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A new shift card with Kadri Tamm as the assignee, hours of 09:00 and 17:00, and a Create shift button A new shift card with Kadri Tamm as the assignee, hours of 09:00 and 17:00, and a Create shift button A shift is one block on one person’s row. You start it by clicking the day you want it on, or from Add in the toolbar, and either way the same form opens. A shift you create stays a , out of the team’s sight, until you publish the period.
Creating shifts needs the Add & edit shifts permission. Someone on an employee role can add and remove only their own Available and Unavailable blocks. They cannot create shifts, and they cannot touch anyone else’s row.

Add one

1

Open the period you are filling

Month to lay out several weeks, day for one busy site.
2

Click the empty day in that person's row

The form opens on that person and that date. When you are grouped by position or location, the cell fills those in too. Add in the toolbar does the same for the period on screen, with you as the assignee.
3

Set the hours

A new shift runs 09:00 to 17:00. Change either end, or set Duration and the end time follows.
4

Say what the work is

Position and Location sit under Classification. An assignee who holds exactly one of each fills both in for you.
5

Create shift

The card appears in the row at once, marked as a draft until you publish. When the assignee is Open shift, Create more closes and reopens the form for the next one, and the confirmation counts the run.
The New shift form open over the schedule, set to Jonas Petrauskas on Thursday 6 August, 09:00 to 17:00, with Bartender and Tallinn depot filled in from his assignment and a projected 30 minute unpaid lunch under Automatic breaksThe New shift form open over the schedule, set to Jonas Petrauskas on Thursday 6 August, 09:00 to 17:00, with Bartender and Tallinn depot filled in from his assignment and a projected 30 minute unpaid lunch under Automatic breaks

The form opens on the person and day you clicked, and fills in what it can from them

The assignee picker is also where clashes surface: it marks anyone already scheduled, or already off, during the hours you have set. A scheduling policy can require a location, position, colour or client. A required field has a star; trying to save it empty explains which policy asks for it. Pick at least one client when Clients is required. Open shifts are exempt. Or ask Begin AI (Cmd / Ctrl + J):

Add a shift for Jonas Petrauskas on Thursday from 09:00 to 17:00.

The shift arrives as a draft like any other, and Begin AI shows a card to confirm first unless your approval mode applies changes automatically.

What the other fields decide

Beta
Beta features roll out gradually. Your workspace may not have them yet.

Add something other than a shift

The Add menu, and a right-click on any empty day, put the other blocks on the same grid. On a day that already holds a shift, right-click the shift (press and hold it on a phone) and open Add for the same list on that day. Other time joins them once your workspace has a policy for it. A block saved as the wrong kind is not stuck: Type in the form moves it. Or ask Begin AI:

Mark Mārīte Ozola as unavailable on Friday from 18:00 to 23:00.

Let the breaks fill themselves in

Unpaid and Paid have a section of their own. When a break policy matches the shift, Begin works the minutes out: the Automatic breaks section reads Preview before you save, and names the rule it used. Type your own minutes and the section switches to Manual and stops recalculating. Clear them back to zero and the automatic break comes back. Automatic breaks are worked out again when you change the person, the location, the type or the hours, or move the shift out of Approved, and left alone when you change anything else. Copying, pasting or duplicating a shift, including Copy to next month, keeps its manual breaks as they are. Automatic breaks are worked out again for the person and day the copy lands on, so a copy given to someone else follows their break policy. A shift whose breaks you set by hand keeps them exactly.
A shift you have already created saves as you edit it. There is no Save button on the form the second time you open it: close it and the change is already made.
Set an end time earlier than the start, such as 22:00 to 06:00, and Begin ends the shift the following day. Duration counts the hours across midnight.
No. A saved shift keeps the break it was given, and its Automatic breaks section says Policy has changed since these breaks were applied. Recalculate breaks in the section header applies the current rule.

Next

Templates and rotas

Stop retyping the same shift every week.

Publishing

How a draft period reaches the team.

Still need help?

Contact support

Email the Begin team and we’ll get back to you.

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