Emergency Shifts - Shifton Help

Quickly fill urgent staffing gaps by creating high-priority shifts with bonus incentives and targeted notifications.

What Is This?

The Emergency Shifts module is designed for situations where you need to fill a shift on short notice. When a regular shift becomes vacant (due to illness, no-show, or unexpected demand), you can mark it as an “emergency” shift. Emergency shifts can include a bonus incentive to encourage employees to pick them up quickly.

The module gives you control over who sees the emergency shift — either only employees who were specifically notified or all available employees in the project.

Prerequisites

An active Shifton account.

Owner

, Admin, or Manager role to create emergency shifts.

How to Enable/Disable

Go to Modules in the left sidebar.

Find Emergency Shifts in the module list.

Toggle the switch to enable or disable the module.

Module Settings

Navigate to Modules > Settings > Emergency Shifts to configure the following:

Setting	Description	Options
Shift visibility	Controls who can see an emergency shift with a bonus.	Show shift with bonus only to notified employees — only employees who received a direct notification can see and accept the shift. Show to everyone — all employees in the project can see the emergency shift and its bonus.

Step-by-Step Usage Guide

Creating an Emergency Shift

Open the Schedule page.

Click on the time slot where the emergency shift is needed (or edit an existing vacant shift).

In the shift creation/edit form, toggle the Emergency flag.

Set the bonus amount to incentivize employees.

If the visibility setting is “notified employees only,” select the employees to notify.

Click Save.

Notifying Employees

If visibility is set to notified employees only: the system sends notifications (in-app, Telegram, SMS depending on configuration) to the selected employees. Only they can view and claim the shift.

If visibility is set to show to everyone: all employees in the project receive a notification and can see the shift on their schedule.

Employee Accepting an Emergency Shift

The employee receives a notification about the emergency shift.

They open the notification or check their schedule.

They see the shift details including the bonus amount.

They click Accept to claim the shift.

The shift is assigned to them and removed from the available list.

Managing Emergency Shifts

Track emergency shifts on the Schedule page — they are visually distinguished from regular shifts.

If no one accepts the shift, consider:

Increasing the bonus amount.

Expanding the notification to more employees.

Switching visibility to “Show to everyone.”

Pricing Info

Component	Cost
Monthly module fee	$0/month
Per-employee fee	$0.50/employee/month

For example, a company with 20 employees would pay: $0 + (20 x $0.50) = $10/month.

Access Permissions

Role	Create Emergency Shifts	View Emergency Shifts	Accept Emergency Shifts	Configure Settings
Owner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Admin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manager	Assigned projects	Assigned projects	Yes	No
Employee	No	If notified or if visible to all	Yes	No

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between the two visibility options?
A: “Show shift with bonus only to notified employees” limits visibility to a hand-picked group, which is useful when you want to offer the shift to specific qualified employees first. “Show to everyone” makes the shift visible to all employees in the project, maximizing the chance of quick coverage.

Q: Can I change the visibility after creating the emergency shift?
A: The visibility setting is a module-level configuration that applies to all emergency shifts. You can change it at any time in the module settings, and it will affect newly created emergency shifts.

Q: Is the bonus amount automatically added to payroll?
A: Yes, if the Bonuses/Retentions and Payroll modules are enabled. The emergency shift bonus appears as a line item in the Pay Rate report.

Q: Can multiple employees accept the same emergency shift?
A: No. Once an employee accepts the shift, it is assigned to them and no longer available to others.

Q: What happens if no one accepts the emergency shift?
A: The shift remains open on the schedule. You can increase the bonus, notify more employees, or assign it manually.

Possible Issues and Solutions

Issue	Cause	Solution
Employees cannot see the emergency shift	Visibility is set to “notified only” and they were not notified	Either notify the specific employees or change the visibility to “Show to everyone.”
Bonus not appearing in payroll	Bonuses/Retentions or Payroll module not enabled	Enable both modules to see bonus amounts in salary reports.
No one is accepting the emergency shift	Bonus is too low or timing is inconvenient	Increase the bonus amount or expand the notification to more employees.
Emergency flag option not available when creating a shift	Module is not enabled	Enable the Emergency Shifts module from the Modules page.
Employee accepted but shift still shows as open	Browser not refreshed or sync delay	Refresh the schedule page. If the issue persists, contact support.