Improvements and new features
See the pages below for improvements and new features in version 9.20.
Configuration
Mobile
The mobile Weekly Availability screen can now be turned on or off in RMS (14158)
In the Weekly Availability screen of the Mobile App, employees submit their weekly availability schedule to their manager for approval. In previous releases of the Mobile App, the Weekly Availability screen could only be turned off by contacting UniFocus.
In this release, administrative users at the property can now turn on or off the mobile Weekly Availability screen from the Mobile Configuration screen in RMS. If the screen is turned off, employees will not see the screen in the app.
Show or hide excused points in Mobile Attendance Points Tracking (21393)
In this release, a new Show Excused Points check box has been added to the Mobile Configuration screen in
RMS
(Setup > Mobile). If the Show Excused Points check box is selected on the Mobile Configuration screen inRMS
, the employee can see their excused attendance points by opening the details view on the Attendance Points screen of the UniFocus Mobile App. Excused points do not count toward the points total.Time off types
Customization of Time Off Types appear in the Mobile App (19088)
In previous releases, users viewing time off types in UniFocus Mobile App would see all available time off types listed in the order in which they were created on the Time Off Types screen (Setup > Employee > Time Off Types). For example, in the Time Off Types screen, an administrative user configured three time off types in the following order: Sick, Unpaid Personal, and Vacation. If an employee opened the New Time Off Request screen in the Mobile App, the available time off types would be Sick, Unpaid Personal, and Vacation.
In this release, the Time Off Types screen now includes the following options for each time off type:
- A priority number to specify the order in which it appears in Mobile App.
- A check box to specify whether the time off type appears in Mobile App.
For example, in the Time Off Types screen, an administrative user can configure Sick, Unpaid Personal, and Vacation time off types but then specify that users see only Vacation and Sick (in that order) in Mobile App.
Work rules
Modification to the Hours Distribution Accrual work rule (19924)
The Hours Distribution Accrual Benefit Accrual work rule (Setup > Work Rules > Benefit Accrual) has been updated with a Max Running Accrued parameter for specifying a limit to the number of hours that an employee can accrue within a year.
Modification to the Daily Weekly Day Off Consec Days OT with Min Break work rule (20139)
In previous releases, when an employee worked two shifts that were fewer than ten hours apart, only the time within the configured Min Break period was paid as overtime.
In this release, a new configuration option has been added to the Daily Weekly Day Off Consec Days OT with Min Break Hours Distribution work rule. Users can now choose to pay overtime for hours within the configured period or to pay overtime for the entire second shift.
Custom warning messages added to Punch Validation work rule (20670)
In previous releases, when an employee's punch triggered a Punch Validation warning or lockout, a generic message appeared on the Time Clock screen.
In recent releases, options to customize the Job Lockout Message, Lockout Message, and Warning Message were added the Punch Validation work rule configuration. Administrative users responsible for work rule configuration can now write custom messages that appear on the Time Clock screen when an employee triggers a warning or lockout.
In this release, the Punch Validation work rule includes three more custom message options, including:
- Invalid Job Lock Out message—If Enable Lockouts is selected, the Invalid Job Lock Out message displays on the time clock when the employee attempts to punch in to an invalid job.
- Invalid Job Warning message—If Enable Warnings is selected, the Invalid Job Warning message displays on the time clock when the employee attempts to punch in to an invalid job.
- Unscheduled message—The Unscheduled message displays on the time clock when the employee attempts to punch in to a job they are not scheduled for.
Improvement to the Break Period Penalty work rule (21032)
In previous releases, when configuring the Break Period Penalty Post-Calculation work rule, you had to use the Other Earnings field to manually add all additional earnings that you wanted to include in the rate calculation.
In this release, the Break Period Penalty work rule now includes a Pay FLSA Regular Rate check box. Selecting this check box automatically factors in all additional earnings that are included in the FLSA regular rate.
Modifications to the Anniversary Year work rule (21096)
In previous releases, benefit expiration and rollover required the configuration of separate work rules. In this release, the Anniversary Year Benefits Expiration work rule (Setup > Work Rules > Benefit Expiration) has been updated with new parameters that enable both the expiration and rollover of accrued hours.
New parameters:
- Factor—Factor to apply to the earning. Earning total dollars = Hours × Rate × Factor.
- Pay Expiration—When this check box is selected, the expiration is paid out to the specified expiration earning at the home job rate.
- Pay Expiration Earning—Earning to which the expiring amount is paid. The earning type is selected from a drop-down list.
Labor
Schedules are now published in the Schedule Approvals screen (19564)
Version 9.10 introduced the Schedule Approvals screen, which is accessed from the Manage Schedules task button in the Planning menu. In previous releases (9.10 through 9.17), if your company was using schedule approvals, you would both approve and publish from the Schedule Approvals screen. If your company was not using schedule approvals, this task button appeared as Publish Schedules in the planning menu. You would then go to the Publish Schedules screen to publish your schedules.
In this release, there is no longer a Publish Schedules task button or screen. All publication and approval of schedules are done in the Schedule Approvals screen, which is accessed from Manage Schedules task button in the Planning menu. If your company is using schedule approvals, both publication and approval functionality is available in the Schedule Approvals screen. If your company is not using schedule approvals, only publication functionality is available in the Schedule Approvals screen.
For more information, see Schedule Approvals.
Scheduled costs now appear in Labor-only licenses (19789)
Scheduled cost is the cost of scheduled hours, that is, scheduled hours multiplied by the rate of pay. In previous releases of UniFocus software, scheduled costs appeared in Scheduling and Schedule Approvals screens only if both Time & Attendance and Labor licenses were enabled for an organization. In this release, organizations with only a Labor license can now view scheduled costs in Scheduling and Schedule Approval screens.
Validation checks for earnings associated with multiple accrual balances (21099)
RMS
Scheduling now features validation checks for earnings associated with multiple accrual balances. When a manger manually enters or approves employee earnings in Scheduling screens, if an earning is included in multiple accruals, a validation check is made against all accruals to which that earning is associated. If the validation check fails for any accrual that would exceed the allowed negative balance, the manager is notified that this request would put the employee beyond the allowed negative balance for the accrual. The manager cannot approve the TOR.Labor reports
Labor Effectiveness and Weekly Labor Summary reports can now display a breakdown of actual hours (19830)
In previous releases, Labor reports did not provide a way to view a breakdown of worked hours by shift category.
In this release, the Labor Effectiveness and Weekly Labor Summary report configuration screens include new options that allow you to analyze the actual use of labor. In these reports, worked hours can be organized by regular, training, and contract hours. The shift category determines how the hours are organized and displayed in the report.
Labor Effectiveness report
In the Labor Effectiveness report, a Breakdown Hours check box has been added to the report configuration options. If selected, Worked Hours are organized by shift categories. Once the report is generated, the Worked Hrs column becomes Worked Hrs – PROD, which includes all hours in shift categories marked as Include in Productivity. Four additional columns then appear in the table:
- Worked Hrs - Regular—Hours in all shift categories that are not tagged as Contract or Training.
- Worked Hrs - Contract—Hours in all shift categories that are tagged as Contract.
- Worked Hrs - Training—Hours in all shift categories that are tagged as Training.
- Worked Hrs - TOTAL—All worked hours in all shift categories.
Weekly Labor Summary report
In the Weekly Labor Summary report, a Breakdown Hours check box has been added to the report configuration options. If selected, Actual Hours are organized by shift categories. Once the report is generated, the Worked Hrs column becomes Actual Hrs - PROD, which includes all hours in shift categories marked as Include in Productivity. Four additional rows appear in each section of the report, including the Subtotal and Total sections:
- Actual Hours - Regular—Hours in all shift categories that are not tagged as Contract or Training.
- Actual Hours - Contract—Hours in all shift categories that are not tagged as Contract.
- Actual Hours - Training—Hours in all shift categories that are not tagged as Training.
- Actual Hours - Total—All worked hours in all shift categories.
Mobile
Jobs are now publishable by default in the Mobile App (18195)
In previous releases, when a new job was created, the job schedule was non-publishable by default. Before a job schedule could be published to the Mobile App, the user needed to access the T&A Codes screen and select the check box in the Publishable column.
In this release, when a new job is created, the Publishable checkbox is automatically selected. This improvement ensures that job schedules are now publishable by default.
Changes to the Pulse survey prompt in the Mobile App (19196)
In previous releases of the Mobile App, if a Pulse survey was available, users encountered the following prompt:
Do you have time to take a survey?
In this release, the survey prompt now reads:
The purpose of this 2 minute survey is to provide you with an opportunity to tell management what you think about your job. Your replies go directly to an independent firm and are kept completely anonymous.
Users can select one of the following three options:
- Take Survey Now
- Ask Me Later
- No
The new message and responses encourage the users to participate by better explaining the purpose of the survey and describing the process for maintaining security and anonymity.
Mobile App Validation checks for earnings associated with multiple accrual balances (21097)
When a manager reviews time off requests in the Mobile App, if an earning is included in multiple accruals, a validation check is made against all accruals to which that earning is associated. If the validation check fails for any accrual and would exceed the allowed negative balance, the manager is notified that this request would put the employee beyond the allowed negative balance for the accrual. The manager cannot approve the TOR.
Restricted Mobile App access for employees on leave of absence (21696)
In previous releases, employees and managers with a status of Leave of Absence could not access the UniFocus Mobile App.
In this release, employees and managers on leave of absence can access certain parts of the Mobile App, including Time Off Requests, Messages, and Preferences.
Employees and managers on leave of absence will not have access to the following features:
- Alerts
- Call Ins Response
- Approve Time Off
- Approve Shift requests
- Manage Schedules
- Employee Schedules
- Revenue Center Forecasting
- Time Clock
Shift request handling during a leave of absence (21714)
In this release of the UniFocus Mobile App, employees may now be granted access to schedules and shift requests while on LOA. If configured to do so, the employees cannot accept new shifts for dates on which their status is set to Leave of Absence. Employees cannot accept a Shift Give Away, Swap, or Urgent Pick Up request for any dates during their leave of absence. Active employees cannot send requests to employees for dates on which the recipient is on a leave of absence.
Improved notification of changes to employee time off requests (18782)
In previous releases, employees received a push notification when a manager responded to an employee request only through the UniFocus Mobile App.
In this release, the Mobile App has been updated so that, when a manager responds to an employee request through either
RMS
or through the Mobile App, a push notification notifies the employee of the change.User assistance
Improved reporting of updates and hotfixes
The LMS Documentation 9.x help space now includes an improved method of reporting updates and hotfixes in UniFocus Release Notes.
In versions 9.14 through 9.18 of UniFocus Release Notes, update and hotfix notes appeared in every affected version. For each version of the release notes, the Updates and hotfixes notification section included an overview of the issue and a link to the corresponding Fixed issues page.
Ticket 19038 was released as a fixed issue in
RMS
version 9.17, but it was also included as a hotfix to versions 9.14 through 9.16. The fixed issue note for this ticket appeared in Release Notes 9.14, Release Notes 9.15, Release Notes 9.16, and Release Notes 9.17. If you went to the landing page for Release Notes 9.15, the link in the Updates and hotfixes section sent you to the Fixed issues in version 9.15 page.
Starting with
RMS
9.20, the LMS Documentation 9.x help space offers several improvements to how updates and hotfixes are reported:- A centralized view of all updates and hotfixes—The new Updates and hotfixes for 9.x releases page consolidates all release notes for updates and hotfixes to
RMS
9 software. You no longer have to check each UniFocus Release Notes version to determine whether an update or hotfix has been added to your software version. All notes are now available in a single page. - Additional information—The Updates and hofixes for 9.x releases page contains an overview table with key information about each change:
- Date—The date when the update or hotfix was published.
- Ticket—The ticket number for the update or hotfix.
- Overview—A summary of the change.
- Category—The main component of UniFocus software that was affected by the change.
- Type—Whether the change was an update or hotfix.
- Updated Versions—UniFocus RMS software versions that are affected by the change.
Improved user experience—Not only does the overview table contain important information about each ticket, but it also allows you to sort by column headers and quickly access the detailed note by clicking the link in the Ticket column.
Click any column header to change the sort order of the table. For example, if you want to see the newest updates, click the Date column to move the most recent changes to the top of the table.
Clicking a link in the table takes you directly to the corresponding update or hotfix note.
Tip: If you are looking for a specific ticket, just press Ctrl+F (or Command+F in Mac) and enter the ticket number. If the note is on the page, you'll find results in both the overview table and in the detailed notes section.
Improved notifications in affected release notes—On the landing page of affected UniFocus Release Notes, the Updates and hotfixes notification section still contains summary statement of each change. However, the link in the section now takes you to the Updates and hofixes for 9.x releases page for more information.
Using the example above, the note for ticket 19038 is introduced as a fixed issue for the primary Fix Version 9.17 and then added to the Updates and hotfixes for 9.x releases page. The Updates and hotfixes sections of affected release notes now contain a single link to the Updates and hotfixes for 9.x releases page.
Build numbers added to updates and hotfixes section—In previous versions of the UniFocus Release Notes, updates and hotfixes were grouped by the date when the release note was published to the online help space. Starting with this release, updates and hotfixes are now grouped by build number. The build number is the number associated with the software release version.
To view your current software version:
- Open the UniFocus
RMS
software. - In the lower-right corner of the screen, hover over the database icon (
).
A yellow box appears displaying your UniFocus version number.
Updates and hotfixes that have not yet been released are marked as Coming soon. When the new version of the
RMS
software is released, the Coming soon label is removed to show that the build has been released and the updates and hotfixes are accessible within the current software version.Example:
- Open the UniFocus
Tip: Bookmark the Updates and hotfixes for 9.x releases page for easy access to the latest information.
Improved layout and descriptions in Work Rules user documentation
The online help for work rules has been updated with the following improvements:
- Page navigation—At the top of the help page for each work rule type, there is a page-level table of contents. Clicking a link takes you to the relevant work rule description.
- Table format—Documentation for each work rule is now organized in a table. This format not only improves readability of the descriptions, but it also allows for expanded content such as examples, tips, and best practices.
- Revised content—Descriptions of rules and parameters have been edited.
Expanded content—New content includes examples, tips, best practices, and supplemental help topics.
The image below shows an excerpt of the updated documentation for the Schedule Lunch work rule:
| # | Item | Description |
| 1 | Overview | A brief description of the work rule type. |
| 2 | Table of contents | Click a link to go to the documentation for the selected work rule. |
| 3 | Work Rule | Name of the work rule. |
| 4 | Description | Description of the work rule and how it might be used. |
| 5 | Tips * | Helpful information about how and when to use the work rule. |
| 6 | Example(s) * | Examples of how the work rule might be used in typical business operations. |
| 7 | Parameters | Descriptions and examples of the configuration options within the work rule. |
* Not all work rule descriptions contain tips and examples.
New user documentation for the Employee User Maps screen
When an administrative user creates a new username (Login ID) in the Security screen, the username must then be linked to an existing employee via the Employee User Maps screen (Setup > Employee > Employee User Maps).
In this release, two new pages have been added to the online help:
- Employee User Maps—An overview of the Employee User Maps user interface.
- Working with the Employee User Maps screen—Instructions for mapping user accounts to existing employees and removing user account mapping from employees.
Summary of issues fixed in this release
| Issue | Description |
|---|---|
| Administration | |
| 19921 | Task Scheduler now correctly adheres to permissions that users configured in the Security screen. |
| Financial | |
| 19852 | Users can now import an Import Hours and Rates Adjustment CSV file that does not have information in the Notes column. |
| Interfaces | |
| 19853 | Partners using the Reconcile Employees interface now receive notification emails that list all reconcile errors. |
| Labor | |
| 20353 | When performing the Generate Projected Hours task on the Labor Planning screen, hours are now being successfully generated for 02/29 of a leap year. |
| 20373 | The Manage Event Orders screen no longer freezes and displays an error message. |
| 20671 | The Timeline Scheduling screen now correctly displays the business event order (BEO) detail note. |
| 20672 | Users no longer receive error messages when editing or assigning a valid shift in the Schedule section of the Timeline Scheduling screen. |
| Mobile | |
| 18857 | In the Mobile App, the Paid Hours row of the Time Off Requests details screen now displays the number of hours requested by the employee. |
| 20053 | Interacting with Mobile Pulse Survey fields no longer causes the iOS version of the Mobile App to automatically scroll to the top of the page. |
| 20239 | Emails containing employee schedules are now correctly formatted. |
| 20431 | In the UniFocus Mobile App, the Approve Time Off Requests screen now displays the correct number of days for multiple-day requests. |
| 21039 | When responding to a shift request, the text Enter a comment with this request now correctly appears on the screen. |
| Time & Attendance | |
| 16089 | Accepting a rejected punch no longer causes a shift from the previous pay period to appear on the Review Pay Period screen for the current period. |
| 16295 | The Inactivity report now formats the date column correctly. |
| 20437 | The Employee Master report correctly abides by Security permission settings that determine whether users can view pay rates. |
Fixed Issues
Administration
19921
| Summary | Task Scheduler now correctly adheres to permissions that users configured in the Security screen. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, Task Scheduler was not adhering to permissions that users configured in the Security screen. For example, if users have Can View Cost permission and ran the Labor Effectiveness Report in Task Scheduler, the resulting report included not only the rate of pay and cost-based earnings for organization levels (such as divisions and departments) to which they have permission to view, but also those in organization levels to which the users do not have permission to view. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that Task Scheduler adheres to permissions that users configured in the Security screen. Scheduled tasks and reports now include only information to which users have permission to access. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
Financial
19852
| Summary | Users can now import an Import Hours and Rates Adjustment CSV file that does not have information in the Notes column. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, users received a NullPointerException error when importing an Import Hours and Rates Adjustment CSV file that did not have information in the Notes column. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that RMS no longer validates Notes entries in an imported Import Hours and Rates Adjustment CSV file. Users can now import an Import Hours and Rates Adjustment CSV file that does not have information in the Notes column. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
Interfaces
19853
| Summary | Partners using the Reconcile Employees interface now receive notification emails that list all reconcile errors. |
|---|---|
| Description | Partners using the Reconcile Employees interface receive notification emails that list employees with reconcile errors. In some instances of previous releases, partners using this interface received notification emails that contained only employees with incorrect home jobs rather than all reconcile errors. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that notification emails for the Reconcile Employees interface now correctly list all reconcile errors. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16, 9.18, and 9.20. |
Labor
20353
| Summary | When performing the Generate Projected Hours task on the Labor Planning screen, hours are now being successfully generated for 02/29 of a leap year. |
|---|---|
| Description | When running the Generate Projected Hours task on the Labor Planning screen, projected hours should be generated for all valid dates within the effective dates range. In some instances of previous releases, when 02/29 was included in the effective dates and the selected dates fell on a leap year, the system processed the date but did not generate any hours for it, even though the date was valid. |
| Solution | The software has been updated to successfully generate projected hours for 02/29 on a leap year. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
20373
| Summary | The Manage Event Orders screen no longer freezes and displays an error message. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, when a user tried to access the Manage Event Orders screen, the screen froze and displayed an error message. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that the Manage Event Orders screen now opens as expected, without freezing and displaying an error message. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
20671
| Summary | The Timeline Scheduling screen now correctly displays the banquet event order (BEO) detail note. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, the BEO detail note did not appear correctly on the Timeline Scheduling screen. Because the note was misaligned with the corresponding schedule bar, the text box became too small to display the complete BEO detail note. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that BEO detail notes appear correctly on the Timeline Scheduling screen. |
| Updated Versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
20672
| Summary | Users no longer receive error messages when editing or assigning a valid shift in the Schedule section of the Timeline Scheduling screen. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, users received error messages when editing or assigning a valid shift in the Schedule section of the Timeline Scheduling screen. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that users no longer receive error messages when editing or assigning a valid shift in the Schedule section of the Timeline Scheduling screen. |
| Updated Versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
Mobile
18857
| Summary | In the UniFocus Mobile App, the Paid Hours row of the Time Off Requests details screen now displays the number of hours requested by the employee. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous Mobile App releases, the Paid Hours row of the Time Off Requests details screen appeared blank. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that the Paid hour row of the Time Off Request details screen now displays the number of hours requested by the employee. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
20053
| Summary | Interacting with Mobile Pulse Survey fields no longer causes the iOS version of the Mobile App to automatically scroll to the top of the page. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases of the iOS version of the Mobile App, when a survey page was longer than the screen height, clicking an input field or tapping a survey "rating" box in the Mobile Pulse Survey caused the page to scroll back to the top of the page. |
| Solution | The Mobile App has been updated so that interacting with the Mobile Pulse Survey screen no longer causes the app to scroll to the top of the page. |
20239
| Summary | Emails containing employee schedules are now correctly formatted. |
|---|---|
| Description | When employees enable email notifications for Scheduling, they receive an email when managers publish their schedules. In some instances of previous releases, the emails containing the employees’ schedules appeared as a line of text rather than a table. The line of text was very difficult to read. |
| Solution | Emailed schedules now display in an easily readable table. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |
20431
| Summary | In the UniFocus Mobile App, the Approve Time Off Requests screen now displays the correct number of days for multiple-day requests. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, the Approve Time Off Request screen did not display the correct number of days for multiple-day requests. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that the Approve Time Off Requests screen of the Mobile App now displays the correct number of days for multiple-day requests. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.14 and later. |
21039
| Summary | When responding to a shift request, the text Enter a comment with this request now correctly appears on the screen. |
|---|---|
| Description | When managers respond to a shift request in the UniFocus Mobile App, they can select the Enter a comment with this request option to enter a comment in response to the request. In some instances of the UniFocus Mobile App, this label text was incorrectly truncated to ment with this request. |
| Solution | The UniFocus Mobile App has been updated so that the Enter a comment with this request text is no longer truncated when responding to a shift request. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.18 and later. |
Time & Attendance
16089
| Summary | Accepting a rejected punch no longer causes a shift from the previous pay period to appear on the Review Pay Period screen for the current period. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, after accepting a rejected punch within the current pay period, a shift from the previous pay period appeared on the Review Pay Period screen. Although the shift from the previous pay period appeared dimmed and was unable to be edited by the user, it should not have been included with the current pay period. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that accepting a rejected punch does not cause a shift from the previous pay period to appear on the Review Pay Period screen for the current period. |
16295
| Summary | The Inactivity report now formats the date column correctly. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, when exporting the Inactivity report to either a single or paginated .xls file, the date column was incorrectly formatted as a numeral rather than a date. |
| Solution | The report has been updated to format the date column as a date (for example, 00/00/00). |
20437
| Summary | The Employee Master report correctly abides by Security permission settings that determine whether users can view pay rates. |
|---|---|
| Description | In some instances of previous releases, the Employee Master report displayed pay rates to users who did not have the Can View Salaried Exempt Costs permission enabled in the Security screen. |
| Solution | The software has been updated so that the Employee Master report only displays pay rates to users who have the Can View Salaried Exempt Costs permission enabled in the Security screen. |
| Updated versions | Version 9.16 and later. |