At Buddy Punch, we continually ship new features, improvements, and fixes based on what we hear from customers. Here’s a rundown of everything we added to the product in 2024.

Unavailable time overlap warning

Choose what happens when a shift you publish overlaps with an employee’s unavailable time.

You’ll find the “Availability & Shift Overlap” dropdown in “Settings” → “Scheduling,” in the “Overlap Rules” section. It defaults to “Do Nothing.” You can change it to “Allow but Notify,” which displays an alert but still allows publishing, or “Block,” which displays an alert and does not allow publishing.

See the setup steps for unavailable time overlap warnings.

Time off overlap warning

Choose what happens when a shift overlaps with employee time off.

You’ll find the “Time Off & Shift Overlap” dropdown on the “Settings” → “Scheduling” page, in the Overlap rules section. It defaults to “Do Nothing.” You can change it to “Allow but Notify,” which displays an alert but still allows publishing.

A manager building the schedule can set “Time Off & Shift Overlap” to “Allow but Notify” so that if a shift lands on a day a worker already has time off, an alert is displayed. They can click “Continue” anyway to publish, or click the employee’s name in blue to filter down by that person.

See the setup steps for time off overlap warnings.

Overlapping shift warning

Choose what happens when overlapping shifts are encountered while publishing.

You’ll find the “Multiple Shift Overlap” dropdown on the “Settings” → “Scheduling” page, in the “Overlap Rules” section. It defaults to “Do Nothing.” You can change it to “Allow but Notify,” which displays an alert but still allows publishing, or “Block,” which sends an alert and does not allow publishing.

A manager who publishes schedules can set “Multiple Shift Overlap” to “Block” so that when multiple overlapping shifts are encountered, an alert is sent and publishing is not allowed until they click “OK” to return to the schedule and make changes.

See the setup steps for overlapping shift warnings.

Expanded schedule color palette

Schedule color options grew from 10 to 24.

You’ll now find a “Color” dropdown with 24 color options to choose from. Once a shift is added, it shows up on the schedule outlined in the chosen color. When the shifts are published and available to employees when punching in, they are solid and filled in with the chosen color.

An administrator creating shifts can choose a color for each one from that dropdown so the schedule is easier to organize and read at a glance.

See how to assign a color to a shift.

Break rule names on the time card

Manual break rule names now display on the time card under each set of break punches. The break type, duration, and manual break rule name show up there so you can tell breaks apart at a glance.

Date ranges on the company calendar

Instead of entering holidays or company days off one by one, you can now enter multiple consecutive holidays at once.

You’ll find this on the web at “Settings” → “Time Off,” then “Company Calendar” in the left-hand menu, then “+ Add New.” Click the “Switch to date ranges” button to enter consecutive days off.

Jump to a date on the time off calendar

On the time off calendar, you can view time by month or year and get to a precise date in a few clicks.

You’ll find this in “Month” view after you click “Time Off” in the top navigation. Click the name of the month you’re viewing, above the time off calendar, to open a calendar selector and pick a month. Click the year at the top to choose from additional years. Click the “Today” button on the left side of the screen to get back to today’s date.

See how to navigate time on the Time Off Calendar.

Quick jump calendar on the schedule

On the web, you can now jump to the dates you need on the schedule in a few clicks.

Click the date at the top center of the schedule page to open a calendar. Then use the arrows, click an individual date, or click the month and year at the top of the pop-up to reach other months or years. The “Today” button at the top left returns you to the current scheduling period.

Push notifications for punches

Punch in and punch out notifications, previously available only as email, can now also be sent as push notifications.

You’ll find this in “My Profile” (click your name in the top right-hand corner) in the “Communication Preferences” section, next to “Notifications on each punch.” It’s a personal setting, so each administrator or manager turns it on in their own profile. Administrators are notified of all employees’ punches. Managers are notified only for employees they have view or approval rights for.

See how to get an email or push notification on each punch.

Bulk activate and deactivate employees

You can now bulk activate and deactivate employees using checkboxes on the “Employees” page instead of opening each employee’s profile individually.

On the “Employees” page, check the box next to each employee you want to deactivate, then click “Deactivate.” To bulk activate, open the “Inactive” tab, check the box next to each employee, and click “Activate.”

Administrators must deactivate employees manually. The system does not automatically deactivate employees if they’re no longer tracking time. Deactivated employees will no longer be able to log in or punch time.

Approve all punches on the time card

Managers and administrators can now bulk approve all punches that are pending approval with the “Approve All Punches” button on the time card in the web interface.

From the dashboard under the “Pending Approval” section, you can view an employee’s time card and either use “Approve All Punches” or click “Take Action” next to an individual punch. If you choose “Approve All Punches,” you’ll be required to approve the action one final time.

Webcam images in the mobile app

Managers and administrators can now view Photos on Punch images when viewing time cards in the mobile app, just as they can on desktop.

On an employee’s time card, images can be viewed from the “Punch Details” page. You can click an image to enlarge it and view it in more detail.

Reset to draft in the mobile app

You can now reset a time card to a draft from the mobile app with the click of a button, matching what you can already do on the web.