Understand schedule changes and payroll drafts

A pay schedule defines periods and close-by deadlines. An effective-dated assignment determines which schedule covers an employee on each service date. A pay-run draft captures the selected occurrence, schedule version, employee set, assignment segments and calculation inputs when it is created. Changing the schedule or an assignment later does not silently rewrite that draft.

What to review before a change

Change	Check before saving	Check afterward
Assign or transfer an employee	Preview the old and new dates, affected drafts, submitted payroll and finalised service-date coverage.	Refresh and recalculate each affected editable draft.
Correct assignment dates	Use Edit dates on the selected assignment and preview its impact.	Verify the saved range and refresh affected editable drafts.
Add a rule version	Preview occurrences and choose an effective occurrence boundary that does not rewrite a materialised period.	Confirm the version history and review future periods and open drafts.
Retire a schedule	Check the effective date, current employees and future payroll plans.	Confirm the retirement date and arrange later primary assignments where needed.

An overlapping submitted payroll that cannot be refreshed or reopened blocks a conflicting transfer. Finalised payroll coverage is immutable; when that coverage cannot be verified, the app keeps the change blocked and links to the source run. Do not guess around an unknown date.

Refresh an affected draft

Open the linked editable draft, select Refresh employees where available, save progress and run a new payroll preview. Check its employee set, covered service dates, hours, time off and calculation lines before proceeding. A department or position edit alone does not reassign an employee or silently change a draft’s membership.

See Assign employees to pay schedules, Add a pay schedule rule version, and Retire a pay schedule for the individual tasks.