Scheduling Periods

What is a scheduling period?

A scheduling period defines the date range you're planning for — for example, the coming week or the next two weeks. It helps structure the planning process and gives workers a clear window to submit their availability.

Setting a period

From the dashboard or the planner, open the Planning period settings and set the start and end dates. Once set, the planner shows the period highlighted and the Planning period button in the toolbar jumps directly to it.

Collecting preferences

Once a period is set, you can enable preference submission to allow workers to indicate their availability for that range.

When toggled on:

• Workers see a prompt on their dashboard asking them to submit their preferences
• They can indicate which days or times they're available or unavailable
• Submissions are visible to you when building the schedule

Toggle this off once the submission window has closed, or when you're ready to finalise the schedule. Workers won't be able to make changes after it's turned off.

Building the schedule

With preferences collected, use Auto-assign to allocate shifts automatically based on availability, contracted hours, and competencies. You can then adjust manually before publishing.

Publishing

When the schedule is ready, publish it to make it visible to workers. Before publishing, only managers can see the plan.

Once published:

• Workers can see their shifts for the period on their dashboard
• They receive a notification that the schedule is available

You can make changes after publishing — any updates are visible to workers immediately.

Recommended workflow

1. Set the period dates
2. Enable preference submission and wait for responses
3. Build shifts (manually or with auto-assign)
4. Review and adjust
5. Publish