Showcasing Time Accumulators Through a Practical Application

While traditional time calculations support daily or period-based overtime payments, more effective overtime tracking tools have been a welcome addition in the last few releases. Additionally, time calculations may fall short when it comes to tracking time totals over multiple months/years or measuring trends against rolling periods. This is where time accumulators enter the scene!

We’ll dive into an application before outlining some general mechanics on how to get your tenant up and running with time accumulators. The application is inspired by international time tracking legislation, but it is simplified for illustration purposes. Please note that this content is not legal advice.

Let’s pretend that in Neverland, employees are not allowed to exceed 720 hours of overtime (excluding any holiday worked) in a given calendar year. In addition, average overtime over any 2- to 6-month rolling period must not exceed 80 hours.

To set this up, follow these steps:

Create Time Accumulation

1. Name: All Overtime excluding Holiday Worked for Neverland
2.  Add Time Calculation Tags: include all time calculation tags that are associated with overtime except for those that are for Holiday Worked
3. Deduct Time Calculation Tags: typically left blank, but you can include any time calculation tags that need to offset Overtime totals. If your Holiday Worked is being tagged as any of the Time Calculation Tags added in b (in addition to Holiday Worked), you should add the Holiday Worked tag here to ensure it is not being added to the sum

Create Time Accumulator Threshold Rules – we’ll specify multiple rules under one rule group. 

Rule Group Name: Overtime Tracking Rules for Neverland

1. Rule Name: Overtime > 720 hours in a calendar year
   1. Time Accumulator: enter the time accumulator created, namely All Overtime excluding Holiday Worked for Neverland
   2. Worker Eligibility: you can always leverage existing time tracking rules, or create a new one that says Location Address – Country is Neverland. You can exclude employees who this should not apply to.
   3. Start Date: enter the earliest date you want the time accumulator to work from. For example, 1/1/2025
   4. End Date should be blank
   5. Unit of time will be Static Months, and length will be 12
   6. Under Threshold, you will select Total Quantity per Period, and amount will be 720
   7. (Optional) In the Calculated Results Section, Add a “Exceeds Annual Overtime Limit” in the Add Calculation Tags input. This is not required, especially if you are simply using the time accumulator to track overtime and are trying to avoid scenarios where employees work more than 720 hours of overtime annually.

You can then repeat this exercise for the rest of the accumulator rules with the other parameters, such as 

1. Overtime > 80 hours in rolling 2 months
   1. Unit of time will be Rolling Months, and length will be 2
   2. Under Threshold, select Average Quantity per Month, and amount will be 80
2. Overtime > 80 hours in rolling 3 months
   1. Unit of time will be Rolling Months, and length will be 3
   2. Under Threshold, select Average Quantity per Month, and amount will be 80

Maintain Time Accumulator Threshold Rule Priorities

1.  Add a priority to your newly created rule, for example NVR010

 Create Time Calculation

1. Name: NVR – Accumulated Overtime Calculation, Calculation Type: Accumulated Overtime Calculation
2. Make sure to assign a priority to the time calculation as well, for example NVR999. You want this calculation to evaluate at the end over the time calculation stack, after all overtime calculations have already been completed.

Not to be overlooked, the time accumulator rules still need to be assigned to the employee(s) they apply to. This can be done using the Mass Assign Time Accumulator Threshold Rules task.

1. For a one-time assignment, select Run Now under Run Frequency
2.  To pick up employees periodically, configure a regular cadence such as Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Extend this process just like any other future scheduled processes as part of your annual maintenance, if needed.

Confirm successful assignment by running the View Worker’s Time Eligibility or Time Accumulations for Workers delivered reports for your eligible population.

More broadly, follow this template to set up time accumulators and rules:

1. Enable the Process: Mass Assign Time Accumulator Threshold Rules domain and grant Timekeeper, HR Partner, or Absence Partner Modify access.
2. Create Time Accumulator
3. Create Time Accumulator Threshold Rules
   1. Optionally, you can indicate if time exceeding the thresholds should be reclassified. You can do this by specifying an add or remove time calculation tag.
4. Create Time Calculation: simply select the appropriate time calculation group. Please note, the time accumulator still needs to be assigned, so this only determines eligibility during the assignment.
5. Maintain Time Calculation Priority
6. Maintain Time Accumulator Threshold Rule Priorities
7. Ad Hoc assign the rules via Mass Assign Time Accumulator Threshold Rules

 Did you know?

• Time accumulators run after time calculations.
• In order to assign time accumulators, a user needs to have a supporting role assignment for the subject. Time Tracking Administrators cannot assign time accumulators, but timekeepers can!
• You can ensure time gets recalculated when time off requests are approved by checking “Run Calculations with Time Off Approval” under the Time Tracking section of Edit Tenant Setup – HCM. If you don’t want this to apply tenant-wide, you can use the Enable Calculated Time Off checkbox on individual time entry templates instead.
• You can use the Time Calculation Debugger, Worker’s Time Eligibility, or Time Calculation Eligibility delivered reports to analyze how time gets calculated.
• You can use the Time Accumulations for Workers report to review accumulated time sums. This delivered report can be copied and customized based on your organization’s needs.
• You can use the Service Step “Assign Time Approval Threshold Rules” on the Hire, Change Job, or Change Organization Assignment business process to automatically assign newly eligible rules as part of these staffing events.
• Employees can opt out of threshold rules and opt back in using the Time Accumulator Threshold Rule Opt Out/In business process, which requires additional setup and security updates.
• Within the time accumulator threshold rule, you can select whether you want to count averages per Standard day or averages per Worked day. Workday defines a standard day as any day (you can then specify if you want to exclude any day between Monday through Sunday or Holidays) and a Worked day as any day with time or time off entered.
• You can retroactively run time accumulator calculations by using the Run Time Accumulators task. 

The possibilities for time accumulators are broad – from tracking compliance with the EU Working Time Directive, California overtime regulations, to enforcing union agreements or determining eligibility for longevity-based benefits. More than a compliance tool, they help support employee work-life balance by monitoring and proactively addressing excessive overtime.

Let Workday handle the heavy lifting! While the initial setup requires attention to detail, the long-term benefits, especially for large or complex organizations are substantial. If your internal team is at capacity, but you have an appetite to explore how time accumulators could benefit your organization, my colleagues and I at Kognitiv would love to start the conversation!