Shift Planning

Shift Planning builds a team's schedule. You describe your usual shifts once as shift templates, set up rotations that repeat week after week, and say how many people the team needs with coverage requirements. A schedule covers one to twelve weeks of one team: you fill it as a draft, by hand, from rotations or with Auto-schedule, check it against coverage on the planner board, then publish it to the team's Workforce calendar. Workers see their published shifts on the calendar. When you publish again, only the shifts you changed move, and each change is logged.

Shifts with nobody become open shifts that the team's workers can claim, and published shifts can be given away or swapped through shift trades.

Menu	Calendars > Shift Schedules, Open Shifts, Shift Trades, Rotations, Coverage, Shift Templates
Permission	Plan team schedules, Publish team schedules, Manage open shifts, Approve shift trades, Manage shift templates, Manage the whole workforce
Feature	Workforce Shift Planning (it needs Workforce)

Can't find it?

What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.

Schedules, rotations and coverage belong to a team, so a manager or scheduler only sees those of the teams they manage, as described in Workers and Teams. Shift templates are shared by every team.

Shift templates

Open Calendars > Shift Templates and choose Add shift template.

Field	What it does
Name	The template's name, such as Day or Night.
Hours	When the shift starts and ends. An end at or before the start is on the next day, so 22:00 to 06:00 is a night shift.
Breaks and activities	One per line: a time range, then an activity code, such as 13:00-13:30 Meal. The hint lists your activity codes. Each must fit inside the shift.
Color	The color the shift is drawn in on the planner board.
Teams	The teams that use the template. Leave it empty for every team.
Skills needed	The skills a worker needs to work the shift.
Enabled	Untick to stop offering the template.

Whether a break counts as paid time, or as time the worker is available for work, comes from its activity code.

Rotations

A rotation is a pattern of shifts that repeats every few weeks, such as days Monday and Tuesday, then Wednesday the week after. Open Calendars > Rotations and choose Add rotation.

Field	What it does
Name	The rotation's name.
Team	The team that uses it. Choosing a team reloads the page with its workers and templates. A saved rotation keeps its team.
Weeks	How many weeks the pattern lasts before it repeats, from 1 to 12.
Pattern	For each day of each week, the shift template worked that day, or Off.
Workers	The team's workers who follow the rotation.
New workers start	The day the workers you add now start week 1. Workers already following the rotation keep their day, which is listed under Workers.
Enabled	Untick to stop using the rotation.

Coverage

Coverage says how many people the team needs at each time. Open Calendars > Coverage, choose the team in the list's filter, and choose Add requirement.

Field	What it does
Name	The requirement's name, such as Front desk.
Team	The team it is for.
Skill	Optional. The skill the people must have. Only workers who hold the skill that day count toward it.
Rows	One per line: a weekday (such as Monday or Mon) or a date (such as 2026-12-24), a time range, then the minimum, the target and, if you want one, the maximum number of people. For example Monday 09:00-17:00 2 3. Use 24:00 for midnight. A date replaces that weekday's rows for the day, which suits holidays.
Applies	Optional. The first and last day the requirement applies.

A line that can't be read is shown back to you with the reason, and nothing is saved until every line is right.

Plan a schedule

Shift planning is part of the calendars: a published schedule is the team's Workforce calendar, and on Calendars > Manage Calendars that calendar's menu has Shift schedules. Open Calendars > Shift Schedules and choose Start a schedule. Choose the Team, the First day and the number of Weeks (1 to 12), and optionally a Name. The planner board opens.

The board shows one week at a time; use the arrows above it to move between weeks. Each row is a worker on the team that week, then Open shifts, which have nobody yet. The Hours column adds up each worker's shifts for the week, less unpaid breaks. A worker who has shifts but isn't on the team that week is marked Off team.

• Auto-schedule adds shifts from the team's templates to cover its coverage requirements. See Auto-schedule.
• Apply rotations adds the shifts of the team's rotations for everyone who follows one. A worker's day that already has a shift is left alone, so you can apply rotations again after changing them.
• Copy copies the shifts of another schedule of the same team, moved by the days between the two schedules. Shifts that would fall outside this schedule are left out.
• Point at a day and choose Add to add a shift, or choose a shift to change it.

In the shift editor, choose the Worker (or Nobody yet for an open shift), the Day and the Hours, and list its Breaks and activities as in a template. Choose a Template and Use its times to fill the hours and breaks from it. Notes are shown to the worker on the calendar. Delete removes the shift.

A shift must fall inside the schedule's dates, end after it starts, last at most 24 hours, and belong to a worker who is on the team that day.

Check coverage

The Coverage row under the board shows each day against the team's coverage requirements, in half hours. Breaks and meals that don't count toward staffing are left out, so a worker on a meal isn't counted.

Badge	Means
Covered	Every half hour has at least the target.
n under target at time	Every half hour has the minimum, but some have fewer than the target. It shows the worst one.
n below the minimum at time	Some half hours have fewer people than the minimum. It shows the worst one.
No requirement	Nobody is needed that day.

Auto-schedule

Auto-schedule fills the draft for you. It looks at every half hour of the schedule, finds where the team has fewer people than its coverage requirements ask for, and gives shifts from the team's templates to the workers who can take them, until no shift would help. It then tries handing shifts to other workers, swapping templates and dropping shifts nobody needs, while that makes the schedule better. It stops after 30 seconds at most.

It keeps to these rules:

• Only active workers who are on the team that day, and not marked unavailable for the whole day, get shifts.
• A shift fits inside the worker's available hours for that day, when they have any, and never overlaps hours they are unavailable. A shift inside their preferred hours is favored.
• A worker gets at most one shift a day, and only a template whose skills they hold for the whole schedule.
• A worker rests at least 10 hours between shifts, works at most 6 days in a row, and stays within their Max hours per week (or their contracted hours, or 40), and Max hours per day.
• The shifts already in the draft stay. They count toward coverage, and so do the worker's shifts on other teams for their own time.

Falling short of the minimum counts far more than falling short of the target, and people beyond the target or the maximum count against a shift. After the run, a message says how many shifts were added and what share of the people wanted and needed the schedule now covers; the share also shows above the board. You can change any shift it added, and run it again after changing the coverage or the templates.

With OR-Tools Shift Scheduling on, Auto-schedule also hands the schedule to the OR-Tools solver, which looks for a better one under the same rules and keeps whichever is better. A second message names the solver used and how long it took.

Publish

Choose Publish to put the schedule on the team's Workforce calendar. Open shifts stay off the calendar until you give them to someone. You need Publish team schedules; Plan team schedules alone lets you prepare the draft.

Shifts with nobody are offered as open shifts. When the team has a labor rule set, the board lists the rules the draft breaks, and a rule that blocks or needs an override stops the publish.

After the first publish, the button reads Publish changes. Publishing again adds new shifts, moves or reassigns the ones you changed, and removes the ones you deleted. Shifts you didn't touch stay as they are. If a shift can't be published, a warning says which one and why, and the others are still published.

To change one shift now, without publishing the whole schedule, open it from the board. Under On the published schedule, enter a reason, then change its hours, give it to someone else, or take it off the schedule. Each change is checked against the labor rules, logged, and counts for predictability pay, unless you tick The worker asked for it. The draft follows, so the next publish keeps the change.

Change log lists every shift added, moved, reassigned, swapped, filled from an open shift, removed or whose breaks changed after the first publish, newest first, with the version, who made the change and when. Changes a worker asked for, through a trade or a claim, are marked Worker's request. A schedule that was never published can be deleted from its Actions menu. A published one can't: remove its shifts and publish again instead.

Open shifts

Open Calendars > Open Shifts to see the shifts with nobody of the teams you manage. Publishing a schedule posts its shifts with nobody here, and publishing again updates them, or stops offering those you deleted or gave to someone in the draft. Choose Post an open shift to offer one that isn't in any schedule, such as cover for someone off sick: choose the team, the day, the hours and, if you want, a template, whose skills a worker then needs.

Choose View to open a shift. It lists its claims and Give it to someone, with the team's workers who can take it: on the team that day, holding its skills, with no other shift at that time, resting at least 10 hours before and after, and within their weekly and daily hours. A worker who can't take it isn't listed; a claim from one shows why.

How a shift is given depends on the team's Open shifts go to setting (see Team settings):

Setting	What happens
Whoever a manager approves	Claims wait. Choose Approve on a claim, or give the shift to anyone listed. The other claims are declined.
The first eligible worker to claim	The first worker who claims it and can take it gets it at once.
The most senior claimant, after a day	Claims are taken for a day (or until the shift starts, if sooner). Then the claimant with the earliest seniority date, or hire date, who can still take it gets it. If none can, a manager decides.

A filled shift goes on the team's calendar and into its schedule, so publishing again leaves it alone, and the change log shows Open shift filled. Record a claim claims for a worker who asked you, and Stop offering takes a shift off the list.

Shift trades

Workers can give a published shift to a colleague, let anyone eligible pick it up, or swap it for a colleague's shift. Open Calendars > Shift Trades to see the trades of the teams you manage, and choose Offer a trade to offer one on a worker's behalf:

Field	What it does
Worker	The worker offering one of their shifts.
Trade	Give the shift away, or Swap it for a colleague's shift.
Shift	One of their published shifts in the next 60 days.
Colleague	Who it is offered to. Leave Anyone who can take it for a shift any eligible colleague can pick up. A swap needs a colleague.
Their shift	For a swap, the colleague's shift wanted in exchange.
Note	A note to the colleague.

Choose View to open a trade. While it is offered, it lists who could accept it and why the others can't, by the same rules as open shifts. In a swap, both workers are checked for the shift they would get. Accept for accepts on a colleague's behalf, Turn down does so for the colleague it was offered to, and Take back withdraws it for the worker who offered it.

When the team's Shift trades setting needs a manager, an accepted trade waits for Approve or Decline. Otherwise it applies as soon as the colleague accepts. Applying a trade moves the shifts on the calendar and in the schedule, so publishing again leaves them alone, and the change log shows Reassigned or Swapped as the worker's request. A trade is checked again when it is approved, and refused if a shift changed since it was offered or a rule would now be broken.

Team settings

When Shift Planning is on, a team's editor under Teams has two more settings on its Workforce card, and a third when Time Off is on too. A team left at As the parent team takes its parent's setting; at the top, a manager approves both.

Field	What it does
Open shifts go to	Whoever a manager approves, the first eligible worker to claim, or the most senior claimant after a day.
Shift trades	Whether a manager approves trades, or they apply when the colleague accepts.
Shifts under approved time off	Keep a worker's published shifts flagged for cover when their time off is approved (the default), or take them off the schedule.