This article will explore two pages that staff and managers can use to find cover shifts. Available Shifts is a page for staff that displays all shifts that they are able to take. The cover shifts page is for managers and will display all staff cover requests  and offers a list of staff who might be able to cover.

Available Shifts

The Available Shifts page allows staff to easily access or relinquish shifts. If a staff member is looking for available shifts to take, they will need to visit the Available Shifts page. This can be accessed under Shifts > Available Shifts. 

Available Shifts displays a list of shifts you can take due to your skills and skill set.

 This list displays:

• The date of the shift.
• The start and end times.
• The staff member requesting cover (or whether it is an extra shift available).
• The skills required.
• The venue (if you happen to work at multiple venues).
• Further details (whether the shift clashes with your requested holiday or nights/hours off/preferred hours).

Taking a Shift

Before you take a shift, there are several factors to consider. You need to consider the type of shift you are offering to take and whether the shift will work for you.

Shift information

Before you commit to taking a shift, it can be helpful to click the INFO button, which will take you to the Shift Details page, which has more detailed information about who the staff member will be working with, when and where they need to arrive, and any changes that have been made to the shift.

Extra Shifts vs Offered Shifts

Additionally, each shift that comes up on the Available Shifts page is either an Offered Shift or an Extra Shift. But what does this mean practically?  

Extra shifts are first come, first served. You can restrict how many extra shifts staff members can take, but there is no manual control over who takes each shift as long as they can work at that venue and have the right skills assigned. They must also meet all of their contract requirements/limits.

To take or accept a shift, a staff member must click the TAKE button in the final column. This will now be added to their main shift list.

Offered shifts allow staff to show interest in the shift. A manager can then assign the shift to one of those staff members. When assigning staff to an offered shift, the manager is able to see the date and time each staff member sent in the offer for that shift.

To offer to work, a staff member can click the Offer button and confirm they are happy to work that shift if chosen.

Staff can only take/offer to work a shift if it is for a skill that they have assigned to them and it does not break any of the rules set up for taking shifts or on their assigned contract. For example, they can’t take a shift if they are already working or if it will breach their working hours limits, etc.

Viewing options

The page shows the first 25 available shifts by default, with an option to view more. From the actions menu, you can also set it to show only the shifts available at the home location by default. This is useful if staff can feasibly work across a large area but only look for shifts primarily at their home location.

Another viewing option allows you to  'hide' a shift if you are not interested. This keeps the available shifts list smaller and allows staff to see the shifts they might be interested in. You can choose to ignore shifts you are uninterested in by clicking the thumbs-down button next to the available shift.

You can also ignore certain shift restrictions and still take extra/offered/covered shifts. When staff are looking at available shifts to take, it will still show a warning of why it is not advisable to take that shift, but staff are now able to take the shift anyway. 

View assigned shifts

A useful feature on this page allows staff to toggle viewing their assigned shifts alongside the available shifts on the available shifts page. This option is at the top of the actions menu. It allows staff to see the shifts they have already committed to, alongside shifts they might wish to work. Therefore, allowing them to put the shift they are considering taking into perspective with any other shift.

Shift Acknowledgement or Confirmation Process

These two options allow you to require staff to acknowledge or confirm their shifts when they are assigned to them, or changes are made to their times or venues.

This option is set either on the contract (so staff with a certain contract need to acknowledge or confirm their shifts) or on a venue (so all shifts at a venue need to be confirmed or acknowledged).

Acknowledging shifts can be completed in bulk, and staff members do not have a way to reject them. It is simply a project for them to confirm they are aware of the shift and its details.

Confirmation requires staff to accept each shift. They also have the option to reject the shift, which will return it to an unassigned status (you can choose which one within the venue’s settings).

There is a Shift Rejected trigger event that you can use to receive notifications when a shift has been rejected.

Cover Requests

If a staff member can no longer work a shift and has requested cover, it will appear in the Cover Requests page under Reports > Shift Reports > Cover Requests.

This page shows a list of shifts that need to be filled. You can immediately assign a staff member to a shift or view the Who Could Cover? page.

Under the Who Could Cover? page is a list of those who might be able to cover that particular shift based on their current hour and contract settings. This does not mean they can or will. You can send a message here to ask staff if they are available for a shift.

We recommend that you tell staff not to simply work down the list, calling people as colleagues at the top who will then receive a large number of requests. The best thing is to pick someone you have recently covered or randomly work around the list.

Remember, if a staff member finds someone else to cover their shift, they need to make sure the other person accepts the shift on the site before the shift starts.

Forget Previously Offered Shifts

Previously, if a staff member offered to work a shift, the system would remember this so that they could present those offers to work again for similar shifts. This option will disable this feature so that as soon as someone is selected for the offered shifts, the other offers from other staff are removed. They will need to offer again to work if the same shift becomes available.

To use this feature, go to Venue Settings > Shift Configuration tab, scroll down to the Cover Shifts/Extra Shifts section and change the Remember Offered Shifts option.