This article will suit those departments whose settings allow to use open shifts. Note that some of the below features we present, might not be available for you. If you cannot create an open shift, or see features you wish to use, please reach out to your administrator to request changing your settings.

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An open shift is a shift created without being assigned to a specific employee. Which employee gets the shift, depends on what setup you made when you created the open shift, as well as system settings made by your administration. We will go through the two different ways of handling open shifts in this article.

Creating an open shift with manual approval means that you (the manager), are in charge of approving which employee gets the shift. Further down this article, we will explain the other way around, which is where you let the system automatically approve the best-fitted employee.

1. To start, navigate to your schedule via Department - Schedule in the main menu. You can create an open shift from either the 2 Week Schedule, or your full Schedule.

Localize the line in your schedule called Open shifts.

2. Locate the day you want to place an open shift, and click when you see a small plus(+)icon inside. In our example, we have chosen Saturday, June 26th.

3. You are now presented with a new window where you can click anywhere in the timeline presented, to start creating the open shift:

Make sure to control-check the start- and end time, as well as the break duration. If you want to create multiple open shifts, simply click on the drop-down field called Shifts, and select how many identical shifts you want to send out (max 10). Press the Continue button when you're ready.

In our example below, our open shift starts at 10:00, ends at 18:00, with a 30-minute break. We have decided to send out 4 identical open shifts.

We will learn more about open shift templates as well as Automatic Send & Approve later on in this article.

4. In the next window, you'll see a list of all the employees available to work this shift.

Press Confirm when you're ready to send the open shift(s)! 🎉

By hovering your mouse over the open shift in the schedule after it has been created, a small info box will inform you about the following:

Clicking on the open shift will serve you even more details, such as who has applied to take the shift (unless you selected Automatic Send & Approve).

Clicking Accept will inform those who applied for the shift that they got it. The open shift will automatically move to the correct employee in the schedule.

By default, the department/shop manager will get emails regarding notifications about the open shift. The employees will by default get an email if they got the open shift, or did not. If your department uses the Check-In app, you and your employees will get notifications on your mobile devices as well.

If your administration has created open shift templates, you can use these to further specify the terms for your open shift. Open shift templates are a set of pre-defined settings, with some specific criteria that we want for the open shift. The criteria are located in the user cards of your employees, created by your administrators.

1. To start, navigate to your schedule via Department - Schedule in the main menu. You can create the open shift from either the 2 Week Schedule, or your full Schedule.

Localize the line in your schedule called Open shifts.

2. Locate the day you want to place an open shift, and click when you see a small plus(+)icon inside. In our example, we have chosen Saturday, June 26th.

3. You are now presented with a new window where you can click anywhere in the timeline presented, to start creating the open shift:

Make sure to control-check the start- and end time, as well as the break duration. If you want to create multiple open shifts, simply click on the drop-down field called Shifts, and select how many identical shifts you want to send out (max 10).

4. In the same window, click on the field called Default search. If your administrators have set up open shift templates, you will see a list of all your available templates here.

In our example below, our administration has created an open shift template called "Women's Shoes". That means the system will search only after employees who match the criteria "Women's Shoes". Any employee who does not meet the criteria, will not receive the open shift request.

When we use an open shift template, we get the option to enable Automatic send & approve. This will let the system automatically send the request to the one employee who best fits your open shift criteria. If the best-fitted employee declines the request, the open shift will automatically send to the next-best employee.

When the open shift has been created, we can click on it from the schedule to check the status. The time interval before the open shift passes on to the next employee in line, depends on how many days there are until the shift begins.

Note that you have the option to send the open shift request to everyone on the list, in case you're e.g. pressed with time and need a solution as quickly as possible.

As soon as an employee has accepted the open shift, the request is automatically approved. The shift will move from the Open Shifts line in the schedule, onto the employee who took it. There is no need for further approval from the manager when using Automatic Send & Approve.

If your administrators have enabled the use of Zones in your schedule, you can apply this to the open shift before you send it out. A zone is essentially a filter that tells a little bit more about what the shift entails, and/or quite simply where the employee should work, such as the women's department, shoe department, greeting area, fitting rooms, back office, etc. Zones are pre-defined by your administration, with a specific title and color, so that it's easy to spot when looking at the schedule.

1. Follow step no. 1-3 from the section "Open shift templates" in this article (click here to go directly) to learn how to start creating the open shift.

2. Click on the field called Default zone to see what zone options your administrators have made available to use. In our example below, we have applied the zone "Children's Department", which means the employee taking this shift will work in the children's area of our store. We have also used the open shift template called "Closing Responsibility", and enabled Automatic send & approve.

If your department uses the Check-In app, you will see the zone in the calendar in the app as well.

There are a number of ways to set up open shifts; both per company level, and per department level. It all depends on what your HQ/administrators have chosen to set up.

Here is an overview of some of the settings available to adjust in the system:

If you would like to know more about what your setup looks like, please see our contact info below and reach out to Support. Note that SameSystem is not allowed to change any of your settings without approval from your administrators. We kindly advise to reach out to them if you would like to request a change.

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