What you'll learn in this article:
What open shifts are
When to use open shifts
How to activate the open shift feature for all your departments
Prerequisites
You must be logged into your own SameSystem account
Your title is relevant to Administrator, or you have the following special permissions:
- 'Administration of settings on client level' [Full access]
- 'Open shifts settings' [Full access]
What are open shifts?
An open shift is a shift that is planned but hasn't been assigned to anyone yet. The department manager is in charge of planning and releasing it, whereas the employees' job is to request taking the open shift. Whoever gets the shift depends on which of the two settings the manager applied when creating it:
The first person to apply for the shift gets it automatically. A notification is sent to the employee who got the shift and to those that did not.
Multiple people can apply for the shift, but it is up to the manager to decide who gets it in the end. When the decision has been made, the employees are notified they either got the shift or did not.
When to use open shifts
Publishing an open shift when a department is in need of additional employees to cover hours on a specific day is a great example of when to use open shifts. But there are many other situations where open shifts can truly save both time and effort,- leaving the manager, or you, with more time to focus on your top priorities. Here are some examples:
Somebody called in sick on short notice: An open shift solves the issue quickly since we don't have to spend time calling around or sending messages to our team; All the available employees get a notification on their phone immediately after we publish the request, directly from the app.
Special events: Extended opening hours, campaign days, market days - some days require several extra staff members. Publishing multiple identical open shifts at the same time takes just a few seconds, leaving us with more time to prepare for the big day(s).
Planning the schedule: There's always a risk that somebody will call in unavailable after the schedule is released. Publishing the schedule with open shifts included will allow the employees who actually are available to fill the shift themselves.
Now that you're more familiar with what open shifts are and how they work, let's learn how to activate the feature so your managers and employees can start reaping the benefits from it! 💪
How to Enable Open Shifts
❗ Please note that this feature is enabled in general settings, and not department settings, which means that it will be activated for all departments in your company.
1. Start by navigating to your General settings and into the tab called 'Open shifts' by clicking the button below, or via Administration > Settings > General settings.
2. Mark the checkbox called Enable Open shifts:
3. Hit the Save button, and you're done - the open shift feature is now active across all your company's departments. 🎉
The department managers can now plan and send open shift requests to their employees. The default approval flow when employees request to take open shifts is that the department manager is in charge of manually approving who gets the open shift. Meaning, if the open shift is sent out to 10 employees, and 5 people request to take it, it is up to the manager to decide who gets the shift in the end.
Taking the next step 💪
There is a second, more automated, approval flow option; Letting the system send the open shift to the best-fitted employee, by using open shift templates with the automated send & accept function. This flow requires significantly less administration time from the department managers. Want to learn more? Check out this article on the automatic send&accept functionality, followed by this article on configuring open shift templates!
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