Vacant Shift Claiming saves time finding an available staff member by offering a shift to all available employees.

You can use vacant shift claiming as part of your usual scheduling process, or use it to find a replacement for a single shift.

When a vacant shift is published by a manager, employees who meet the requirements* are notified of the available shift on their mobile app. Then, either:

*The Vacant shift claiming feature considers the location/ team an employee can work and potential clashes with published scheduled shifts/ approved leave requests for that day.

The vacant shift claiming feature is optional, by default it is turned off. To turn on the vacant shift claiming feature, follow the below steps:

Employees claim vacant shifts on their mobile app. Employees will be notified of an available vacant shift via a push notification on their mobile phone.

Vacant Shifts for claiming will appear in Pick up shifts:

Vacant shifts for that week will be displayed. Each day shows the number of vacant shifts available. To view vacant shifts for the upcoming week, staff can click on Next Week at the top.

To view details of a vacant shift, staff can select the dropdown arrow on a specific day. Here employees can view details of the shift, including:

They must select Offer to Cover button to offer to claim the shift, which will ask the employee to confirm the action:

Once claimed, the shift will be added to their mobile app and the schedule will update with the claimers details:

If you'd like to be able to select the most appropriate employee for a shift, you can set a vacant shift claims to require manager approval. This will cause a vacant shift to have offers from multiple employees where the manager can then select the most appropriate employee for the shift.

To enable, go to Settings > All Settings > Rotas > Vacant Shift Claiming > 'Vacant shift claiming requires manager approval':

If shift claiming does not require manager approval, the shift will go to the first employee claim.

Navigate to Shifts > Team rota > + button to create a vacant shift for the future (you can also select the + Add a shift button):

Set the date, hours, and team for the shift. Under User, select Vacant from the dropdown:

Then select ✓ Publish Shift:

Managers can initiate a shift replacement on behalf of an employee by selecting the team member's shift through the Action button > View Schedule tile and finding the relevant shift on the Team Schedule tab. Once the shift has been selected, select the green 'Request replacement' button.

Managers have the choice to offer the shift to all available team members or specific team members. However, if an employee (or manager on an employee's behalf) requests a shift replacement within 3 days of the scheduled start time, it will be offered to all eligible staff by default.

Navigate to Manage replacements & claims from the Overview section of the app:

Click on Vacant Shift Claims tab and click the team and location you'd like to manage vacant shift claims for:

If there have been any shift claims from employees, you will see a "Needs Approval" notification above the specific shift:

Click the shift to see claims. You will be taken to Manage request where you can view the shift details. Click Good Fits or Other Applicants to see employees who have offered to claim the shift.

Select desired employee > select Approve Cover:

Navigate to Manage replacements & claims from the Overview section of the app:

Select the Vacant Shift Claims tab at the top. Click the team and location you'd like to manage vacant shift claims for, then click the date of the shift you'd like to manage:

Once in the shift, you can select the Remind Staff button which will send a reminder to all staff:

When you are building your schedule, you may have a vacant shift that you'd like to offer to staff for claiming when you publish the schedule. You may do so via the following steps:

Within the Rota, select Tools > Shift Claiming:

A new window will pop up taking you to the Shift Claiming dashboard. Click Select Replacement button for the desired shift:

Select the desired employee who's offered to cover the shift and click Update Rota:

Within the Rota, select Tools > Shift Claiming:

A new window will pop up taking you to the Shift Claiming dashboard. Click Remind Staff: