Skip to main content
Get Started: Schedules

A quick introduction to creating shifts and schedules in Workforce.com

Updated over a week ago

This is a quick start guide for creating Schedule in Workforce.com.

Creating a Shift

Selecting an Employee and Team

The employee and team can be allocated to a shift in any order. If a team is allocated first, only the employees of the selected team appear on the drop-down. The same applies to the team selector if an employee is selected first.

Tip: Vacant can be used as a placeholder instead of selecting an employee. Vacant shifts are useful for creating schedule templates or future schedules when you don't know who will work the shift.

Entering shift times

Times can be entered in any format. For example, for 8 am, Workforce.com will also recognize: 8a, 0800, or 08:00 am.

Scheduling Breaks

Unpaid breaks can be allocated to shifts manually or through automatic break rules.

Option 1: Manually enter break start and finish time:

Option 2: Automate break rules that apply based on shift duration:

Publishing the schedule

  1. Filter your schedule to the date range you wish to publish

  2. Select the 'Review & Publish' button in the top right

  3. Specify how the schedule should be published. Options include the mobile app, email, and SMS. By default, the Mobile App must be selected as an option.

  4. Select the staff you would like to notify. By default, all staff on the schedule will be selected for publishing, but you can publish to individual staff or specific teams.

  5. Confirm 'Publish'

Tip: You can also publish an individual shift directly from the schedule.

When publishing a schedule with Vacant shifts, make sure to choose Publish All Shifts + Publish Vacant Shifts as well, otherwise, the employees will not be notified to claim them.

If you have already published a schedule but you additionally want to publish extra Vacant shifts, you would again need to choose Publish All Shifts + Publish Vacant Shifts as well.

Tip: To avoid sending the same schedule to your employees when re-publishing a schedule with additionally added vacant shifts, after clicking on Review & Publish, click on Deselect All below the section Staff receiving Schedules.

In this way, your staff members will not receive notifications again for already published shifts, but they will be notified that there are vacant ones available to claim.

Customize your view

You can view your schedule on any scale by selecting any start and end date or using the daily, weekly, fortnightly, and monthly selectors.

View options allow you to customize what you see to suit your scheduling needs.

  • Group by: choose 'Team' to break down your schedule by a team, or choose 'No grouping' to view all staff sorted alphabetically.

  • Schedule star: view the stats that are important to your business from total costs, total hours, total shifts, and individual rates.

  • Collapse multiple shifts: condense multiple shift cards into one card that indicates there are numerous shifts on that day.

  • Show team: include the team code on shift cards.

  • Hide people with no shifts: remove gaps in your schedule by hiding employees with no shifts in the selected period.

  • Time off only: only see leave and unavailability.

Mark important events and record notes for other managers

To leave a comment or record an event on the schedule, click 'Events & Comments' on the left schedule sidebar.

  • Events are used to signify important events on the schedule. Events are visible to both employees and managers.

  • Comments are used to leave a note for other managers on the schedule. Comments are visible to managers only and are not visible to employees.

FAQs and Troubleshooting

Can employees see changes made to the schedule?

Employees will only see changes to the schedule when the changes are published.

Why can't I see costs on my schedule?

The ability to see costs is determined by user permissions levels.

Can you change between 12 and 24 hours time?

Each user can nominate their personal preference for viewing Workforce.com in 12 or 24-hour time. This is customized on your personal profile.

What are the red/orange flags?

These highlight potential issues in your schedule that may require attention such as a shift clash. Click on the flag to understand what the issue is with that shift:

Can I dismiss the flags on my schedule?

Flags appear according to account settings. Flags highlight potential issues but will not stop you from creating or publishing a shift unless blocks on publishing have been configured. Admins can customize these in the account settings.

Can I enter events into Workforce.com to be considered when creating a schedule?

Yes. Select Events in the left-hand sidebar to add a custom event to Workforce.com. This event will be visible to staff and you can choose to also discourage time off during this event.

What do all the icons on a shift represent?

Did this answer your question?