REMINDERS & EXCEPTION-INBOX GUIDE
Know what needs attention.
Know what to do next.
Choose which issues your company watches, send reminders to the right people and follow each item back to the work that needs review.
Start with the company policy
Managers: open Company Settings → Reminders.
- Select Enable reminders and the exception inbox.
- Choose the exceptions to watch and their waiting periods.
- Choose recipients, delivery channels and the delivery schedule.
- Select Save reminder policy, then open the Exception inbox and select Refresh inbox.
Upper management can enable or disable the feature and individual checks. Turning off a reminder does not fix the underlying time entry, remove approval requirements or change payroll records.
Choose what should need attention
| Exception | When it qualifies |
|---|---|
| Long open shifts | Elapsed hours since clock-in reach Long open shifts (1–168 hours). This is elapsed shift length, not paid or break-adjusted time. |
| Unresolved corrections | A pending or returned request reaches the configured delay (1–720 hours) since submission or the latest review/update. |
| Awaiting approval | Completed, unapproved time reaches the delay (1–720 hours) since completion or a later entry change. |
| Missing work details | A completed entry is missing a required client, contract or description after the selected delay (0–168 hours). The company decides which fields are required. |
| Pay-period reviews | The advance-notice window has begun and the period contains unfinished or unapproved time. |
| Scheduled work | A published shift passes the configured late threshold, is still in progress and has no overlapping recorded work. Configure the late threshold under Scheduling. |
| Work location reviews | A recorded location has a pending or rejected review. |
| Approaching overtime | The effective overtime policy has alerts enabled and qualifying time is within its lead window, or a consecutive-day warning applies. |
| Break reminders and reviews | Break timing, recorded break issues or unresolved break requests require attention. Set timing under Break tracking; unresolved requests use the reminder policy's correction delay. |
Understand the history window
Completed-entry review history (days) accepts 1–366 days and limits historical approval and missing-detail checks. Open shifts and correction requests have no history limit. Other categories use their own rules; this is not an audit of every past issue.
Set the pay-period review deadline
Choose Days after the period ends, Review deadline time and Advance notice (hours). Zero days means the first day after the last workday. For a period ending Sunday, zero days and 12:00 means Monday at noon; 24 hours of advance notice begins Sunday at noon, if unfinished or unapproved time exists.
These boundaries use the existing company pay-period schedule and server time. The reminder does not submit, approve or lock the period. Missing submissions and other locking checks still need review in the timesheet period workflow.
Give each notice a clear owner
- Employees: enable employee notices for issues they can act on, such as long shifts, returned corrections and missing details. Applicable schedule, overtime and break reminders also use this switch.
- Primary managers: enable manager notices and choose Primary managers (blank means all). A blank selection means all eligible company managers, not nobody.
- Escalation managers: choose who should receive older unresolved issues and set Escalate after additional hours. Zero disables escalation.
Its delay starts when the exception first qualifies, not when someone receives an email. Escalation still respects company channels, personal opt-ins and quiet hours.
Pending correction, break and location reviews are not routed to their owner as their own manager-review task. Use another authorized manager where the workflow requires review of your own work.
Recipient selections control outbound messages. They do not narrow a manager's company inbox or change employee access permissions.
Enable delivery at both levels
- Company: allow email, text or both under Delivery schedule.
- Recipient: open Profile, then Email or Text notifications. Enable Work reminders and summaries for each wanted channel and save that section.
- Contact details: check the recipient's email address or phone number. A missing destination cannot receive a message.
- Managers: under Profile → Delivery settings, choose Use the company setting, One daily summary or Individual exception notices, then save.
The company default is selected with Default manager delivery. A manager's personal choice can override grouping, but not the company's allowed channels, timing or recipient selection. Employee reminders use individual notices.
Make the timing predictable
Delivery time zone and quiet hours
Select the Delivery time zone and, if wanted, Use quiet hours for reminders and correction updates. Quiet hours may cross midnight, such as 21:00 to 07:00. Start and end must differ. These quiet hours apply while the reminder policy is enabled.
Delivery uses this time zone. Shift timestamps, exception eligibility and pay-period deadlines continue to use company server time. Changing the delivery zone does not move recorded work.
Daily summaries
Choose Daily summary time outside quiet hours. A summary runs at the first eligible background check after that time, rather than at an exact guaranteed minute. No empty summary is sent. Unresolved eligible items can appear in the next day's summary even when individual repeats are disabled.
Individual repeats
Repeat unresolved reminders after (hours) accepts 0–168 hours. Zero means one notice per recipient and channel for the current occurrence. A resolved issue that recurs, or a changed request that qualifies again, can generate a new notice. Repeats do not replace the daily-summary schedule.
Automatic checks run approximately every five minutes while the background notification service is running. Messages are rechecked against current records before sending; an issue resolved before delivery can be omitted. A message already sent cannot be recalled.
Work from the current inbox
- Open Exception inbox.
- Choose an Exception type. Managers can choose Company or My entries and requests under Scope; employees see their own items.
- Select Refresh inbox. Check the displayed check time and use Previous/Next when there are multiple pages.
- Read the employee, issue and Needs attention since timestamp. Escalated means the escalation delay has elapsed; it does not prove a message was delivered or read.
- Open the item's action, complete the appropriate source workflow, then return and refresh.
Managers can select Export CSV for all matching items across pages, using the current type and scope. The export is a snapshot; refreshing the inbox or exporting again can produce different results as work changes.
Opening a card or receiving an email does not clock out, edit, approve or lock anything. An item disappears when its underlying condition clears or it no longer qualifies under the policy.
Follow the issue to its source
| Issue | What to do |
|---|---|
| Long shift / missing details | Open time entries. Confirm what actually happened and correct the clock-out or required fields using permitted edits or a correction request. Submitting a request alone does not change the time entry. |
| Unresolved correction | Open the request. A manager reviews pending requests; the employee adds information and resubmits returned requests. Applying a correction and approving the resulting time can be separate actions. |
| Awaiting approval / period review | Review the source entries and resolve blocking issues before approval. The period reminder clears when no qualifying unfinished or unapproved entries remain; confirm submissions and locking separately. |
| Scheduled shift review | Check the published schedule and actual recorded work before treating the notice as an absence. Do not create worked hours simply to clear a reminder. |
| Work location review | Review the evidence and correct or accept the location through Work sites. Rejecting a location leaves an unresolved issue. |
| Approaching overtime | Review the employee's full workweek and effective policy in Overtime, then make any needed staffing decision. The notice is advisory and does not stop the clock. |
| Break reminder / review | Open break details. Record the actual break using the company workflow, review flagged break records or respond to the request. See the break guide. |
Some notices expire naturally. A late-shift notice no longer qualifies after the scheduled shift ends; a threshold alert can disappear once the threshold is reached. Disappearance is not proof that the underlying work was approved or that no follow-up is needed.
Example: a missed clock-out
Assume a shift starts Monday at 09:00, the long-shift threshold is 12 hours, quiet hours are 21:00–07:00 in the same time zone, and manager summaries are scheduled for 08:00.
- Monday 21:00: the still-open shift qualifies. A refreshed inbox can show it during quiet hours.
- Tuesday after 07:00: an opted-in employee can receive an individual notice at an eligible check if the shift is still open.
- Tuesday after 08:00: an eligible manager using daily summaries can receive it in the summary if it remains unresolved.
- After correction: once the correct clock-out is applied, the long-shift item clears on refresh. The completed entry may separately need approval.
With escalation set to 24 additional hours, escalation would qualify Tuesday at 21:00 if the issue still existed. Quiet hours and each recipient's delivery mode would still govern when a message could arrive.
Find the reason a reminder is missing
The inbox has an item, but I received no message. Why?
Check the company channel, your Work reminders and summaries opt-in, contact details and recipient selection. Then check quiet hours, your manager grouping choice and whether an individual notice was already sent with repeats off. The inbox and outbound messages have different eligibility rules.
Why is an expected item missing from the inbox?
Check the master switch, category switch, filters, waiting period and source feature settings. Historical completed entries may fall outside the review window. A schedule or overtime alert may have stopped qualifying. Select Refresh inbox before investigating further.
Why is a newer item missing from today's summary?
A daily summary reflects eligible work when prepared. An issue qualifying after that day's summary can remain visible in the inbox and appear in a later summary. Use the inbox for current work throughout the day.
Why did I receive a correction update with work reminders turned off?
Correction requests and decisions has a separate profile switch. Check that switch for the affected channel. Turning off Work reminders and summaries does not disable all account, leave or scheduling notifications.
Why is the navigation count different from the refreshed inbox?
The inbox evaluates current records when refreshed. Navigation counts reflect the last background scan and can lag behind recent changes.
The policy says automatic delivery is paused. What should I do?
Ask your administrator to check the background notification service. The inbox can still evaluate current exceptions. The policy's Last automatic scan (UTC) helps distinguish a stalled scan from a personal preference or delivery-schedule issue.
How do I avoid duplicate-looking notices?
Check whether both email and text are enabled, whether individual repeats are configured, and whether one message is a correction activity update rather than an outstanding-work reminder. More than one exception can also apply to a single entry.
What should I include when asking for help?
Provide the exception type, entry or request ID, expected recipient, channel, relevant policy settings, profile opt-in, delivery time zone and observed times. Include whether the item appears after refreshing and the last automatic scan time. Do not send passwords.