Drafts and publishing

A new shift is either published or a draft. A published shift is live at once and the person is told. A draft waits, unseen by staff, until you publish the week.

Drafts exist in the Custom Shifts mode only.

What a draft is#

• Only admins and managers see a draft, on the scheduling screens. The person it is for cannot see it anywhere until the week is published.
• Adding, editing or discarding a draft sends no notification.
• A draft is not counted in the coverage figures or in labour cost. It cannot be claimed as an open shift and cannot be swapped.
• A draft does count against double booking when you add a shift by hand, and towards the monthly hours question in the shift form.

Build a week as drafts and publish it#

What publishing sends#

• Each person gets one message that groups all their new shifts, in the app and as a push by default. None of the messages on this page is sent by email.
• A draft whose start has already passed is published without a message.
• Open shifts among the drafts are announced as open shifts to the employees assigned to that location. Anyone whose declared availability rules out every one of them is left out, unless the location allows claiming while unavailable.

Drafts that stay drafts#

Publishing holds a draft back when:

• you cannot change that location,
• the person no longer works at that location,
• the person has approved leave then,
• the person already has a published shift at those hours,
• your company's availability rule blocks the shift.

A manager can publish a week that holds a draft someone else made for them.

Where your company requires Reason for scheduling anyway, a draft saved with it stays a draft every time you publish. To make that shift live, discard the draft, switch back to Published and add the shift again. You have to type the reason again.

Discard drafts#

Discard on the draft bar (Discard on the phone) deletes every draft in the week and location in view. It tells nobody and cannot be undone. A manager's own drafted shifts stay.

To remove one draft, open it on the web and select Discard draft. On the phone, press and hold the draft and tap Discard draft.

Cancel a published shift#

A published shift cannot be deleted. You cancel it, and it stays on the record.

1. 1

   Open the shift

   On the web, open Schedules in the week view and select the shift: Edit Schedule opens. On the phone, tap the shift in Manage Schedule. A shift on a day that has passed is greyed out, and it still opens.

2. 2

   Set the status to Cancelled

   Under Status, choose Cancelled (Status and Cancelled on the phone).

   

3. 3

   Give a reason and save

   Cancellation reason is optional and takes up to 500 characters. Select Save.

What happens next, when the shift had somebody assigned:

• Shift cancelled goes to the employee, and to that location's managers and all admins other than the person who cancelled. It carries the reason when you gave one.
• An employee cannot switch off this message in their notification list. They can still silence the push.
• The reason is fixed at that moment. Open the cancelled shift again and you see it read-only.
• The shift no longer counts in coverage and no longer blocks another shift at the same time. On the phone, the employee still sees it in their schedule, marked as cancelled.

Cancelling an open shift sends no message. Tell your team yourself.

To bring a cancelled shift back, open it and set its status to Scheduled or Confirmed. The checks then run as for a new shift. A cancelled shift stays where it was, marked as cancelled: in the week view on the web, and in Manage Schedule on the phone.

Other messages about shifts#

• A new published shift sends New shift assigned to the person it is for.
• Editing a published shift sends Shift updated only when its start, end, person, location or status really changed.
• Open shift claimed goes to the admin or manager who applied the Auto Schedule run that created the open shift.

An admin can switch each type per role and channel under Settings, Notifications. See Notification settings.

Missing a button? See I can't see a button or page someone else has.