Book on and off a shift

Book On, your check calls and Book Off all happen on one screen in the employee portal, and each has a window. On the default settings Book On opens an hour before your shift starts, a check call can be logged from fifteen minutes before it is due until thirty minutes later, and Book Off opens fifteen minutes before your shift ends. Outside a window the platform refuses.

What do you need before you start?

Check Calls in the portal menu is the only screen involved. On a narrow screen the bottom bar labels the same page Check In.

It shows one shift at a time: the one scheduled for today, or an overnight shift from yesterday that has not reached its end time yet. If you have nothing on, it reads No shift scheduled for today.

Four things need to be in place before the buttons will do anything.

You need	Why	How you can tell
The shift assigned to you	The screen only ever offers your own shift	It is named under Today's Shift
Your 4-digit PIN	Required by default	A PIN Required badge under Today's Shift
Location switched on	Only where the site is geofenced or the pattern asks for GPS	A GPS Tracked, Geofence Active or Geofence Enforced badge
Your previous shift booked off	Required by default	Otherwise the screen says Cannot Book On Yet

Your PIN is set for you rather than chosen by you, and you can look it up on My Profile — the line under your name reads PIN followed by the four digits. If it shows your employee number instead, no PIN has been set and you need to ask your manager for one.

How do you book on?

Open Check Calls.
Wait for the window. It opens Earliest Book-On minutes before your shift starts — 60 by default — and stays open right through the shift, up to its end time. Until then there is no button, only a green card reading Book on at HH:MM with Book-on opens at HH:MM underneath. That second line is the one to watch.
Press Book On.
Enter your PIN in the Enter Your PIN box. On the web, typing the fourth digit submits on its own; you can also press Confirm Book On. Notes are optional.
The green bar reads Book on completed successfully! and Status on Today's Shift changes to On Duty.

The screen refreshes itself every 30 seconds while it is the tab you are looking at, so a window that is about to open will appear without you reloading.

If your shift has already started and you have not booked on, the screen carries an orange ⚠️ Late Book On — Your shift has already started. Please book on immediately. The button still works; nothing is closed off until the shift's end time passes.

How do you make a check call?

The Check Call button only appears once you have booked on, and only if your organisation has check calls switched on. Each call is due at a set time and can be logged inside a window that opens Opens Before minutes early — 15 by default — and lasts Duration minutes, 30 by default. A call due at 12:00 on those settings can be logged between 11:45 and 12:15.

When a window opens, a blue Check Call button appears reading Window open — tap to confirm, and the banner reads Check Call window open - N min until scheduled time. Outside a window you see a grey Next Check Call card reading Due at HH:MM instead.
Press Check Call.
Enter your PIN. Add notes if you have anything to record — they are optional and are stored against the call.
The slot turns green and reads Done in Scheduled Check Calls, and the Check Calls counter moves up by one.

Two things worth knowing. A second press inside 30 seconds is treated as the same call rather than a new one, so a double tap costs you nothing. And a check call that reaches the platform before any book-on books you on at that moment, recorded against the shift as Auto booked on via check call.

The red Emergency Call button is separate from all of this. It is available on the web whenever you have a shift on the screen, whether or not you have booked on, and it is never held back by a window.

How do you book off?

The red Book Off button appears Opens Before minutes before your shift's end time and stays for Duration minutes — on the defaults, from 15 minutes before the end to 15 minutes after it.
Press Book Off and confirm with your PIN.
Status changes to Completed and the action buttons go away, leaving only Emergency Call.

Book off before you leave. Leaving it undone blocks your next book-on, because Require Previous Shift Booked Off is on by default.

What does booking on and off change?

Book On records your actual start time — the moment you pressed the button, not the time the shift was due to begin — and moves the shift to In Progress. Book Off records your actual finish and moves it to Completed. Those two times are what your hours are worked out from, so a late book-on is a shorter recorded shift.

Neither is the last word. An Admin or Manager can adjust the times afterwards for pay, and their correction is what your own My Schedule then shows. The scheduled vs actual vs arbitrated times page explains which of the three any screen is showing you.

A missed check call does not change the shift's status, mark you absent or cancel anything. It raises an alert with your control room — see check-call windows and escalation.

If it goes wrong

What you see	What it means	What to do
Book-on is not allowed yet. Please wait until your shift is closer to starting.	You are earlier than Earliest Book-On — an hour before the start, by default	Wait. The green card on the screen tells you the exact minute it opens
Cannot Book On Yet — Previous shift has not been booked off. Book off the previous shift first.	An earlier shift of yours is still open	Book that one off. Only a shift you booked on to within the last 36 hours holds you up; anything older is left to your administrator to tidy and does not block you
You have another shift that has not been booked off yet. Please book off your previous shift before starting a new one.	The same block, refused by the server rather than hidden by the screen	As above
No active check-call window right now. The window has either passed or has not yet opened.	The call you are trying to log is not due yet, or its window has closed	Nothing on this screen can log a closed slot. Tell your control room — an administrator can record it against that slot for you
Invalid PIN. Please try again.	The four digits do not match the PIN on your record	Retype it. On the web the box stays open with the message above the digits
PIN is required for check calls at this site.	The action was sent without a PIN	Enter all four digits
No PIN configured for this employee. Please contact your manager.	Your record has no PIN set	Ask your manager to set one — you cannot set it yourself
Location is required for check calls at this site. Please enable location access.	The site's pattern requires GPS and the browser gave none	Allow location for the site and try again
You are outside the allowed area for this site. You are 250m away (allowed: 100m). Please move closer to the site and try again.	The site is geofenced and set to block	Move to the site. If the site only warns rather than blocks, the action goes through and the distance is recorded on it
No shift scheduled for today	You have nothing on today, or an overnight shift from yesterday has already passed its end time	Check My Schedule. A shift whose end time has passed can no longer be booked on to from here

Is the phone app the same?

The app and the web page call the same server with the same payload, so the windows, the PIN rule, the geofence rule and every refusal above are identical. What differs is the wording and the handling around them.

The check-call button reads Make Check Call on the phone and Check Call on the web. The emergency button reads Emergency rather than Emergency Call. The PIN box is titled Enter PIN with a plain Confirm, rather than Enter Your PIN and Confirm Book On.
Typing the fourth PIN digit does not submit on the phone; you press Confirm. That is deliberate, so a mistyped digit cannot fire a book-on by itself.
Refusals arrive as a pop-up titled Error with a short vibration, carrying the same wording as the table above. A wrong PIN closes the PIN box on the phone, so you retype all four digits; on the web the box stays open.
The emergency button on the phone only appears once the shift is active. If you are late to book on, or held up by a previous shift, you cannot raise one from the app — use the web page or phone your control room directly.
Times on the phone's check-call screen are drawn in your device's timezone rather than your organisation's, so a phone set to another country shows the wrong clock times for your windows.
The phone can receive a push when a check call is due, or when it is time to book on or off, and tapping it opens this screen. The web page has no equivalent — it only updates while you have it open.
Neither one stores an action taken with no signal. A book-on submitted without a connection fails and has to be repeated.