In this article you'll learn how to create shift templates, access templates created by other admins and managers, apply templates using drag and drop, and edit or delete templates you have created. Shift templates allow you to save and reuse shift configurations for efficient scheduling. This article is relevant for admins and managers who want to streamline their shift planning process.
Create and save a new template
Access and reuse templates created by other admins and managers from your company
Apply a template for planning shifts using drag and drop
Apply a template for bulk planning
Edit and delete a template that you have created
1. Creating and saving a new template
Creating templates is an easy 3 step process.
Click on the top menu > Templates and the template module will appear
Click on the (+) button in the template module to launch the add a new template dialogue box
Fill in the details and click SAVE
Breaktime, Working area, tags and notes: optional data
Role: mandatory data
Location: mandatory data
Shift start time and end time: mandatory data
Template name: mandatory data
Once you save the template, it is added to the top of the list of templates. The template also gets a highlight color of the role that is used for the template for easy recognition.
Note: The template list also contains all other templates created by other managers and admins. You can always reuse these templates to plan your own shifts!
2. Planning shifts with drag and drop templates
For planning shifts you can either reuse templates created by other managers/admins/HR admins OR you can use the templates that you have created. Using drag and drop templates to plan shifts is very simple.
In the employee layout:
Hover over a template around the 6 dots area, and you will see the mouse pointer change to a hand icon. You will see the shift details preview and you can confirm if this is the template you want to use.
Once you are ready, you can click on the 6 dots and the template will be picked up for dragging and dropping.
Keep the mouse clicked and drag that template to any employee at any date.
Once you are sure about the location, release the click of the mouse and the template will be dropped.
A new unpublished schedule is then created.
Note:
You can use drag and drop templates to create both open and scheduled shifts
You can drag the template to the bottom part of the screen and if you have a long list of employees then the screen will start auto-scrolling.
In the role layout:
You can also plan shifts in the role layout using the templates. All the steps above remain the same.
Note: If you try to plan a shift with a role which is not saved in the employee’s profile OR in other words if the role data in the template does not match the role or location where you are dropping the template, a shift is still added but it is placed in the role that matches the template role.
3. Planning shifts in bulk using templates
You can use the templates to not only drag and drop and plan shifts individually, but you can also use the template data to plan shifts in bulk for many employees in a single action.
Click on the templates menu to open the templates module
Hover over the templates available and click on the (+) icon saying "Add shifts using template"
This will open the add new shifts dialogue box and pre-fill all the data saved in the template
You can then add as many employees as you want and click on SAVE to add many shifts in one go for many employees
4. Edit and delete templates
You can always edit or delete templates that you have created in Shiftplan for your use.
To edit a template, hover over a template and click on the pencil icon
The edit template dialogue box will appear where you will see all the details of the template available for editing
Make your changes and now you are ready to SAVE
To delete a template, you can once again click on the pencil icon and click on the the red recycle bin button
Click on YES, DELETE and the template is removed from your list of templates
Shiftplan’s primary goal is to make your shift scheduling process faster, smoother and efficient. We hope you’ll enjoy using templates to plan recurring shifts!