Assigning shifts using the Employee View

You can schedule your employees by assigning shifts to them. The shifts, including their default start and end times and their breaks, are defined by your system administrator. When assigning a shift, you can override the default shift times and add a note for the employee.

You can assign shifts one at a time or, if you need to schedule the same shift for multiple days or users, you can assign multiple shifts at once. Or, you can download all current shift assignments into a CSV file, then upload your changes to the schedule.

Shift assignments must be published before the employee can see them on their schedule. You can choose to publish the shift while you are assigning it or you can wait until later.

Assigning schedules

Assigning shifts individually

To assign a shift to an employee:

1. Go to Schedule.

2. Navigate to the period that you want to schedule by clicking the arrows next to the dates or by clicking on the dates themselves.

3. Use the filters to search for specific users and find the row for the user you want to schedule.

4. Under the date you want to schedule the user for, click the  icon on the right edge of the cell.

5. Select the shift you want to assign for that day.

6. If needed, edit the default shift times.

7. Enter a note for the employee in the Note field.
8. If you want to publish the shift right away, change the Status to Published.

9. Click Save.

The shift assignment is shown in the grid, color-coded based on the selected shift. If you changed the shift times from their default values, the new times are shown under the shift name.

After adding shift assignments, you can see the number of shifts scheduled for each day and the total work hours. You can also see the total work hours and break hours for each user.

Assigning multiple shifts at once

Instead of assigning shifts individually, you can assign a shift to multiple users at once, or assign a shift for multiple days.

To assign multiple shifts at once:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View > Actions > Add Assignments.

2. Select the users to assign the shift to from the Select Users drop-down.

3. Select the date range for which to assign the shift.
4. Choose which days to assign the shift.

5. Select the shift to assign.
6. Edit the default shift times if necessary and add a note for the employees.
7. Click Apply.

8. Click Close to exit or click Continue Editing to assign shifts to other users.

After the shifts assignments are created, publish them to make them visible to the employees. 

Copying a schedule

You can copy a schedule from one week to the next. This helps save time if your schedule stays relatively consistent week to week. Instead of starting from the beginning, you can copy the previous schedule and adjust it as necessary. You can copy all of the schedule's shift assignments, or copy assignments for particular users or shifts.

Any new shift assignments created by copying will be unpublished by default.

To copy a schedule:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View > Actions > Copy & Paste Assignments.
2. Under Select Users, select All Users to copy assignments for all users, or select specific users to copy.

3. In the Copy From fields, select the date range to copy.
4. In the Paste To field, select the starting date for where to copy the assignments.

5. In the Shift drop-down, select Any Shift to copy assignments for all shifts, or select a shift name to copy assignments just for that shift.
6. Click Apply and then click Close.

The shift assignments will be copied to the target date range. Once finalized, the new schedule can be published.

Downloading and uploading a schedule

You can download and upload schedules on the Schedule > Employee View page. Schedules are typically downloaded so schedule managers can make edits to them using a spreadsheet, before re-uploading the updated version to the Schedule page. Schedules are downloaded and uploaded via CSV file.

Editing schedules using a spreadsheet has some advantages, such as allowing you to use the spreadsheet editing features to make changes. Plus, spreadsheets allow you to easily copy longer-term schedules for employees, by adding additional dates to a downloaded spreadsheet, and copying shifts to those dates.

Fields you can download and/or upload

Downloading a schedule

To download and edit a CSV:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View.
2. Ensure the date range at the top of the page is set to the dates you want to download, and confirm the filter settings are as desired.

3. Click Actions > Download CSV.

4. In the Download CSV dialog that displays, choose which fields you want to download.
5. Click Download CSV.

6. Update the shifts and details, as required, and save the data using the CSV format.

Uploading a schedule

Schedule managers require Shift Upload permission in their Schedule Manager permission set before they can upload schedules.

To upload a schedule:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View > Actions > Upload CSV.

2. If you don't already have a downloaded and edited file saved, click Download a sample file and save your data in the file using the format given.
3. On the Upload CSV page, click Upload CSV File, then find your file and click Open.

Once the file is uploaded, the file name should display next to the Upload CSV file button.

4. Ensure the First row contains column names check box is set appropriately, so the import knows whether to import or ignore the column names.
5. Handle any validation issues that are already marked. Then click Validate, and fix any additional errors detected.

6. Click Import.

The file's data will populate the schedule. If data already exists for the range/employees included, that data will be overwritten.

Publishing a schedule

By default, the shifts that you schedule are unpublished. Unpublished shifts are not shown to employees on their schedule. Once the schedule is finalized, you can publish the shift assignments so they are visible to employees. This allows you to work on your schedule over a period of time before making it available to employees.

Unpublished shift assignments are shown with stripes, whereas published shift assignments are shown in a solid color. Both published and unpublished assignments are included in the totals shown on the Schedule page.

There are a few ways to publish shift assignments:

• Publish all the visible shift assignments

• Publish shift assignments by user or shift

• Publish a single shift assignment

• Upload a schedule

When necessary, previously published assignments can be unpublished, which hides them from the employee’s view.

Publishing all the visible shift assignments

Using the Publish button, you can publish all the shift assignments currently visible on the Schedule page.

To publish all the visible shift assignments:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View.
2. Select the date range you want to publish for.

3. Set the filters above the schedule to include all of the assignments you want to publish.
4. Click the Publish button.

5. Click Ok when asked to confirm.

All the shift assignments will now be set to the Published status.

Publishing shift assignments by user or shift

If you want to publish a sub-set of the shift assignments, you can do so using the Update Assignments option.

To publish a group of assignments:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View > Actions > Update Assignments.
2. Under Select Users, select All Users to publish assignments for all users. Or select specific users to publish.

3. Select the date range you want to publish for.
4. If applicable, select which shift you want to publish. Otherwise, leave it set to Any Shift.

5. Set the Status field to Published.

6. Click Apply.

All of the shift assignment matching the selected users, date range, and shift will be published.

Publishing a single shift assignment

To publish a single shift assignment:

1. Go to Schedule > Employee View.
2. Click on the shift assignment you want to publish.
3. Select Published from the Status drop-down.

4. Click Save.

The assignment is now published.

Unpublishing shift assignments

You can unpublish shift assignments to remove them from the employee’s view. You may want to unpublish shift assignments when you have to make larger changes and want to retract the original schedule.

To unpublish shift assignments, follow the same steps as above but use the Unpublish button or select Unpublished as the Status.

FAQs

Why can’t I see some employees on the Schedule page?

The employee may not be set up for shift scheduling, or you may have filters set that exclude certain users. Alternatively, your administrator may have limited your access to specific groups of employees.

How can we easily move or copy shifts when adding and editing assignments?

You can drag and drop shifts, either individually or as a group. To do this, select a shift and drag it to a new cell while holding down the selection button. To move multiple shifts, drag over the shifts to select them, or select individual shifts while pressing the Ctrl button (PC) or Command button (Mac), then click on and drag one of the selected shifts.

You can copy a shift across a row or column by selecting a cell, and dragging the orange box that displays horizontally or vertically. 

You can also use the CSV download/upload feature, and edit using a spreadsheet.

How can we delete multiple shifts?

Drag over multiple shifts to select them, or select individual shifts while pressing the Ctrl button (PC) or Command button (Mac). Then, click the Remove button at the top of the page.

You can also go to Actions > Delete Assignments, to choose shifts to delete.

How are users notified about changes in shifts?

Typically, administrators enable the shift notification that informs users about new shifts, or updates to existing shift assignments. You can ask your Replicon Administrator to enable notifications for your team.

Related links

How shift scheduling works
Setting up schedules (video)
Setting up shifts
Setting up users for shift scheduling
Defining work days and times using office schedules