Add and amend shifts

How to create, edit, move and copy shifts for employees.

Oliver Cook avatar
Written by Oliver Cook
Updated over a week ago

It's easy to create and edit shifts for employees as long as you have administrator, scheduling administrator, or schedule group manager access.

This is all done from within Schedule. To get to the shift schedule, on the main menu, click Schedule.


Add a shift

  1. Next to an employee, hover your mouse on a slot under a day you want to add a shift to. Click the Add new button that appears.


  2. If your employee is in a scheduling group that has been assigned a shift template, you can either select an existing shift, or you can create a new shift.

    If you select an existing shift skip to Step 7.


  3. If it is a new shift, name the shift.

  4. Specify when the shift begins and when it ends.

    If required, specify the length of unpaid break.


  5. If required, select what Area this shift will take place.



    📌TIP: If you'll be recreating this shift later on, to save you time recreating it from scratch again, select Save as shift template. This is added as a shift template and the next time you add a shift it shows under Select from existing shifts.

    This won't save the unpaid break specified in Step 4. You will later need to edit the shift template and add the unpaid break permanently there.




  6. Click Add.

  7. The shift appears on the slot in your schedule calendar, slightly faded. If an employee logs into Sage HR to view their schedule, they do not see this created shift until it gets published.


📎NOTE: When you create a shift, if the shift is assigned to an area, and your employee is already assigned to a different default area, the employee’s default assigned area will take precedence and show on the created shift.

A scheduling group manager can override this by editing the shift afterwards and changing it to the required area. This is particularly useful when your employee has agreed to replace someone in another area to cover a shift.

Next Steps

When you're ready for your employees to see the shifts you have added for them, you can publish the shifts



Edit a shift

  1. Hover your mouse over the shift, then click the pencil icon.


  2. Make your changes

  3. Click Save.

📎NOTE: You can still edit a shift after it has been published


Create additional shift on same day

  1. Hover your mouse over the shift, then click the ➕ icon.


  2. Follow the instructions for add a shift.


Move a shift

If you need to move a shift to a different day, or to a different employee, you can use your mouse to drag the shift to the slot you want to move it to.




Copy a singular shift

If you want to copy a shift to a different day, or to a different employee, press and hold down the shift key on your keyboard, then drag the shift to the slot you want to copy it to.

📌TIP: You can use your keyboard to quickly change the period view of your schedule:

  • Press the W key to change it to weekly view

  • Press the B key to change it to bi-weekly view

  • Press the M key to change it to monthly view


Copy schedule

To help you save time, rather than adding a shift for each day for the following week(s) you can simply copy a week's schedule.

  1. Towards the top, click More actions, then click Copy schedule.




  2. You can either copy shifts just to next week, or you can copy to other weeks and select which weeks you want to copy them to.


  3. Click Continue.


Clear schedule

If you need to clear a schedule, rather than manually deleting each shift one by one, you can use the clear schedule tool.

  1. Towards the top, select the week, two weeks or month that you want to clear the schedule for.

  2. Click More, then click Clear schedule.


  3. Check the dates at the top.

  4. Select the employees whose schedule you want to clear.

  5. Click Yes, go ahead.


Download schedule

You can download a schedule to excel.

  1. Towards the top, select the week, two weeks or month that you want to download the schedule for.

  2. Click More actions, then click Download schedule.



View workload

You can view a quick summary of the workload of your scheduled shifts and scheduled hours for a selected period.

  1. Towards the top, select the week, two weeks, or month that you want to view the workload for.

  2. Click More actions, then click View workload.

You can then see a chart showing you an overview of your scheduled shifts and scheduled hours.


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