Two things save you retyping the same shifts. A shift template is a preset for one shift, hours and all. A shift pattern is a cycle of those shifts that repeats, and once you put one on a person the schedule calls it their rota.
Save a shift you keep retyping
Build it in Settings → Schedule → Shift templates: name it, set the hours, and fill in the position, location, breaks and notes that go with that shift every time. Then reach for it: Add → From template opens a new shift already filled in, right-clicking a day in someone’s row offers the same list, and the shift form’s Apply template menu replaces whatever you have typed. Apply template on a shift you have already made, or on a selection, rewrites them all: everything the template carries replaces what is on the shift, its hours, breaks, notes and labels included. Deleting a template leaves every shift already made from it alone. Find a template or pattern with Search, using its displayed name. A copy keeps the original name and shows its copy suffix in your language.Repeat a whole rota
A pattern is a cycle of days with the shifts that fall on each one. In Settings → Schedule → Shift patterns, choose Weekly for the same weekdays whatever date you start from, Fortnightly, or a Rotating cycle of any length, which counts forward from the day you assign it rather than from a weekday.1
Open the assign dialog
Add → Assign shift pattern on the schedule, or right-click the team member.
2
Choose the pattern, the people and the dates
One pattern can go on several people in the same pass.
3
Read the count before you commit
The dialog says how many shifts it will create, and Show skipped days names every day it
will not: the person already has a shift, is on approved time off, is outside their employment
dates, or that day’s template has been deleted.
4
Assign it
The shifts land as drafts unless you ticked Publish the shifts straight away.
The dry run before you commit: what it will create, and every day it will not
Change a rota that is already running
Open the assign dialog on that person and Current patterns lists the rotas they follow. Regenerate shifts rebuilds one from today onwards; End this pattern stops it, and asks whether to keep or delete the shifts it made. A rota’s controls also sit on every shift it created: right-click the shift and open Repeating shift, or open the shift and use the menu on its Repeating shifts section. Both hold Edit pattern and Edit rota, then Detach this shift, which cuts one occurrence loose, and End this pattern, which ends the rota without the assign dialog.A shift you edited by hand carries an Edited badge, and regenerating the rota leaves it alone:
a one-off change to somebody’s hours survives every rebuild, and so does anything already in the
past.
I changed a pattern in Settings. Do people already on it change?
I changed a pattern in Settings. Do people already on it change?
Only if you switch on Update existing rotas before you save. It starts off, so rotas already
running keep the shifts they made. A long rota may be too big to update in one go; save without
the switch and use Edit rota on that person instead.
What is the difference between Edit pattern and Edit rota?
What is the difference between Edit pattern and Edit rota?
Edit pattern opens the pattern itself, the same editor as in Settings. Edit rota changes
only this person’s run of it: its dates, and whether its shifts are published straight away.
Next
Publishing
How a draft week, a whole rota included, reaches the team.
Warnings and conflicts
Why Begin marks a shift a rota created, or refuses to write it.
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