Creating a Schedule by Employee Availability

Generate shifts automatically based on when your employees have indicated they are available to work. This schedule type ensures that only available employees are assigned to shifts.

What Is This?

The By Availability schedule type uses automatic distribution to build shifts by checking each employee’s availability settings. Instead of assigning fixed hours to everyone, this type respects the days and times each team member has marked as available in their profile.

This is especially useful for part-time teams, retail businesses, or any organization where employees have varying schedules and preferences.

Important: Employees must have their availability configured in advance. If an employee has no availability set, they will not receive any shifts from this schedule type.

Prerequisites

#	Prerequisite	Details
1	Active Shifton account	You must have a registered company account
2	Admin, Owner, or Manager role	You need permissions to create schedules
3	A project with assigned employees	The schedule must be linked to a project that has employees
4	Employee availability configured	Each employee must have their availability set in their profile before schedule creation

Step-by-Step Instructions

Before You Begin: Verify Employee Availability

Navigate to each employee’s profile.

Confirm that the Availability section is filled in with their preferred working days and times.

If availability is not set, ask employees to update their profiles or set it for them (if you have edit access).

Step 1: Basic Information

Navigate to Schedules in the sidebar and click + Add schedule.

Complete the basic information fields:

Field	Required	Description
Enter schedule name	Yes	A descriptive title (e.g., “Retail Team — April Availability”)
Color	No	Choose a color to identify this schedule
Select a project	Yes	Select the project this schedule belongs to
Select dates	Yes	Set the start and end dates — maximum 3 months
Basic employee pay rate	No	Base pay rate per hour for shifts in this schedule
Select week control type	Yes	How overtime is handled: Allow with confirmation (default) / Allow / Disallow

Below these fields is a section with employee action permissions (checkboxes). See the Schedule Settings and Permissions article.

Click Next to proceed.

Step 2: Select Schedule Type

On the schedule type selection screen, choose By availability (automatic distribution).

“Generates schedules by checking employee availability settings. Shifts are assigned to employees with preferred working hours, which allows generating schedules with more accuracy and avoiding downtime.”

Note: Employees must have availability configured.

Click Next. The schedule is created.

After Creation: Add Employees

Click the schedule name to open it.

Go to the Add employees tab.

Select employees and click Add. The system will respect each employee’s availability when generating shifts.

After Creation: Add Shifts and Publish

Add shifts via Company Schedule using bulk add or manual entry.

Click Publish & notify employees so employees can see their shifts.

Access Permissions

Role	View Schedule	Create Schedule	Edit Shifts	Set Employee Availability
Owner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (all employees)
Admin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (all employees)
Manager	Yes (assigned projects)	Yes (assigned projects)	Yes (assigned projects)	Yes (assigned employees)
Employee	Yes (own shifts only)	No	No	Yes (own availability only)

FAQ

Q: What happens if an employee has not set their availability?
A: The system will not apply availability restrictions for that employee — they can be assigned to any shift. Make sure all employees update their availability before you create the schedule.

Q: Can employees update their availability after the schedule is created?
A: Yes, employees can update their availability at any time. However, changes to availability do not automatically update an existing schedule. You would need to manually adjust shifts or recreate the schedule.

Q: How does the system handle overlapping availability between employees?
A: When multiple employees are available for the same time slot, Shifton distributes shifts to balance the workload across all available team members.

Q: What if no employees are available for a specific day?
A: That day will have no shifts assigned. You will need to either manually add a shift or ask employees to update their availability to cover that day.

Q: Shifts are not visible to employees — why?
A: Shifts must be published. Click Publish & notify employees on the schedule page. Until published, only managers can see the shifts.

Possible Issues and Solutions

Issue	Possible Cause	Solution
No shifts generated for any employees	No employees have availability configured	Verify that employees have set their availability in their profiles
Some employees received no shifts	Those employees have not set their availability or have very limited hours	Ask them to update their availability settings
Too many shifts assigned to one employee	Other employees have limited availability, causing uneven distribution	Review and balance availability across the team, or set maximum shift limits
Schedule does not reflect recent availability changes	The schedule was created before the availability was updated	Regenerate the schedule or manually add the missing shifts
Shifts overlap with employee time-off requests	Availability and time-off are managed separately	Review time-off requests and adjust shifts accordingly after schedule creation