How to choose the time approval mode#
For: Admin You’ll need: Owner or Admin role.
You’ll choose how worked hours get signed off in your company: a manager approves them alone, the person confirms their own hours first and then a manager approves, or Shiftavo records and approves them on its own. The setting applies to everyone.
Open the company settings#
Open the account menu (top-right) and click ‘Settings’.
In the right column, find the ‘Attendance’ section.
Choose a mode#
Open the ‘Time approval mode’ dropdown and pick one:
‘Manager approval only’ — a manager approves the hours. One person signs off, and approval never waits for a confirmation.
‘Person confirmation + manager approval’ — the person confirms their own hours first, then a manager approves. A manager can’t approve a row until it’s confirmed. This is the two-step (four-eyes) control.
‘Automatic’ — Shiftavo records, confirms and approves the hours itself. See below.
Save#
Click ‘Save’.
Note
New companies start in the mode that fits their country: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and France default to ‘Person confirmation + manager approval’; Italy, the UK, and the US default to manager approval only. Changing the mode takes effect immediately and doesn’t alter rows that are already approved.
Tip
In every mode, people most often confirm by clocking out, on their phone or at the kiosk — that clock-out is their confirmation. In the two-step mode a manager can always confirm on someone’s behalf for an absent or departed worker. See How confirmation and approval work.
The Automatic mode#
In ‘Automatic’, Shiftavo owns the whole positive workflow. Every hour it:
Records the scheduled hours for shifts that have ended and that nobody punched, confirms them on the system’s behalf, and runs the usual accruals. It skips declined shifts and shifts that overlap the person’s approved leave.
Approves those rows, and approves other rows that have both a clock-in and a clock-out — as long as their break check is clear. Where the break policy asks the break questions, an issue no longer holds a row once an answer or a manager’s reason explains it — see How to review break answers.
It leaves three kinds of rows alone: rows someone unapproved, rows whose recorded hours were cleared, and hours people typed in themselves. Those wait for a person to act — typed-in hours for a manager’s ‘Approve’.
People’s own clock-outs and saved corrections still confirm their hours, as in the other modes.
Use it where the schedule is the record — salaried teams, or small companies where a manager signing off every row buys nothing.
Warning
While Automatic is on, confirming by hand is refused for shifts that ended after the switch — on the web, in the mobile app, and over the public API. That’s the point of the mode: hours nobody clocked come from the schedule, so there’s nothing left for anyone to confirm.
Managers can still approve rows themselves once both clock times are recorded — for example a row the sweep held back because of a break issue — and a manager’s saved correction approves the row at once.
‘Unapprove’ stays available as your escape hatch. Neither the sweep nor a saved correction approves a row you unapproved, so fix it and click ‘Approve’ yourself. ‘Undo confirmation’ isn’t offered in this mode: the next sweep would record the scheduled hours again.
Two more things to know:
Your history is safe. Automatic only looks at shifts that ended after you switched the mode on. Turning it on never sweeps through and approves your back catalog. Those older rows can still be confirmed and approved by hand.
Guessed clock-outs are still held back. A row carrying the ‘Auto clock-out (verify)’ badge is left out of automatic approval, exactly as it’s refused for manual approval. A person still has to verify or correct that time. See How to turn on automatic clock-out.
Verify it worked#
Open Planning → Management → Timesheet.
In the two-step mode, rows nobody has confirmed show ‘Awaiting confirmation’ where ‘Approve’ would be.
In manager-only mode, finished rows offer ‘Approve’ without waiting for a confirmation.
In Automatic, rows for shifts that ended after the switch offer no ‘Confirm’, no row offers ‘Undo confirmation’, and within an hour the rows for ended shifts read ‘Approved’ on their own — except the ones held back for review.