Do I need a shift assigned to check in?
Self-serve check-in requires an assigned shift. The browser card opens and closes relative to a shift start and end, so with no shift there is nothing to measure the window from. Somebody without an assignment sees the card say so, and gets routed to a manual punch request instead.
The requirement follows from how the window works rather than from a policy decision.
Every edge of the window is expressed as minutes either side of a shift boundary. Remove the boundary and the arithmetic has no anchor. The card cannot say whether it should be open, so it declines rather than guessing.
That also keeps the resulting record meaningful. A punch with no scheduled start produces a time and nothing to compare it against.
The routing matters as much as the refusal. Somebody unassigned is not left with a dead button and no path, and their day does not become a silent gap in the record.
Shifts are named windows with a start and an end. Morning might run ten to seven. Mid might run noon to nine. A person is placed on one of them from a stated date, and the placing records who did it.
Every earlier placing stays in the history rather than being written over. That history settles the most common attendance argument there is. The question is rarely whether somebody was late. It is late against what.
So the shift does two jobs at once. It anchors the check-in window, and it supplies the yardstick the lateness figure is measured from. Neither works without it.
A company running no shift structure at all uses the manual punch request for everybody, which still gives every day a reviewed record. Adding even one named shift opens the browser card to that group once an admin enables it.
Assign the shift before enabling the card for a team. The assignment carries a start date, so backdating it changes which past mornings get judged against which window.
Related questions
What does the card show without a shift?
A message saying no shift is assigned, and a route into the manual punch request flow. It does not offer a button that will fail.
Who assigns a shift?
Whoever holds the permission, from the shifts screen. The assignment records who made it and when it starts, and every earlier one stays in the assignment history.
Can somebody hold two shifts at once?
Assignments run in sequence with dates rather than in parallel. Exactly one window should apply to any given day, or the lateness figure stops meaning anything.