location's timezone, or a personal override if they have one. A bordered panel with a globe icon shows Europe/London above the smaller line Inherited from Organisation Profile.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/worklink/settings/policy-timezone.png)

*The panel names both the zone in force and where it came from.*

Attendance resolves a zone in a fixed order, and the first one set wins.

| Order | Where the timezone comes from |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | The employee's own timezone override. |
| 2 | The timezone on their work location. |
| 3 | The organisation profile. |
| 4 | UTC, if none of the above is set. |

Change it on the work location or on the organisation profile. An amber warning appears here when nothing is configured, because attendance counted in UTC reads every recorded hour against the wrong working day.

## What each group of rules decides

![The Grace Periods section of the Attendance Policy screen. Late Grace (min) is set to 10 above the note Minutes after shift start before a check-in is marked late. Check-ins within this window are treated as on time. 0 = late from shift start. Early Check-in Buffer (min) is set to 0 above the note Minutes before shift start that check-in opens. Early time is not counted in work hours (calculated from shift start). 0 = opens at shift start.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/worklink/settings/policy-grace.png)

*Every numeric field carries its own explanation, including what a zero means.*

| Group | What it decides |
| --- | --- |
| Grace Periods | How many minutes after shift start a check-in still counts as on time, and how many minutes before it check-in opens at all. |
| Half Day | Whether people may request half a day off. The half comes from their shift, so it is unavailable on a day with no shift. |
| Late-Arrival Reminder | Sends an in-app nudge to anyone who has not checked in by a set number of minutes past their shift start. |
| Auto Clock-Out | Closes a session automatically a set number of minutes after the shift ends, for people who forget. |
| IP Restriction | Limits check-in to approved addresses, entered as IPs, CIDR blocks or start-to-end ranges. |
| Overtime | Tracks time worked beyond the standard hours, once it passes the threshold you set. |
| Regularization Rules | Whether corrections may be raised at all, how many each person gets a month, and how far back they may reach. |
| Work From Home | Whether people may pick WFH at check-in, how many days a month, and whether a manager approves it first. |
| Compensatory Off | Whether overtime or holiday working earns time back, the minimum that qualifies, and how long it lasts. |
| Leave Policy | The sandwich rule, the longest run of consecutive days allowed, the lock period, and what probation restricts. |
| Attendance Lock Period | Blocks edits to records older than a set number of days. |

## The settings with a trap in them

- **Late Grace** (minutes): Check-ins inside this window count as on time. Set it to 0 and somebody is late from the first second past shift start.
- **Early Check-in Buffer** (minutes): How early check-in opens. It lets people arrive early; it does not pay them for it, because hours run from shift start.
- **Sandwich Leave Rule** (on or off): Counts the weekend or holiday sitting between two leave days as leave. Off by default, and switching it on changes what a Friday-and-Monday request costs.
- **Max consecutive leave days** (0 = unlimited): A zero is not a ban, it is no limit at all. The same reading applies to the lock periods.

## Visitor settings belong to the default only

Host notifications, visitor auto check-out and the overstay flag appear when the scope is **Company default** and are hidden on an office policy. A visitor is not attached to an office, so a per-office version of these would have nothing to resolve against.

> **Note:**
>
> **Nothing saves until you use the footer**
>
> Edits collect until you select **Save** in the bar at the foot of the panel. **Cancel** puts every field back to what was last saved.

> **Warning:**
>
> **Turning regularization off removes a queue, not just a button**
>
> People stop being able to correct a mis-recorded day, and the only remaining route is an administrator editing the record. Reduce the monthly allowance before reaching for the switch.