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Absence duration and the work schedule

Conceptintermediate

The rule that turns a calendar absence into a quantity of leave: the schedule search order — published schedule, employment work week, primary work schedule, standard working hours — with a silent default of 8:30a to 5:00p when nothing is found, and a start point on the absence type that decides where the search begins.

What people get wrong

The confusions are the difficulty. Each one is a belief that sounds right and is not.

  • That an absence of two days is two days of leave. It is two days of calendar, converted through the work schedule: two days on a four-hour schedule is eight hours of leave.
  • That the schedule is always used. It is used only when the absence type unit of measure is hours or days and no conversion formula is defined.
  • That a missing schedule is an error. The search falls through to a default of 8:30a to 5:00p, so a wrong number of hours is the symptom of a missing schedule rather than of a broken one.

Recall it

State the schedule search order, name the fallback when nothing is found, and say the condition under which the schedule is used at all.

Published schedule, employment work week, primary work schedule, standard working hours — and the process stops as soon as it finds a primary schedule, moving through the hierarchy in that order. If it finds nothing, it uses the default hours 8:30a to 5:00p, silently, which is why a defaulted duration looks computed. The schedule determines the duration only when the absence type unit of measure is hours or days and no conversion formula is defined, and if the type is linked to a plan with an Alternate Schedule Category defined, the duration is generated from the plan schedule instead. The schedule is what converts calendar days into leave: two days on a four-hour schedule is eight hours.

Memory hook: Published, Week, Schedule, Hours — then the default shift nobody sees. Hours or days, and no formula, or the schedule is not consulted.

Rests on ABS-SCHED-002, ABS-SCHED-003, ABS-SCHED-007, ABS-SCHED-008, ABS-SCHED-009.

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