I submitted a worker to the wrong assignment — how do I fix it?
Last updated: September 14, 2026
Applies to: staffing partners who have submitted a worker to an assignment and then realised it was the wrong one — the wrong job title, the wrong client, or a near-identical assignment sitting next to the right one. Clients and workers cannot submit assignments, so this is a partner action and only your team can undo it.
Summary: Nothing is deleted, and you do not need to wait for us. If the assignment has not been approved yet, withdraw it. If it has already gone live, end it. Then submit the worker to the correct assignment. The one thing to bring to us is time that has already been entered on the wrong assignment — do not try to move that yourself.
First, check which state the wrong assignment is in
Open Assignments from the left-hand menu and find it. What you can do next depends entirely on whether we have approved it yet:
Awaiting approval — you submitted it and it is queued with us. This is the easy case.
Live — we have approved it and the worker can be scheduled and paid against it.
Denied — we declined it. There is nothing to undo, but a denied assignment cannot be reused either; submit a new one rather than trying to edit it.
If it is still awaiting approval: withdraw it
Open the assignment, expand its details, and use the Actions menu to withdraw it. The assignment goes back to a draft state rather than being destroyed, so nothing you typed is lost and there is no approval step to wait for. You can then submit the worker to the assignment you actually meant.
Withdrawing is available to partner users with an owner, admin or manager role. If you do not see the option, your role probably does not include it — ask a colleague who has it, or email support@ascen.com and we will withdraw it for you.
If it is already live: end it
An approved assignment cannot be withdrawn — use Actions → End instead, with the correct end date. Ending it stops it being used going forward and leaves the record intact. Submit the correct assignment separately; the two are not linked, so do it as a normal new submission.
If you end the wrong one by mistake, you can bring it back yourself — see How do I reactivate assignments?.
Do not leave both assignments open
This is the part that causes real problems later. If the wrong assignment stays open alongside the right one, the worker (or whoever enters their time) has two plausible options to pick from, and hours land on the wrong one. That means the wrong client can be billed, or the time sits unapproved because it went to an approver who is not expecting it. Overlapping assignments are the usual cause of misallocated hours — see Moving a worker between W-2 and independent contractor — what we need from you for the same issue in a different context.
Two genuinely separate assignments are correct when a worker really does work for more than one client or in more than one role — see What do I do if I have a contractor that works at multiple clients?. A duplicate created by mistake is not that.
If time has already been entered on the wrong assignment
Stop and email support@ascen.com before you end or withdraw anything. Tell us the worker, both assignments, and the dates involved. Moving already-entered time between assignments is something we do on our side — if you end the assignment first, the time can be left stranded on a closed record and it takes longer to sort out than if you tell us first.
The same applies if the hours have already been approved or have gone through payroll. Those are pay corrections, and they come to us.
How to avoid it next time
Near-identical job titles are the main culprit — a "Specialist" and a "Specialist II" at the same client are easy to confuse in a list. Where you have levels or shifts at one client, make the distinguishing detail part of the job title rather than something you have to open the assignment to see.
Check the client and the job title on the confirmation before you close the tab, not the next time payroll runs.
See Creating clients, jobs, and assignments — what's required and what can delay going live for what has to be right on an assignment before it can be approved.