Managing Shifts: Creating, Publishing, Editing, and Deleting

Purpose

The day-to-day mechanics on the Schedule page: creating shifts (single, bulk, recurring, multi-day), publishing them, editing them, and deleting them safely. Shift offer, swap, and open-shift claim requests have their own articles, linked at the end.

When to use this: any time you are building or changing the roster on the grid. If you are troubleshooting why a change is blocked, jump to Common problems.

Who can do this: users with Full Access to Employee Schedule for the affected employees (typically the Employer Admin, or any role granted that access). See Getting Started with Scheduling.

How a shift moves through the system

1. You create a shift. It is saved as a Draft unless you choose Save and Publish.
2. You publish it. The employee can now see it on web and mobile, and the Shift publish notification is sent (if enabled).
3. The employee clocks in against it. Time entries, not the shift, record their hours.
4. Once time has been tracked against a shift, the shift is locked: it can no longer be edited or deleted.

Create a shift

Double-click any cell on the grid, or click the + icon that appears when you hover over a cell, to open the Add Shift window.

At the bottom, choose:

• Save: creates the shift as a Draft. Employees cannot see it yet.
• Save and Publish: creates the shift and publishes it in one step. The employee can see it immediately and is notified if the Shift publish notification is on.

Rules the system enforces:

• No overlapping shifts for the same employee. The system detects the conflict and lists it. Two shifts on the same day are fine as long as they do not overlap.
• A single shift cannot exceed 24 hours.
• Time out cannot be before Time in.
• You cannot create a shift for an employee whose termination date is before the shift date.
• If a repeating shift is tagged to a project that ends before the Ends On date, shifts after the project end are still created, without a job. The window warns you.

What the system does not enforce: it does not stop you from scheduling on a day the employee has time off or a company holiday. Both are shown on the grid so you can see them. If the employee has a time-off policy, the Add Shift window also offers an Apply Time Off link, which closes the shift window and opens a time-off entry for that employee instead.

For large rosters, the Excel Schedule Import or Copy Schedule is faster than the grid. See Scheduling Grid.

[Screenshot: Add Shift window. Use demo data.]

Multi-day (overnight into next day) shifts

To create a shift that starts on one day and ends on another, enter two different dates. The system stores it as two shifts: the first ends at 11:59 PM on day one, the second starts at 12:00 AM on day two. Each half is edited and published separately.

Actions on a single shift

Click a shift to open its action bubble. Depending on the shift you will see icons for:

• Details: opens the Shift Details window to view or edit.
• Delete: removes the shift (blocked if time has been tracked against it).
• Publish: publishes a draft shift on the spot (draft shifts only).
• Claims: reviews claims on a published open shift. See Creating and Filling Open Shifts.
• History: on a published, assigned shift, shows every swap, offer, and claim event on the shift (requested, accepted, rejected, approved, claimed) with who acted and when.

You can also drag a shift to another day or another employee's row to move it, and copy and paste a shift to duplicate it. A moved or pasted shift is created as a Draft, so it must be published again. Dragging a shift that already has tracked time is blocked.

Edit a shift

Open the shift's Details and change what you need. The same checks apply as on creation: no overlap, end after start, employee not terminated, and Full Access to that employee's schedule. A shift that already has time tracked against it cannot be edited.

Editing a published shift has a consequence you need to know:

• Save turns the shift back into a Draft version. The published version is taken off the employee's schedule immediately. The employee sees nothing for that slot until you publish again. Use this when you are reworking a week and will publish everything together.
• Save and Publish applies the change and keeps the shift published. The employee receives the Shift publish notification again with the new details (if that notification is on).
• Either way, any pending swap, offer, or claim request on that shift is cancelled. The employees involved need to start over once the shift is republished.
• If you open a published shift and change nothing, Save just closes the window.

To undo unpublished edits and bring back what employees last saw, use Clear Unpublished Changes (below).

Publish

Creating a shift with Save does not make it live. A shift stays in Draft, invisible to the employee, until it is published. There are three ways to publish:

The Publish button opens a Publish Shifts confirmation first. It shows the Schedule Period, Total Shifts, Total Hours, and Total Cost for what is on screen, with the figures for the shifts about to be published in parentheses. If the scheduled cost or hours exceed the Wages/Hours Budget for the range, the popup warns you. Confirm to publish. A toast reports how many shifts were published.

Publishing sends the Shift publish notification to each assigned employee (Email and Push by default; configurable under Schedule Settings and Notifications). Publishing an open shift sends no notification, because nobody is assigned yet.

Delete and discard

All deletions share one safety rail: a shift with time tracked against it is never deleted. Recorded hours and payroll history stay intact.

Deleting a shift also cancels any pending swap, offer, or claim request on it. No notification is sent when a shift is deleted. If the shift was published, tell the employee.

Approving shift requests

Employees (in the UZIO Mobile App) can swap shifts with coworkers at the same work location, offer a shift to a coworker, and claim open shifts at their location. Nothing changes on the schedule until you approve.

• Swap and offer requests: click the Need Approval icon at the top of the grid. The badge shows how many requests are waiting. Choose Shift Swap Requests or Offer Shift Requests, review the employees and shifts involved, and click Accept or Reject. Both employees are notified of your decision.
• Open-shift claims: click the open shift on the grid and choose Claims. Accept one claimer; the others are rejected automatically. See Creating and Filling Open Shifts.

Approving requires Full Access to the schedules of both employees in a swap or offer, and to the claiming employee for a claim. If you can see a request but cannot act on it, that is why.

Detailed flows: Shift Offers and How to Approve Them, Creating and Filling Open Shifts, and the employee article Swapping, Offering, and Claiming Shifts.

Common problems

Why can't I edit or delete a shift?

• "This shift is already clocked in." The employee has tracked time against it. Shifts with tracked time can never be edited or deleted; this protects payroll and history. Fix the underlying time entry on the Employees Timesheet instead. The shift record stays as scheduled.
• "Employee is currently terminated." The employee's termination date is before the shift date.
• "You do not have access to this feature." Your role does not have Full Access to that employee's schedule.

Why won't my shift save?

• "More than 24 Hr shift." A single shift cannot exceed 24 hours. For a genuine long span, enter two dates; the system splits it at midnight.
• "Time out date cannot be before time in date." Swap the times.
• Overlap detected. The employee already has a shift in that window, and the system lists it. Adjust the times or edit the existing shift.
• "Please select at least one day to repeat this shift." Repeat Shift is on but no weekday is ticked.

I edited a shift and now the employee can't see it

You clicked Save on a published shift. That creates a draft version and removes the published one from the employee's view. Either publish the shift again, or use Clear Unpublished Changes to restore the last published version.

My employee says they can't see the shift

Three checks, in order:

1. Is it published? Draft shifts are invisible to employees. This is the most common cause, including after an edit saved as draft.
2. Are they looking at the right week? The mobile app opens to the current week.
3. Are you filtered? If you cannot find it on the grid either, clear filters and search.

A pending swap or offer disappeared

Editing or deleting the shift cancels every pending request on it. Ask the employees to submit the request again once the shift is republished.

An employee wants to reject a shift I assigned

There is no reject or decline action for a published, assigned shift. It lands on their schedule as committed. Their options are a swap or offer (a coworker accepts, you approve), or asking you to edit or delete the shift on the grid. The Accept and Reject buttons employees see in the app apply only to incoming swap and offer requests from coworkers.

Related articles

• Scheduling Grid: Views, Filters, Budgets and Hours
• Creating and Filling Open Shifts
• Shift Offers and How to Approve Them
• Schedule Settings and Notifications
• Getting Started with Scheduling