Why did my worker's assignment end on its own?

Last updated: October 6, 2026

Applies to: staffing Partners managing assignments in the Ascen platform.

Summary: Two things end an assignment automatically: a long enough stretch with no time submitted against it, and a scheduled end date arriving. Neither is a cancellation. It is not a cancellation and nothing is lost — you can bring the assignment straight back yourself with Actions → Restart. The inactivity window is a platform setting and cannot be switched off for an individual assignment, so if a worker's billing or shift pattern leaves long gaps, expect it to recur and plan for the restart.

What actually happened

Assignments are meant to reflect live work. When no time is submitted against an assignment for an extended period, the platform treats it as finished and ends it, so that assignment lists, reports and invoicing don't carry engagements that stopped months ago. Two settings drive this on your account: how many days of inactivity trigger a warning, and how many trigger the automatic end. The warning fires first, so an assignment that ends this way has usually been flagged beforehand.

This catches out engagements with an unusual rhythm — monthly billing cycles, on-call or intermittent workers, or a worker who is between projects at the same client. The work is real; the platform just hasn't seen a timesheet.

The other automatic end: the scheduled end date

Inactivity is not the only thing that closes an assignment on its own. If the assignment carries an Intended End Date and that date arrives while the work is still going, the assignment is completed on schedule. The platform records the end reason as End Date Reached rather than Inactivity, and the two need different fixes — so check the end reason on the assignment before you do anything else.

This is the one that catches out extensions agreed verbally, statements of work with hours still left to run, and shift-based engagements booked weeks in advance. The work was always going to continue; nobody moved the date.

  • Extend by editing the date, not by letting it lapse. There is no separate Extend button — open the assignment while it is still live, click Edit, and update the Intended End Date. Keeping that date honest is what prevents this entirely.

  • Already closed? Restart it the same way as an inactivity close (Actions → Restart), then correct the end date so it does not close again the next time the date passes.

  • Expect the worker to hear about it. Closing an assignment can generate an automatic separation notice to the worker even though they are still working. It is produced by the record closing, not by any decision about their job — reassure them, and get the assignment reopened. Workers who receive one can read You received a separation notice but you are still working.

Bringing the assignment back

You can do this yourself, and it takes a few seconds:

  1. Open Assignments from the left-hand menu and click the assignment.

  2. Click View more to open the full assignment.

  3. Click Actions (upper right), then Restart.

Full steps and the caveats are in How do I reactivate assignments?. Once it is active again the worker can log time against it as before, though depending on how long it was ended they may be asked to re-confirm a detail or two first.

Can you turn the automatic end off?

Not for a single assignment, and not on request — the inactivity window is a platform-level setting rather than something we can waive case by case. If it is firing repeatedly on the same engagement, the practical answers are:

  • Submit time on the normal cycle. Any approved time resets the clock, so partners who email hours in monthly are the most exposed — sending them promptly at the end of each cycle is the simplest fix.

  • Restart it when work resumes. For genuinely intermittent work, treat the restart as a routine step rather than an escalation.

  • Talk to your Customer Success Manager if the pattern is structural for a whole client — there may be a better way to model the engagement.

If the worker has hours for the period it was ended

Hours are not lost. The worker may see the assignment as closed and be unable to submit — that symptom is covered in Unable to Submit Timesheet: Assignment Appears Closed or Ended, and late hours can be sent in as described in How to Submit a Timesheet After Missing the Deadline. Restart the assignment first, then have the time entered; if the week has already closed, email support@ascen.com with the worker's name, the dates and the hours and we will key them in.

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