Shift schedule

A schedule helps managers assign people to days, check workloads and share the final plan with the team. In Cenaly you can start with one shift, repeat the previous week or schedule crews in a cycle for several months.

Planning, publishing and acknowledgement are three separate actions: newly created shifts still need publishing, and receiving a notification does not mean the employee has acknowledged the schedule.

Requirements#

• Open Staff → Shifts. The tab address is /en/staff?tab=schedule; the standalone page is /en/staff/schedule.
• To build the schedule, sign in as the owner or a manager with permission to edit schedules. The owner configures labour rules.
• Create employees and assign their roles and work locations. Employees need personal sign-in credentials to use their cabinet.
• Check the timezone and opening hours in the location card. The schedule is checked against opening hours: a shift well outside them gets a 🕘 warning (see “Check the schedule before publishing”).
• To tell positions apart in the grid, give positions a colour: Staff → Roles & access → position → Position colour.

For section access, see Roles, permissions and till restrictions. Clocking in and out is covered in Time clock.

Prepare templates and rules#

Create typical shifts first so you do not have to enter the same hours every week.

1. On the Shifts tab, open Shift templates.
2. Enter a name, start, end and Break, min. For example: “Day shift”, 10:00–22:00, with a 60-minute break.
3. Click Create. Create a separate template for a night shift, such as 22:00–10:00.
4. If a schedule already exists, use From this week to create templates from the distinct shift times in that week.

A template saves time entry; it is not a saved assignment of people. The Role field limits a template to one role (Any role — no limit); an existing template's role can be changed right in the list. Suggest a week puts only employees of that role on the template's shifts and, when the role's productivity is set, as many shifts as the forecast needs (see below).

Next, the owner opens the Employees tab and the Labour rules block:

1. Set rest between shifts in hours, maximum shift length and days in a row.
2. If Use the statutory limits is shown for the country, click it to fill in the available thresholds.
3. Select a mode and click Save. Filling in statutory thresholds does not save the settings by itself.

An empty threshold is not checked. Maximum shift length uses the full planned duration without deducting breaks. For example, 10:00–22:00 counts as 12 hours for this check even with a one-hour break.

If you employ minors, set up the Rules for minors block in the same place:

1. Turn on Check shifts of employees under age. The checks run in Warn or Block mode.
2. Click Fill in the Russia norms if the button is shown for your country, or enter the no-night-work window and the age rows yourself: Younger than, years, hours per day, hours per week, days in a row.
3. Click Save. Filling in the norms does not save the settings by itself.
4. Check the date of birth in the employee file: without it the rules do not apply to that person.

Age is counted on the date of each shift, so a shift on the 18th birthday no longer falls under the rules. For example, a 22:00–02:00 shift for a 17-year-old under the Russian norms is a violation ⚖️: in Block mode it is not saved. Hours per day and week are working hours, without breaks.

Break rules#

Task: a 12-hour shift should get a 60-minute break on its own, and the employee should be reminded when it is time to rest.

1. In the Staff window, click the gear ⚙ in the header → Settings, block Break rules. Only the owner can change the rules.
2. Click Add rule and set Shift from, h and Break, min. For example: from 6 h — 30 minutes, from 10 h — 60 minutes.
3. Tick Paid if the break counts as paid time.
4. Turn on Remind “time for a break” if the employee needs a message.
5. Click Save break rules.

Result: a new shift without a break set by hand gets one by rule — the longest rule that still fits the shift applies. A 10:00–22:00 shift gets 60 minutes, 10:00–17:00 gets 30 minutes, 10:00–14:00 gets no break. The shift window shows Set by break rule: 60 min under the Break field.

• Leave the Break field of a new shift empty to get the rule’s break. Enter a number, even 0, to keep your own value.
• A template with a 0-minute break also takes the rule’s break when rolled out; a template with its own break keeps it.
• Changing the start or end of a shift with a rule-based break recalculates the break. Editing the break by hand stops the rule from touching that shift.
• A paid break is not deducted from timesheet and payroll hours. If the employee tapped Break and Back, only the time beyond the paid minutes is deducted.
• The reminder arrives in the work chat once per shift, when the shortest rule’s hours have passed since clock-in and no break has been taken. The check runs every half hour, so the message may come up to 30 minutes later.

Existing shifts are not changed by a new rule. To apply it, open the shift and clear the Break field.

Ask employees to complete My availability in their cabinet: their regular week, exceptions for specific dates and, if needed, the type of hours and limits. Empty availability means the person is always available.

Result: typical hours are ready, rules are saved and staff availability is known. If the statutory-limits button is absent, enter the required thresholds manually. If a shift cannot be saved, read the specific violation and change the time or assignment.

Build a week#

Select the week and Location to work on a particular site's schedule.

1. Click an empty cell in the employee's row to open New shift.
2. Check the employee, date and location, then enter the start, end and break. Fill from a template inserts typical values that you can adjust.
3. Read any availability or overlap warning and save the shift.
4. To change an existing shift, click it in the grid.

For a repeating schedule, click Copy previous week. This copies the plan from the preceding week into the displayed week, without actual clock-in or clock-out records. Each copied shift keeps its original location, and a shift that already exists with the same start time is not duplicated.

With a 2/2 or week-on/week-off pattern the template week is further back: in the list next to the button, pick the source week — "last week" or one of the six previous weeks, labelled with dates. The button then reads Copy week, and the shifts land on the same weekdays at the same times.

For a suggested assignment, open Suggest a week:

1. Check the period; optionally enter expected revenue and a target labour percentage.
2. Click Suggest, then review the suggested and uncovered shifts, hours and cost.
3. Resolve gaps and warnings. When the proposal is suitable, click Apply as draft.

The suggestion uses templates and considers roles, assigned hours, overlaps, approved time off and availability. It excludes people who have not started employment, have already left, do not work at the selected location, have a recorded absence that blocks assignment, or lack occupational-safety clearance when that check is strict.

Preferred hours get a shift first when the workload is equal; On call hours and going over a personal maximum are used only if nobody else is free, and the draft then shows a warning. A shortfall against a personal minimum is shown for full weeks. Availability conflicts, a closing shift followed by an opening shift, and hours above the norm can remain as warnings. An AI summary, if shown, explains the proposal; the assignments themselves are rule-based. Without role productivity each template is placed once a day, and expected revenue only estimates the labour percentage.

If no one is available: inspect the reasons candidates were excluded, then check their role, location, employment dates, absences and overlapping shifts. If there are no templates, create at least one first.

When you have not found an employee yet, create the shift with Open shift instead of a person's name. A colleague can request it using Take the shift.

Result: the weekly plan appears in the grid. Suggestions and copying do not replace publication — review the schedule first.

Staffing need from the forecast#

Above the week grid the manager sees the "👥 Staffing need from the forecast" block. It takes the location's revenue and guests forecast for the week — with events and adjustments — and spreads each day over the hours the way that weekday usually goes.

1. Click ⚙ Productivity and set a driver and a rate for a role: for example, "Waiter — guests — 12 per person per hour, minimum 1" or "Cook — revenue — 6000 per hour". People needed per hour = the hour's forecast ÷ the rate, rounded up, not below the minimum.
2. The block shows need vs scheduled gaps, for example "Fri 13 19–22: need 3 · Waiter, scheduled 2". A shift counts for an hour if it covers at least half of it. When everything is covered — "The schedule covers the forecast need ✓".
3. Click ✨ Suggest week. For templates with a role the number of shifts per day follows the need: the role's templates, in order of start time, cover the busiest hour not yet covered. The shift reason says "forecast needs 3". The week's revenue forecast is pre-filled as expected revenue. Templates without a role are placed once a day, as before.

Rates are stored per location. The block is shown only in the week view and only to the owner and managers; for a location with no sales history it says there is no forecast yet.

Schedule a month or a year#

For a repeating pattern, open Shift templates and click Apply beside the template.

1. Choose employees and a period. Enter dates or use To month end, 3 months or Year; a single application covers up to 366 days.
2. In How to place shifts, choose a pattern.
3. For a cycle, set First working day: the cycle is counted from that date even if the displayed period starts later.
4. If needed, add employees through + Another crew and check the offset in the calendar.
5. Review Preview, the number of planned shifts and occupied dates, then click Apply.

For D-D-N-N-O-O, choose day and night templates, then the preset cycle. Each day in the sequence can be a template or a day off. D-D-N-N-O-O-O-O and Day-night-rest-off are also available. Crews repeat the sequence with an offset for another group of people.

Result: individual shifts are created month by month. Switch to Month to see each employee's hours and shift count for the whole month; on a phone, scroll the table sideways.

If there are conflicts: matching shifts are skipped, while shifts with different times stay — an employee may end up with a second shift on the same day. Adjust the period or crew before applying. If existing shifts could not be loaded, the preview explicitly says conflicts were not checked.

If a long-period application is interrupted, the message states the last completed date. Apply the same parameters again: matching shifts already created will be skipped.

Review the schedule before publishing#

Before telling people when to arrive, make five checks.

1. In Week view, review the estimated cost and employees' planned hours. To check rates, open Pay and motivation. Cost is an estimate of the plan, not final payroll. For example, at a purely hourly rate of ₽350, a 10:00–22:00 shift with a 60-minute break gives 11 planned hours and an estimate of ₽3,850.
2. Review the ⚖️ icons and the summary above the grid: they identify the employee, dates and rule broken. Correct short rest periods, long shifts or too many consecutive days.
3. Check availability and overlaps. For example, if Igor entered 09:00–16:00, a 10:00–22:00 shift falls outside his hours — agree on the time and adjust the schedule.
4. Look for 🕘 icons and the “shifts outside the location’s opening hours” summary. For example, at a coffee shop that opens at 10:00, a barista shift 06:00–10:00 is flagged. Prep and closing within two hours of opening hours are not flagged: an 08:30–23:30 shift at a 10:00–22:00 location passes silently. This is a warning, not a block — the shift and the schedule can still be saved and published; the number of such shifts is also shown in the publish confirmation.
5. Read any publication-deadline warning. The lead time comes from the rules of the location's country: for a location in Russia it is one month (Article 103 of the Russian Labour Code); other countries have no lead time set and show no such warning. Late publication raises a warning but is not blocked.

Normally, an availability conflict does not prevent saving a shift or publishing the schedule. If the owner enables Do not publish a schedule with conflicts, publication with those conflicts is rejected as a whole. Going over a personal hours maximum also counts as a conflict; a shortfall against the minimum and On call hours are only notes and do not stop publication.

The coloured stripe on the left of a shift is the employee's position colour, so you can see whether a day has enough cashiers, cooks and waiters. A position without a colour shows no stripe.

Result: costs and unresolved issues are visible. If publication is blocked, correct the availability conflict; the lead-time warning alone does not block it.

Publish and collect acknowledgements#

Once assignments are ready, select the location and period.

1. Click Publish week or, in monthly view, Publish month.
2. Confirm publication. Check the counts of published shifts and notifications, plus any warnings above the grid.
3. If employees need to confirm they have read it, open Acknowledgement and enable Ask employees to acknowledge the schedule when it is published.
4. Set Remind after, hours; 0 disables acknowledgement reminders. For a previously published week, click Request acknowledgement for this week.

Employees receive a work-chat message. Before publication, a shift is marked draft; editing a published shift marks it changed and sends a notification. Publishing an unchanged schedule again does not send new notifications.

The employee opens My schedule and clicks I have read it. The manager sees a symbol below the person's name:

If the employee actually signed the schedule on paper, the manager can record Signed on paper. Changing shifts after acknowledgement requires confirmation again.

Result: the schedule is published, with acknowledgement tracked separately. If a notification did not arrive, check the publication result and ask the employee to open their cabinet; a message-delivery failure does not undo publication. If confirmation fails because the schedule changed again, the employee needs to review the updated shifts.

Publish automatically by a deadline#

If the schedule must reach people by a certain day and nobody remembers to publish it, turn on automatic publishing. The owner does this: Staff → gear ⚙ in the header → Settings → the Publish the schedule automatically block.

1. Tick Publish the week by a deadline.
2. Set Days before Monday — for example 3 — and Time (location time zone) — for example 18:00. The week starting Monday the 17th is then published on Friday the 14th at 18:00, in each location's time.
3. Click Save.

At the deadline every unpublished shift of the week is published, and employees get the same work chat message as after Publish week. If acknowledgement is on, the request goes out too. Below the setting, Recent automatic publishes shows the week, the location and the outcome.

If schedule approval is on, an unapproved week is not published and waits for the owner — the log says “waiting for approval”; approve it and it goes out within half an hour, as long as the week has not started. With strict availability checking, a week with conflicts is not published — the log says “availability conflicts”; fix them or publish manually. Shifts added after the automatic publish stay drafts until you publish them.

Result: the week publishes itself at the deadline (within half an hour). If it did not, check its status in Recent automatic publishes.

Print the week#

To pin the schedule on the wall or hand it out on paper, click 🖨 Print in week view.

1. Choose the week and, if you have several locations, the location.
2. Click 🖨 Print — the printable “Schedule” form for the week opens.
3. Check the rows: one per employee with a shift or approved time off this week; columns are weekdays with shift times, with planned hours and a total on the right.
4. Click Print. The sheet prints on A4 landscape.

Unpublished shifts are printed marked “draft”, and a note above the table says part of the schedule is not published yet. Rows are grouped by position; the position colour is kept as a stripe next to the name.

To send the same sheet to employees by email, click ✉️ Email to staff in the print window and confirm. Employees on the sheet who have an email in their card get it; anyone skipped is listed in the result line (“No email in the card: …”). A week with unpublished shifts cannot be emailed — publish the schedule first. The same week can be emailed again after 10 minutes.

Result: the paper and the email show the same week as the grid.

Approve the week with the owner and cap cost growth#

Both options are off by default — a small venue does not need an extra step. The owner turns them on: Staff → gear ⚙ in the header → Settings → the “Schedule approval and labor cost limit” block.

• “A manager publishes the schedule only after the owner approves it” — a manager cannot publish a week until the owner approves it.
• “Managers may raise the cost of a published week by no more than, %” — for example, 5. Empty — no limit.

Manager — send the week for approval:

1. Build and review the week as usual.
2. A bar with the week status appears above the grid. Click “Send for approval” and, if you like, leave a comment for the owner, e.g. “Added a bartender on Friday”.
3. The owner gets a message in the work chat. The status changes to “Waiting for the owner’s approval”.
4. When the status is “Approved by the owner”, click “Publish week”.

Owner — approve from a phone or a computer: open the message in the work chat or Staff → Shifts, look at the week and click “Approve” or “Reject”. When rejecting, give a reason — the manager sees it in the bar and in the chat.

An approval covers exactly the week the owner saw. If the manager then changes a shift, the status becomes “Approved, but changed since”, and the week has to be sent again. Clock-ins and shift notes do not reset an approval.

Cost growth limit. A week published by the owner (or the first publication, or an approved one) becomes the baseline. The bar above the grid shows how much the current plan costs over the baseline: “Cost vs the published version: +3.1 % (limit 5 %)”. Cost is calculated like the weekly estimate, at current rates — raising an employee's rate does not count as growth. For example, the week cost 80,000 and the limit is 5 %: the manager can add shifts worth about 4,000. The shift window will not save a published shift extended beyond the limit, and a week over the limit cannot be published. The owner is not limited; a week approved by the owner can be published as is.

Result: the manager prepares the schedule, the owner controls it and its cost without building the grid.

Employees — check your schedule and share your plans#

Sign in to My cabinet with your own credentials, including from a phone browser.

1. Open Schedule → My schedule, check dates and times, and acknowledge it if requested. This block shows published shifts for the next two weeks.
2. In My availability, complete Regular week and choose the type of hours for each day: Available, Preferred or On call. Use Add a date for an exception: Not working, All day or Only these hours. Under Hours limits you can set a minimum and maximum per week and a maximum per day, then save. For example, with a 40-hour weekly maximum, the 41st hour shows the manager a warning right in the shift window; the shift is still saved if they decide so.
3. For a holiday or day off, open Requests → My time off → Request time off, choose the type and dates, add a comment and click Send request. Wait for the manager's decision: Pending does not mean approved. If the owner set a daily time-off limit and it is already used up for those dates, the request is not sent and an explanation appears, for example “31 December already has 2 people off — that is the daily limit”; choose other dates or contact your manager.
4. To see shifts in your calendar, return to Schedule and open Shifts in your phone calendar → Get the link and add it as an iCal subscription in your calendar app.

The subscription shows published shifts and approved time off in a window around today: 60 days back and 60 days ahead. It is read-only; moving an event in your personal calendar does not change the shift in Cenaly.

The link is personal: anyone with it can read your schedule. If it was shared with the wrong person, click Issue a new link and subscribe again — the old link stops working.

The owner sets Leave requests per day in schedule settings: how many employees may be on holiday or a day off on the same day. Empty means no limit. The limit applies to employee requests; sick leave is not counted, and a manager can record time off beyond the limit. Pending and approved requests count; rejected ones free the place. The limit works the same for a request from My time off and for a leave request in the shared request list.

With several locations you can also set Limit per location below: for example 1 for the Lenin St café and 2 for the Mira St café. A location limit counts only employees assigned to that location in their card and works together with the account-wide limit. An employee with no assigned location is subject only to the account-wide limit. The refusal names the location: “On 31 December 1 people at “Lenin St café” are already off — that is the daily limit for this location”.

Periods without time off or swaps#

The owner closes dates in advance when time off or shift swaps are not approved, such as the New Year weeks.

1. Open schedule settings → Periods without time off or swaps → Add a period.
2. Enter From and To, and under What is closed choose Time off and swaps, Time off or Shift swaps. With several locations you can pick one.
3. Write a reason, which the employee sees in the refusal. Click Save.

A request for December 30 during a period from December 25 to January 5 is not sent: the employee sees “Time off is not approved from December 25 to January 5. Reason: New Year season”. The period applies to a request from My time off, to a leave request in the general list and to a swap offer. A manager handles urgent cases by arranging the time off or moving the shift in the schedule. Sick leave is not blocked, an open shift can still be taken, and a swap offered before the period was set stays valid. A location period applies to employees assigned to it in their card and to shifts of that location.

The owner sets Shift reminder in schedule settings: how many hours before the start to send a work-chat message. The default is 2 hours; 0 disables reminders. Reminders apply to published shifts and use the location's timezone.

Result: the manager knows your availability, and you can see the schedule and request status. If a shift is missing from your calendar, check its publication and date first; if you changed the link, update the subscription. Availability does not replace a time-off request.

Offer or take a shift#

If you cannot work a future shift, offer it to a colleague through Shift swaps.

1. Under Offer your shift, select one of your shifts with planned hours.
2. In To, choose a specific employee or Anyone with the same role, then send the offer.
3. The recipient checks the date and time and clicks Accept. A personally addressed offer can be rejected with Decline.
4. If manager approval is required, wait for it. The manager reviews the accepted offer and chooses Approve or Refuse.

For an unassigned shift, open Open shifts and click Take the shift. Depending on swap settings, it is assigned immediately or the request waits for a manager.

Result: once approval is complete, the shift belongs to the new employee. If Accept or Take the shift is unavailable because of an overlap, check your own shifts. Past shifts and clock-in records without planned hours cannot be offered.

Ask for another shift time#

Task: an employee wants to start at 12:00 instead of 10:00.

1. The employee opens “My cabinet” → “My schedule” and clicks “⏱ Ask for another time” on a future shift.
2. They enter the desired “Start” and “End”, optionally a reason, and click “Send request”.
3. The manager sees a “Shift time change” request under “Requests” with the date and “was → asks”, for example “10:00–18:00 → 12:00–18:00”, and clicks “Approve” or “Reject”.

Result: after approval the shift’s planned time changes. If the schedule is already published, the shift gets the “changed” label. On rejection the shift stays as it was.

The same request is available on Android, Windows and Ubuntu registers: device menu → ⏱ Another shift time. The register lists the current cashier's published shifts for the next two weeks. If the cashier only entered a PIN, a signed-in manager can send the request for them; otherwise the register explains the refusal and the employee needs their own sign-in.

Only a shift that has not started yet can be requested. If the employee has already clocked in, a timesheet correction is needed. If the month’s timesheet is closed, the request is not accepted. If the shift is handed to someone else while the request is pending, the approval is not applied.

Scheduling across multiple locations#

Before building a schedule, check the employee's assigned locations, then select the relevant Location in the grid. Use All locations for an overview; when entering hours, check the location of the individual shift.

Shift times use the location's timezone, not the manager's computer timezone. With iCal, the phone calendar may display the same instant in its own timezone.

If locations run on different rules, open Labour rules → Rules for a location → Add a location and set its mode, thresholds and Applies from date. An empty field means “same as the account”. For example, a location with an 8-hour maximum shift rejects a 10-hour shift, while another location accepts it. A shift without a location and a shift before the start date follow the account rules; a shift swap follows the rules of that shift's location. You can also set separate rules for minors here if the location is in another country.

Result: the plan is built for the intended location. If the suggestion excludes someone as working at another location, check their assigned locations.

When the monthly timesheet is closed#

A 🔒 icon and a banner above the grid mean shifts in the closed month cannot be added or edited. In a week spanning two months, the lock applies to dates in the closed month.

1. Check the month named in the message.
2. Ask the owner to reopen it through Plan vs Actual → Reopen the timesheet.
3. Return to the schedule and make the agreed changes.

Result: editing becomes available after the month is reopened. Being the manager who closed the period does not give you permission to reopen it yourself. See Staff timesheet.

Limitations#

• Only the week has a printable form and email sending; the email goes out when a manager clicks the button, automatic publishing does not send it.
• Only the owner approves a schedule: there is no multi-level chain (“manager → regional → owner”). The cost growth limit is one percentage for all managers, not per location or position.
• A location limit counts only employees assigned to the location in their card.
• Personal hour limits only warn and cannot block a shift. Rules for minors do not cover school days or mandatory breaks; country norms are offered only where checked against the primary source, currently Russia.
• Automatic publishing runs once per location week, within half an hour; in an account with several locations it skips shifts with no location — publish those manually.
• The copy source can only be one of the last six weeks, and only in the week view; there is no shift drag-and-drop.
• The outside-opening-hours warning checks the location's regular week; one-off exceptions (holiday hours) are not taken into account.
• The forecast need is an estimate without machine learning: the median of the same weekday × events × adjustment, with the hourly split taken from past weeks. Rates are one number per role (no stations or skills); only the employee's role tier counts. Weekly cost is an estimate; only its growth over the published version is capped (the manager limit).
• Breaks are entered in minutes; this screen does not configure paid-break rules or send “time for a break” reminders.

Troubleshooting#

FAQ#

Can I schedule a whole year at once?#

Yes: apply a pattern for up to 366 days. Then review and publish it by week or month; creating shifts does not publish them.

What does 10:00–10:00 mean?#

A 24-hour shift ending at 10:00 the next day. For a normal 10:00–22:00 shift, enter 22:00 as the end.

Is a notification enough instead of acknowledgement?#

No. A notification tells the employee about the schedule; I have read it records their separate confirmation when the feature is enabled.

Can employees move their shift start time themselves?#

Not directly, but they can ask: “My schedule” → “⏱ Ask for another time”. The time changes after the manager approves.

Related sections#

• Staff — employee cards and cabinet access.
• Roles, permissions and till restrictions — permissions and locations.
• Time clock — actual arrival, departure and breaks.
• Staff timesheet — plan vs fact and closing a month.
• Pay and motivation — rates and pay conditions.
• How report metrics are calculated — labour hours and labour share in reports.
• Russian payroll: getting started — payroll on cenaly.ru.