Running Multiple Shifts at One Location

Overview

When multiple shifts run at the same location, each employee group has a different shift start/end time. The key challenge is that a single biometric device captures punches from all employees — Octal HR must correctly match each punch to the right employee and evaluate it against their assigned shift's rules (grace period, half-day threshold, OT threshold).

Octal HR handles this through explicit assignment: each employee has one active shift assignment at any given time, and their punches are always evaluated against that assigned shift. You can assign shifts individually or in bulk by department or designation.

Common multi-shift scenarios in Pakistan

A B Two-shift manufacturing (8-hour shifts)

Day Shift: 07:00–15:00 | Evening Shift: 15:00–23:00. Factory floor workers assigned to one or the other. Single biometric device at entry gate.

A B C Three-shift operations (continuous production)

Morning: 06:00–14:00 | Afternoon: 14:00–22:00 | Night: 22:00–06:00. Common in textile mills, hospitals, and security firms across Punjab and Sindh.

A B Office + support staff at same building

Office employees: 09:00–18:00 | Security/housekeeping: 07:00–19:00. Both use the same entrance biometric. Different shift rules, grace periods, and OT thresholds.

A B Call centre dual-shift

Morning batch: 09:00–17:00 | Evening batch: 17:00–01:00. Often used by BPOs serving international clients across time zones.

How shift assignment works

Each employee has one active shift assignment at any given time. When a punch comes in from the biometric device, Octal HR looks up that employee's shift and evaluates the punch against it:

Grace period comes from the assigned shift, so lateness is judged against the right start time
The half-day threshold for Full / Half / Absent determination uses the assigned shift's setting
The OT threshold comes from the assigned shift

Shift A

07:00–15:00 (Day)

—

Shift B

—

15:00–23:00 (Evening)

—

Shift C

—

23:00–07:00 (Night)

Setup walkthrough

Create each shift — Go to Attendance → Shifts → Add Shift. Create separate shifts for Shift A, B, and C with their respective start times, end times, grace periods, and OT thresholds. See Shift Schedules for detailed steps.

Assign employees to shifts — Use Attendance → Shifts → Assign: filter employees by department or designation, tick the ones you want, choose the shift, set an effective date, and save. To assign a single person, use Assign from their row instead.

Configure the biometric device — Both shifts share the same device. The device simply records punch events; all shift matching happens inside Octal HR against each employee's assigned shift.

Test with one employee per shift — Verify that a test punch is correctly attributed, the grace period is applied, and the shift name shows correctly in daily attendance.

Biometric device configuration

Standard biometric devices do not know about shift structure — they simply record punch events with employee ID and timestamp. The shift matching logic is entirely within Octal HR. However, you should:

Sync device clock to PKT (UTC+5) — A 1-minute clock drift on a device can push a punch outside the grace window. Octal HR shows a clock-drift warning if the device time differs from server time by more than 3 minutes. See Biometric Troubleshooting.
Do not restrict device access by shift group — Both shifts use the same device, so do not use the device's built-in access schedule to lock out employees (they'd be unable to punch in if they arrive early). Manage shift validation in Octal HR instead.
Set memory sync frequency to ≤ 5 minutes for multi-shift operations, so handover punches are captured before the next shift's data arrives.

Shift-wise reports

All attendance reports in Octal HR can be filtered by shift:

Report	Path	What it shows
Daily Attendance by Shift	Attendance → Reports → Daily Summary	Filter by shift; headcount, present/absent per shift group
Monthly Shift Roster	Attendance → Reports → Monthly Sheet	Per-employee day-by-day with shift label in each cell
OT by Shift	Attendance → Reports → OT Monthly	OT hours per employee, grouped by shift; useful for payroll allocation

Factory tip: For factories under PESSI (Punjab), SESSI (Sindh), or ESSI (KPK/Balochistan) social security obligations, ensure that the monthly attendance data exported from Octal HR includes the shift worked for each day. Some provincial offices require shift-level detail in contribution filings for workers employed in 24-hour operations.