Shop Floor Insight can automatically determine the Business Central Work Type to use when time recorded against a project is posted.

This is useful when the appropriate Work Type depends on information captured on the Shop Floor Time Card Line, such as the paycode, activity, employee, project, project task, or another field.

How Shop Floor Insight determines the Work Type

When Shop Floor Insight posts a project time card line, it determines the Work Type in the following order:

1. Shop Floor Work Type Rules are evaluated against the time card line.
2. If no Work Type is returned by a rule, Shop Floor Insight uses the Work Type configured on the Shop Floor Activity.
3. If neither supplies a Work Type, Shop Floor Insight does not explicitly set the Work Type on the Project Journal Line, allowing standard Business Central processing to apply its normal defaults.

The Work Type configured on a Shop Floor Activity is specifically intended for time transferred to projects.

Configure a Shop Floor Work Type Rule

Open Shop Floor Work Type Rules in Business Central.

For each rule, configure:

• Code: A unique identifier for the rule.
• Run Order: Determines the order in which rules are evaluated.
• Filter: The conditions that a Shop Floor Time Card Line must meet for the rule to apply.
• Work Type: The Business Central Work Type to use when the filter matches.

Use the assist-edit button on Filter to build the conditions. The filter is based on the Shop Floor Time Card Line table, so rules can evaluate fields available on the time card line rather than being limited to a single predefined field.

Example: Work Type based on paycode

A common scenario is to use different Work Types for regular and overtime project labor.

For example:

Code	Run Order	Filter	Work Type
OVERTIME	20	Paycode = OVERTIME	OVERTIME

When a project time card line has the OVERTIME paycode, the rule matches and Shop Floor Insight applies the OVERTIME Work Type when creating the Project Journal Line.

This lets Paycodes continue to describe the type of employee time, such as regular time or overtime, while Work Type Rules translate that information into the appropriate Business Central Work Type for project posting.

Using the Activity instead of Work Type Rules

You do not need Work Type Rules when the Work Type can be determined directly from the activity the employee performs.

Each Shop Floor Activity has a Work Type field. For example, you could configure:

Activity	Work Type
ENGINEERING	ENGINEERING
INSTALL	INSTALL

When no Work Type Rule supplies a value, Shop Floor Insight uses the Work Type from the activity.

This approach works well when employees naturally choose different activities for different types of project labor.

Use Work Type Rules instead when the Work Type depends on other information already captured on the time card line, or on a combination of fields.

Work Type Rules and Paycodes

Do not create separate activities solely to represent payroll categories such as regular time or overtime when those distinctions are already represented by Paycodes.

For example, an employee could remain clocked to the same INSTALL activity while the Paycode changes from regular time to overtime. A Work Type Rule can then use the Paycode to select the corresponding Work Type when the time is posted.

Changing the Paycode on the time card before posting will also cause the applicable Work Type Rules to be evaluated against the updated value.

Rule order

Rules are evaluated in ascending Run Order. The page describes this as the lowest Run Order being executed first.

If more than one rule matches the same time card line, Shop Floor Insight continues evaluating the remaining rules. Each matching rule can replace the Work Type selected by an earlier rule, so the last matching rule in Run Order takes precedence.

This allows broad rules to use lower Run Orders and more specific override rules to use higher Run Orders.

For example:

Run Order	Condition	Work Type
10	Activity Code = INSTALL	INSTALL
20	Activity Code = INSTALL and Paycode = OVERTIME	INSTALL-OT

An overtime installation line matches both rules, but the rule at Run Order 20 is evaluated later and determines the final Work Type.

Changing the Work Type before posting

Shop Floor Insight does not store a separate editable Work Type directly on the Shop Floor Time Card Line.

Instead, if the Work Type needs to change before posting, change the information that determines it, typically:

• change the Paycode when the Work Type Rule is based on paycode; or
• change the Activity Code when the Work Type comes from the activity or when the rule uses the activity.

Shop Floor Insight evaluates the resulting time card line when it creates the Project Journal Line and applies the appropriate Work Type at that time.

The out of box way to allow changing work types before posting is to either use a Shop Floor Activity Code or Shop Floor Work Type Rules, depending on your specific needs.

Using a Shop Floor Activity Code also allows Shop Floor Employees creating time cards with the barcode scanning interface to also change the Shop Floor Activity for the selected time card line by scanning a barcode.

Choosing between Activities and Work Type Rules

Use the Work Type on the Activity when there is a simple one-to-one relationship between the activity being performed and the Work Type.

Use Shop Floor Work Type Rules when the Work Type needs to be determined from other information on the time card line, such as a Paycode, or from a combination of conditions.

Both approaches are standard Shop Floor Insight functionality and can be used together: Work Type Rules provide the more specific selection, with the Activity Work Type acting as the fallback when no rule supplies a Work Type.