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How Shift Templates Work

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Overview

Shift templates allow you to efficiently schedule shifts that have a consistent start and end time. Instead of manually entering in custom shift details one-by-one, shift templates allow you to schedule a pre-created shift quickly and easily.

Don’t have any shift templates created yet? Check out Creating and Managing Shift Templates. 

Considerations

  • You must have supervisor, manager, or admin access privileges in When I Work to use shift templates.
  • In order to appear on a schedule, a shift template must be assigned to that schedule.
  • Available shift templates are impacted by Filtering the Schedule.

Qualifications for Shift Templates

There are a few qualifications that need to be met in order for a shift template to appear as an option when creating a new shift for a user.

Positions

A user must be assigned to the same position within their profile as the shift template for it to appear when creating a new shift.

Users assigned to a position

  • Shift Templates with the same position assignment that the user has assigned within their profile display as Qualified when assigning a new shift.
  •  All other Shift Templates appear as Less Qualified or Other.

Example: Bruce is assigned to the Barista position in their profile. Any shift templates with Barista as the Position are considered Qualified.

Users assigned to No Positions

  • Shift Templates with No Position appear as Qualified for all users
  • All other Shift Templates appear when using the Show Less Qualified button

Availability preferences

Shift templates are sorted based on a user’s availability preferences.

Preferred availability 

Callout
Name
Description
a.
Highly Preferred
Shift templates that align exactly within the time frame of the user’s preferred hours.
b.
Preferred
Shift templates that overlap some portion of the user’s preferred hours.
c.
Qualified
Shift templates that match the position of a user but do not overlap any portion of their preferred hours.
Callout Name Description
a. Highly Preferred Shift templates that align exactly within the time frame of the user’s preferred hours.
b. Preferred Shift templates that overlap some portion of the user’s preferred hours.
c. Qualified Shift templates that match the position of a user but do not overlap any portion of their preferred hours.

Unavailable 

Callout
Name
Description
a.
U/A
Shift templates that overlap some portion of the user’s unavailable time frame. These are grayed out with a line through the time.
b.
Other
Shift templates that the user is not qualified for based on their assigned positions.
Callout Name Description
a. U/A Shift templates that overlap some portion of the user’s unavailable time frame. These are grayed out with a line through the time.
b. Other Shift templates that the user is not qualified for based on their assigned positions.

Note: Although the shift template is grayed out, it can still be selected to assign the shift to that user. 

Favorite Positions and Filtering

Shift templates can be assigned to specific positions. Filtering the scheduling with Favorite Positions or Position Filters impacts which shift templates appear when creating new shifts.

For example, Bruce is assigned to the Barista and Team Lead position. When Barista is not selected in the Positions list on the left side of the schedule, shift templates assigned to the Barista position do not appear. 

Updated on September 29, 2022

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