As flexible work arrangements become more common globally, organizations need better ways to reflect actual working schedules in cost rates.
Alternating Cost Rates allow teams to define bi-weekly work schedules, ensuring accurate capacity, availability, and time-off calculations.
Alternating Cost Rates are available on the Professional and Ultimate subscription plans.
Why Use Alternating Cost Rates?
Traditional cost rate systems assume a fixed weekly schedule, leading to several challenges:
Incorrect capacity and availability data, affecting reports.
Manual adjustments to reflect real work hours.
Inaccurate vacation and time-off calculations due to uneven work weeks.
Alternating Cost Rates address these issues by supporting two common work patterns:
Alternating 2-Week Pattern (72h Capacity)
Employees work 40 hours in Week 1 and 32 hours in Week 2.
Often used by employees with every other Friday off.
Nine-Day Fortnight
Employees work 80 hours over 9 days instead of 10.
Typically involves 9-hour workdays instead of 8, with every other Friday off.
How It Works in Productive
Bi-Weekly Schedule Setup
1) Enable Alternating Schedule
Navigate to the user's profile and open the Cost Rates tab.
Edit or create a new cost rate.
Check the Alternating Working Hours box to enable this option.
2) Set Specific Days for Each Week
Choose which day(s) have different work hours.
Click on a specific day to activate or deactivate it based on the user’s expected working schedule.
3) Define Week A/Week B Patterns
Assign work hours for each week.
Manually input the expected working hours per day.
📌 Note: Week A and Week B are fixed and synchronized for all users in Productive, meaning they cannot be changed.
Week A is determined based on a reference date—October 18, 2010—the "birth week" of Productive. The following week is Week B, and this pattern continues up to the present day.
Examples of Supported Schedule Patterns
40/32-hour alternating weeks
9-day fortnight (longer days, one Friday off)
Custom daily hours for each week
Week A/B alignment
Permissions and Impact
Permissions
No new permissions are required. Existing cost rate permissions apply.
By default, only Admins can access and manage cost rates.
If needed, using the Permission Builder, you can enable the "Add, edit, and delete cost rates" permission in a custom permission set and assign it to specific users.
Impact of Changes
Any modifications to cost rates will affect the following:
Capacity Calculation—Ensures correct availability data.
Availability Calculation—Reflects real working hours.
Time Off Calculation—Aligns vacation days with alternating schedules.
Hourly Cost Calculation—Adjusts rates based on actual work patterns.
Resource Planner
The person will have their off days marked as such (greyed-out).
If a user's capacity varies, the capacity indicators will show whether they are over- or under-booked.
My Time—The user will have their expected hours and off days clearly marked in their time tracking section (Time > My Time or Time > Company Time).
Time Off—Expected off days will be greyed out in the user's Time Off calendar, accessible in their profile under the Time Off tab.
