Setting a timeline

Tell your managers and approvers when each part of the cycle is due. You need the System Admin or Total Rewards Admin role, and a cycle in the Setup phase — see Creating a cycle.

A cycle moves through four phases: Setup, Planning, Approval and Finalized. The timeline is the dates you publish for them. It never moves the cycle on its own: a date passing changes nothing, and you advance each phase yourself — see Advancing a cycle.

Set the pay effective date first

Open the cycle, choose the Setup tab, and select Edit on 5. Schedule. Pick the Pay effective date, the day the new pay takes effect, and select Save at the foot of the section. The timeline works back from it. The same section holds the cycle’s Currency.

Set the dates

1. On the Setup tab, select Edit on 5. Schedule and find Timeline.
2. If the pay effective date leaves room, the table starts from Suggested dates, not saved yet: the four phases spaced evenly between today and the day before the pay effective date.
3. Change any phase’s Starts or Ends date. The Schedule preview redraws as you go.
4. Select Save at the foot of the section.

A phase whose end date is before its start date is refused. A phase left without both dates is not saved.

Warnings that do not block

Under Timeline warnings, the section tells you when a phase ends on or after the pay effective date, or when two phases overlap. Neither stops you saving.

What the dates drive

Each phase’s dates appear under its step on the cycle’s phase stepper. Planning’s end date is the submit-by date — the deadline a manager’s notifications carry. The Cycle health card on the cycle’s Worksheets tab flags a phase whose deadline has passed. See Tracking timeline progress.

The timeline fixes at launch

The timeline, the pay effective date and the currency can no longer be changed once the cycle launches. The 5. Schedule section is marked Frozen at launch, and View opens it read-only.