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An open shift card headed Harbour, with a dashed empty circle beside 09:00 to 17:00 and Kadri Tamm and Marek Roos below it on their own hours An open shift card headed Harbour, with a dashed empty circle beside 09:00 to 17:00 and Kadri Tamm and Marek Roos below it on their own hours An open shift is an ordinary shift with Open shift as its assignee instead of a person. The hours, position, location and notes are set; only the name is missing.

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What an open shift is, and is not

Only a shift can be left open. Time off and availability always belong to a person, so Begin refuses to leave those open.

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Post one

1

Open the schedule

Go to the period you are filling.
2

Ask for a new shift

Open Add in the toolbar and choose Open shift, or search for New open shift in the command palette (Cmd / Ctrl + K). Either opens the shift form with Open shift already chosen as the assignee.
3

Fill in the shift you need

Set the date, the times, and the position and location. Fill these in even where a policy does not require them: they are what decides who the shift is suggested to.
4

Save and publish

An open shift is a draft until you publish the period, the same as any other shift. Publishing does not offer it to anybody: it is what makes the shift ready to be offered.
5

Send the offer

Open the shift, use Edit on the Offer to row under the assignee, and choose Send offer.

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Find the ones still open

Open shifts sit in their own Open shift row alongside the roster, so a gap is visible while you read the week.
A week of the schedule grouped by position, each band carrying its own Open shifts row: the Supervisor row holds one dashed unassigned card on the Saturday and the Bartender row holds two, on the Wednesday and the Sunday, above the people who already have shiftsA week of the schedule grouped by position, each band carrying its own Open shifts row: the Supervisor row holds one dashed unassigned card on the Saturday and the Bartender row holds two, on the Wednesday and the Sunday, above the people who already have shifts

Every position band keeps its own Open shifts row, whether or not anything is waiting in it

Sub-group by position inside location, or the reverse, and each inner band carries its own row too. The outer band then keeps a row only for what its sub-bands cannot hold.

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Send the offer, and change who has it

Nothing reaches anybody until you send it. Offer to, under the assignee, shows who the offer stands for; Edit opens the offer dialog. Who gets the offer lists the people it will go to. The dialog opens on the ones who hold the shift’s position and location and have nothing in those hours, so you can send it without changing anything. Remove somebody with the bin beside their name. Add people searches the whole active roster, Suggested first and Everyone else under it. Nobody is kept out: a clash, a scheduling rule or the wrong position reads as a line under the name, and you can still offer them the shift. The same line follows them into the list, until they answer. Choose Send offer when the list is right. Everybody ticked gets an inbox card with Accept and Decline, and a push notification. They can also answer inside the shift itself on the schedule. The first to answer gets it. Only the people you offered it to can see the shift, unless their role lets them see unpublished shifts. Come back and the button reads Update offer: somebody added gets a fresh offer, somebody removed who has not answered loses theirs silently, and anybody who answered keeps their answer. Declining answers for that person alone, and they can still take the shift later. Three identical open shifts on one day reach each person as a single offer counting three seats. Your compliance rules decide who can take it, not only what you can save. A claim that would break one is refused: Keep anyway is your override, so assign the shift yourself if you judge the breach acceptable. Moving an offered shift updates the cards people hold and tells them again. Offers close when the shift starts, when it is taken, or when you unpublish or delete it.
Turn on Open shift claim approval in Workflows and accepting only sends a request, to whoever posted the shift. The shift stays open until it is approved, and a request still waiting when the shift starts closes by itself.
You can also assign one directly, with no offer at all: change the assignee, choose Assign to… on the shift’s menu, or drag it onto the person’s row. Only the name changes, and the person is notified once the schedule is published.
Yes. Copy them with Copy all, then right-click a day in an Open shifts row and choose Paste as open shift. Copy with assignments keeps each person on their copy instead.
Yes, and it can publish them as it generates, the same as a rota for a person. Publishing still sends nothing: offer each day’s shift when you are ready for it to go out.
Yes. Switch off Show open shifts under Display. The open shifts themselves are untouched, and switching it back on returns the rows.

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Next

Publishing

Nothing about an open shift reaches the team until you publish it.

Shift swaps

The other way a shift changes hands, when somebody is giving one up.

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