Schedule shifts

Managers, admins and owners plan who works when on the Schedule page (some teams call this a roster). You add shifts to a week as drafts, then publish the week. Each employee then sees their shifts in My schedule. Kelola also emails them, unless they turned email off.

The last two sections, "See your schedule" and "Swap a shift", are for every employee.

Before you start

• To build a schedule, you need the Manager, Admin, or Owner role. Every employee can see their own shifts.
• A manager's team comes from the org structure. An owner or admin sets it up first in Settings → Org structure. See Build your org structure.
• To give a shift a location, an owner or admin first adds office locations in Settings → Company. See Set up your company.

Find your team on the schedule

Open My team → Schedule. The page shows one week, Monday to Sunday, with today's column highlighted.

• Use the arrows to go to the previous or next week. Select Today to come back to this week.
• The week's dates show under the page title. If the week has drafts, their number shows next to the dates, for example 3 drafts.
• Each row is one employee. Rows are grouped by department. People with no department are under No department.
• Under each name is the person's total hours for the week, drafts included.

On a small screen, scroll the grid sideways to see every day.

Who has a row

• Owners and admins see every active employee in the company, themselves included.
• Managers see the active employees who report directly to them. Kelola finds these people from Settings → Org structure. For someone with no filled position above them, Kelola uses their Line manager field instead.
• If another manager holds the same position as you, you are co-managers. You both see the people in the positions below yours, and either of you can change their shifts or publish their week.
• People who are Invited, Suspended, or Offboarded have no row. An invited person gets a row after they activate their account.

If no one reports to you, the page shows No one to schedule yet.

Add a shift

1. In My team → Schedule, go to the week you want to plan.
2. Point at the person's row on the day you want. A + appears in the cell, below any shifts it already has. Select it. On a touch screen or a small screen, the + always shows in every cell, so you can tap it straight away.
3. In Add shift, the Employee and Day are already filled in from the cell. Change them if you need to. The Employee list has only the people on your grid.
4. Choose the Start and End times. They are set to 09:00 and 17:00 at first.
5. Optional: fill in Role, Location, and Note.
6. Select Save.

The new shift is a draft. Employees cannot see drafts. On the grid, a draft has a dashed outline, and a published shift is filled with colour.

The optional fields:

• Role is a short label for the work, for example "Cashier" or "Morning shift", up to 60 characters. It shows on the grid. It is only a label: it does not change the person's role in Kelola.
• Location is one of your company's office locations, or No location.
• Note is a message for the employee, up to 280 characters.

The employee sees all three in My schedule.

To reuse a week's shifts in another week, see "Copy a week" below.

Change or delete a shift

1. Select the shift on the grid.
2. In Edit shift, change what you need: the employee, day, times, role, location, or note. The Day list has only the seven days of the week on screen.
3. Select Save.

To delete the shift, select Delete in step 3 instead. Kelola asks you to confirm. Select Delete again to delete the shift. You cannot undo it.

Saving a change keeps the shift's status. A draft stays a draft, and a published shift stays published. The next sections explain what this means for your team.

Copy a week

When most weeks look the same, copy a week you already planned instead of adding each shift again.

1. Go to the week you want to copy.
2. Select Copy week. You can select it only while the week has shifts.
3. In Copy this week?, choose the week in Copy to. It starts on the next week, and lists the eight weeks after the one on screen.
4. Select Copy shifts.

Kelola opens the week you copied to, and shows how many shifts it copied.

What copying does:

• Each copy keeps its day of the week, times, role, location and note.
• Every copy is a draft, even if the first shift was published. No one is told until you publish the week.
• It copies only the shifts on your grid. For a manager, these are your team's shifts. For an owner or admin, these are all the shifts in the company that week.
• Shifts already in the target week stay as they are.

Kelola skips some shifts, and the message says how many and why:

• The person is no longer active, for example they are Suspended or Offboarded.
• The person has approved leave on that day. A half day of leave also skips the shift.
• The shift would overlap a shift the person already has, including a night shift that runs past midnight.

Add any skipped shift yourself if you still need it.

Publish the week

Publishing makes the week's drafts visible to employees and sends them an email.

1. Go to the week you want to publish, and check its shifts.
2. Select Publish week. You can select it only while the week has drafts.
3. In Publish this week?, check the number of draft shifts. Select Publish.

Kelola shows how many shifts it published, and for how many employees.

What publishing does:

• It publishes only the week on screen. Other weeks do not change.
• It publishes every draft on your grid for that week. For a manager, these are the drafts for your team. For an owner or admin, these are the drafts in the company that week, except drafts another manager added. That manager publishes their own team. Before you publish, the dialog says how many drafts it leaves out, for example 2 drafts by other managers are not included.
• Each employee who had a draft published gets one email, titled "Your schedule for the week of" and the date of the Monday. The email does not list the shifts. Its View my schedule button opens My schedule.
• Kelola skips the email for anyone who turned off Email notifications in Preferences. Each person gets the email in the Language they chose in Preferences, or in English if they never chose one.
• Each of these employees also gets a Your schedule is ready notification in Kelola, so they hear about it even with email turned off.

Change the week after you publish

You can keep working on a week after you publish it.

• A shift you add is a draft. The draft count comes back, and you can select Publish week again. This publishes only the new drafts. Only the people with new drafts get an email.
• A published shift you edit stays published. The employee sees the change in My schedule straight away. If you changed its day, times or location, Kelola tells them with a notification, "Your shift changed", and an email. A change to only the role or the note sends nothing.
• A published shift you move to another person shows in that person's My schedule straight away. It leaves the first person's schedule. The new person gets "You have a new shift", and the first person gets "Your shift was removed".
• A published shift you delete leaves My schedule straight away. The employee gets "Your shift was removed".

Each save sends one notification and one email to each person it affects. Only active employees are told. Kelola skips the email for anyone who turned off Email notifications, and writes it in each person's Language. Changes to a draft tell no one, because employees cannot see drafts.

Unpublish the week

Unpublishing moves a week's published shifts back to draft. Employees stop seeing them until you publish again. Use it when you need to rework a week you published too early.

1. Go to the week you want to take back.
2. Select Unpublish week. You can select it only while the week has published shifts.
3. In Unpublish this week?, check the number of published shifts. Select Unpublish.

Unpublishing works like publishing, in reverse:

• It changes only the week on screen, and only the shifts on your grid. For a manager, these are your team's shifts. For an owner or admin, these are all the published shifts in the company that week.
• Each person whose shifts went back to draft gets one notification, "Your schedule was withdrawn", and one email, however many of their shifts moved.
• When you are ready, select Publish week again. The people on the week get the usual "Your schedule for the week of" email.

See how shifts relate to clock-in

A published shift sets the schedule for its day. It takes priority over the person's work schedule.

• On time or Late comes from the published shift for that day: its start time, plus the grace period of the person's work schedule (0 when they have no work schedule). Without a shift that day, it comes from the work schedule. A work schedule is a start time, an end time and a grace period (the minutes after the start that still count as on time). An admin creates it in Settings → Company and gives it to each employee.
• The geofence (the allowed area around an office) is the shift's Location, when the shift has one. Otherwise it is the Office location on the person's employee record.
• A night shift that ends the next morning still counts after midnight, until it ends.
• Kelola saves the shift's times on the clock-in. Early departures, overtime, reports and payroll then use them, even if the shift changes later.
• A draft shift does not count. Kelola does not compare shifts with clock-ins: an employee can clock in on a day with no shift, and Kelola does not flag a shift that nobody clocked in for.

See your schedule

Every employee can see their own shifts, whatever their role.

Open My space → My schedule. You see your published shifts for one week, Monday to Sunday, grouped by day. Each shift shows its time. A shift that ends the next day shows (+1) after its end time, for example 22:00–06:00 (+1). It also shows the role, location and note, if your manager added them.

• The page opens on this week. Use the arrows to go to the previous or next week, past weeks included. Select Today to come back to this week. The week's dates show under the page title.
• A shift shows here only after your manager publishes the week. You never see drafts.
• If you have no published shifts that week, the page shows No shifts this week.
• You cannot edit a shift yourself. To give one to a colleague, ask for a swap. See "Swap a shift" below.

Swap a shift

If you cannot work one of your shifts, ask a colleague to take it. You can make it a trade: you take one of their shifts in return. Or make it a cover: they take your shift and you take nothing back. A swap needs two yeses. First the colleague accepts. Then one of your approvers approves it. Your approvers are your managers in the org structure, and your company's owners and admins, the same people who decide your leave.

Ask for a swap

1. Open My space → My schedule, and go to the week of the shift.
2. On the shift, select Request swap. The button shows only on published shifts that have not started yet.
3. In Request a swap, choose the Colleague. The list has only active people on your team: people who share a manager with you in the org structure, or who are in your department.
4. Optional: in Shift you take in return, choose one of their shifts to make it a trade. The list has their published shifts for the next four weeks. Leave it on None, they cover my shift for a cover.
5. Optional: add a Note for your colleague, up to 280 characters.
6. Select Send request.

Your colleague gets a notification and an email. The request shows in Swap requests at the top of My schedule, with its status. The shift shows Swap pending, and you cannot ask for a second swap on it while this one is open.

Answer a swap request

When a colleague asks you, the request shows in Swap requests in your My schedule. It says which shift you take and, in a trade, which of your shifts you give back.

• Select Accept to agree. The request then waits for approval. You still work your schedule as it is until it is approved.
• Select Decline to say no. Kelola asks you to confirm. Your colleague is told.

What happens next

• When your colleague accepts, you and your approvers get a notification and an email. Your approvers decide it in My team → Approvals. See Approve requests.
• When an approver approves, the shifts move at once. Your colleague's My schedule shows your shift, and in a trade yours shows theirs. You both get a notification and an email.
• If the approver rejects it, the shifts stay as they were, and you both are told.
• While the request is open, you can select Cancel request. Kelola asks you to confirm, and your colleague is told.
• A request that is still open when one of its shifts starts shows Expired. Nothing moves.

Swap requests shows every open request, and the ones from the last two weeks with their outcome.

Next steps

• Build your org structure
• Set up your company
• Clock in and out
• See your team
• Set your preferences