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• Approve: A pop-up confirmation window will appear providing a note area to optionally enter a reason for the approval. Click Approve. The timesheet will bypass the rest of the workflow and will be updated with an approved status. The originator will be notified that the timesheet has been approved. The originator may open their timesheet to view the ‘Timesheet Approval Trail’ which will include the approver who approved the timesheet, optional notes they entered, and the date/time the timesheet was approved.

• Reject: A pop-up confirmation window will appear providing a note area to enter a reason for the rejected timesheet. Click Reject. The originator will be notified that the timesheet has been rejected. The timesheet will be updated with as a status of ‘rejected’ and displayed in their ‘My Timesheets’ grid . The originator may view the timesheet to click on the ‘Timesheet Approval Trail’ to see the approval trail of who rejected the timesheet, optional notes they entered, and the date/time the timesheet was rejected. The originator also has the option of editing the timesheet, if needed, and re-submitting it.

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Automatic Period Generator

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• Automatic Period Generator: Once finished setting up the automatic period generator settings, select ‘true’ to start running the ‘generatePeriodsjob’ batch job. For more details on the scheduled job, please refer to System>Batch Job.

  • Once all timesheet periods inclusive of the Automatic Period Generator are closed, this setting will automatically change to ‘false’ indicating the job no longer has any active timesheet periods - they are all closed.

• Closing Time: Select the Hour/Minute/Period (AM/PM) when a period should be automatically closed.

• Start Date: Select a date you want to start generating automatic periods. For example, you may want the start date to coincide with the start date of a payroll period.

• Available Future Periods: Select the number of future periods to be created.

  • Example: if your start date is 9/16/2025, semi-monthly and you enter 2 future periods, once generated, it will create 3 timesheet periods on the periods grid… the current period plus the two future periods.

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• Timesheet Reminders: Send a reminder to timesheet employees as to when the timesheet period will close. For example, if you select 3 days, users will receive an email or notification in UI? 3 days prior to the period closing day.

• Duration: Select the duration. This usually coincides with the USPS Pay Plan. You may choose from Biweekly, Semi-monthly and Monthly. Your period ending date options will change based on the Duration chosen:

  • Bi-Weekly: Required to entering a ‘Period Ending Day’

  • Semi-Monthly: Required to enter a First Period Ending Date and a Second Period Ending Date

  • Monthly: Required to enter a ‘First Period Ending Date’

• Close on non-business day: Option to move the closing date to business day. For example, if the closing date were to fall on a Sunday, do you want to change the close date to the next business day. This option is currently not working ESS-860

• Months to Skip: option to disallow timesheets to be created for a specified month(s)

• Period Closing Day: You have the option of using the pre-defined setting under System>Configuration>Timesheet Period Close Configuration for the closing day or select a desired day to close the period.

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Before a user can create a timesheet, a shift must be created for their position. Shifts. You may create a single shift for multiple positions.

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• Name: Enter a Shift Name

• Start Time/End Date: Select a start and ending time for the shift

• Break Time: Enter a break time (i.e. 1.0 for hour break, 0.50 for half hour break, etc).

• Hours in Work Day: Enter the hours in the work day. Currently, the start/end times, break time and hours in work day do not check (balance) against one another.

• Flexible Shift: Currently not implemented

• Select Position for this Shift: Add one or more positions that should be included in this shift.

  • NOTE: It will only display USPS employees who have a user account in ESS and marked as a timesheet employee in USPS

  • ESS-712 will include employee name on position list

After a position has been assigned a shift, when a user creates a timesheet for that position, all shift data will be prefilled for that user’s timesheet.