Roster building and publishing

When navigating to your roster for the very first time to create shifts, your view will default to showing your shifts across the week and alphabetised by employee name. However, you can utilise the various tools found along your overview bar to further customise your display, maximising capacity and streamlining it to your preferences. 

From the overview bar, you can:

• Adjust how you view your shifts, either by Shift, Day, or Week view.
• Sort your shifts in ascending or descending alphabetical order by employee's Name or Position title.
• Use the Filters to refine what you are viewing, with options to see all or select specific Operations, Employees, Positions, or Shift Status.
• Toggle on to display additional items from your Display settings.
• View employees with approved leave affecting the week you are working on.

  Hot tip: Your view is completely customisable to your access and will not affect how other admin users see the rosters. Besides the filter options, what you select here will remain locked in your view until you change your selections.

Once you've built your rosters, you can also use the coloured badges to easily select and view your shifts based on their status, which include:

• Drafts
• Offered
• Accepted
• Worked
• Actioned
• Shifts with Errors or Warnings 

  You can learn more about your roster display options and filters in our dedicated guide here. 

The best starting point when building a roster is often by listing the employees you want to assign shifts to.

However, depending on your workforce's preferences and the nature of your industry, you might prefer to add the roles or positions you need covered to your roster first, before assigning employees to them. We will cover both processes below.

Adding employees first

If your roster view is set to sort by Name, it might be easier to add your employees to your roster first. This ensures you know exactly who your available staff are and that you capture and assign shifts to all the necessary people. 

To do this:

1. Select the + icon in the column underneath Name; this will open up the employee selector modal. 
2. From here, you can search for the employee you are looking for by either their name or ID number, or filter to find employees based on position or role. 
3. Optionally, you can use the following toggles to adjust who you see:
   • Available now - Hide employees who are on leave or unavailable. 
   • Include blocked - Show employees with issues that will prevent you from publishing or approving their shift hours. Blocked employees on your list will be highlighted in orange, making them easy to spot.
4. To assist you in your selections, you can also sort your list of employees by Name, Hours worked, or Age in ascending or descending order.
5. Select the checkbox next to the employees you wish to add, then select Add to roster. 

Adding positions or roles first

If your roster view is set to sort by Position, it might be easier to add your positions or roles (if you use Position Groups) to your roster first. This will help you see more clearly which roles need to be filled for the week. 

To do this:

1. Select the + icon in the column underneath Position. 
2. From the drop-down, select and add the positions you need to fill.
3. Check out our section below on adding shifts for your next steps. 

Pin employees to your roster

The 'pin empty rows' display feature allows employees without shifts to stay on your roster from week to week. Like all roster display features, this feature is unique to each admin user, meaning your pool of saved employees may differ from another user of the same roster.

There are various uses for this feature, including:

• Keeping permanent employees pinned on your roster and adding casuals as needed.
• Keeping your A-team pinned on the roster so they can be rostered first.
• Pinning a specific casual pool of employees to each roster.

In the example below, you can see the use of 'pin empty rows' and how it retains your selected employee pool from week to week. 

Employees do not need to have shifts scheduled to clock on or off. However, if you want them to follow a work schedule, you must first roster shifts and then assign or offer them to your team. 

The content below will guide you through creating an individual shift on a roster. If you're looking to create or offer bulk shifts, please check out the sections below dedicated to those actions. 

To create a shift on the roster:

1. Select any of the grey fields under the day and date of your choice. 
   • If you have your employees or positions added to the roster, selecting the field in their row will automatically assign that employee or position to the shift you're creating. This works well if you already know who will work the shift or which position the shift is associated with. 
   • If you select the field directly under the day and date that isn't linked to any employee or position, those details won't be pre-filled. This method is best when you want to add shift hours first and choose the employee or position to work that shift later. 

2. From the drawer that opens, add your shift start and end times. You can use keyboard shortcuts to assist you with this, or use the time selector that appears when entering the beginning of your shift time. 

   

3. Optionally, select the checkbox to Display end time to employee as "Until required". The specified end time will appear on the roster for admins and be used for roster costing & analytics. The 'until required' state of the shift will be displayed as follows: 

   

4. From the drop-down, select the Position or Position group you want to assign to the shift.
5. If you have not yet added an employee to the shift, you can select from the Employees tab to find someone available to work. Optionally, you can use the following toggles to adjust who you see:
   • Available now - Hide employees who are on leave or unavailable. 
   • Include blocked - Show employees with issues that will prevent you from publishing or approving their shift hours. Blocked employees on your list will be highlighted in orange, making them easy to spot.
6. You can optionally include the following items in your shift. Make sure to select the green tick to save these items in place:
   • Breaks - Select to add in paid or unpaid breaks. If your business has set up automatic breaks in the Break Scheduler, they will pull through automatically when you add your shift start and end times. 
   • Allowances - If the employee is to receive a specific allowance for this shift, you can add it here. You can add multiple allowances if required. 
     • Check out our section below on Adding Shift Allowances to learn more about this feature. 
   • Requirements - Adding requirements to a shift will filter your available employees so that only those who meet the requirements are available to work. 
     • Check out our section below on Rostering with Requirements to learn more about this feature. 
   • Cost codes/Purchase orders - If you want to cost your employee's shift hours to multiple cost centres, select the cost codes here. You can add multiple codes and customise how many hours of the shift you would like associated with each one. 
   • Shift notes - Add any notes or comments you want to communicate to other admin users, or optionally toggle "Note is visible to employee" to leave a message for the employee to see when they view their roster. 
     • Check out our section below on Communicating with week, day, or shift notes, to learn more about this feature. 
7. Select Save shift to create.

  Hot tip: Check out our sections below to learn how to create multiple shifts at once, or copy a single shift or a group of shifts, and reduce your rostering time.

Shift icons

Once you have created a shift, various icons may appear depending on your selections. These icons can be viewed by hovering over the shift; they will be highlighted in green if there is a selection in place. Alternatively, you can enable viewing some of these items in the shift overview by toggling them on in your Display settings.

The icons, which you will see when hovering over a shift, will highlight to indicate if the following are applied:

• Shift note or comment
• Allowance
• Cost code/Purchase order 

There may be occasions when you need to edit an individual shift. This can be done at any time before the employee clocks in, or an admin actions it on the Approve Shifts page. The same applies to deleting individual shifts from the roster. 

To edit or delete an individual shift:

1. From your roster, find the shift you want to edit or remove and select it. From the drop-down, select either Edit or Delete.
   • If the shift is already in a published or accepted state, the Delete option will be replaced with a Cancel shift option.
2. If you are deleting the shift, make sure to read the warning that appears after you make your selection, and select confirm if you want to proceed with removing the shift. This will update your roster page, and the shift you chose to delete will no longer be visible on your roster.
   
     Please note: If you are cancelling an already published shift, you will need to re-publish the roster to ensure your employee is notified that their shift has been cancelled. 
3. To edit the shift, once you have made your selection, this will open up the same drawer as when you first created the shift. You can make any adjustments as you require, then select Save shift. 

  Please note: If the shift you edited was previously published or accepted, and you have made changes to the shift's start and finish time, this may revert the shift back to a draft state. Ensure you re-publish the shift to keep your employee up to date with changes to their hours. 

  Need to edit or delete multiple shifts? You can do this in bulk! Read more about how to do this in our Roster Shortcuts guide.

Copy individual shifts

If the shift hours your employee works are continuously the same across each day, you can make rostering a little easier for yourself by copying the shifts from one day to another. Additionally, if you have multiple employees who work the same hours, you can copy one employee's hours to another employee's hours. 

  Please note: If you are copying shifts from one employee to another, you will need to ensure the other employees have the same position assigned; otherwise, the copied shift will error. 

To copy an individual shift:

1. From your roster, find the shift you want to copy and select it. From the drop-down, select Copy.
2. Select any of the other days you would like to paste the shifts into. You paste the shift into multiple days. 
3. Once you have pasted the shift across all the days and employees you require, from the taskbar at the bottom of your page, select Save. 

One of the most loved features of our roster is the ability to communicate with employees through various types of roster notes, as well as the option to hide notes for admins' eyes only! You can add roster and day notes for the entire week through the notes drawer, giving you greater flexibility in communication.

There are three types of notes within your rosters:

• Weekly note - A note for the entire roster.
  • This will be displayed to anyone with a published shift that week.
• Day note - A note for the specific day within a single roster.
  • This will be displayed to anyone with a published shift that day.
• Shift note - A note for a specific person in a particular shift on the roster.
  • This will be displayed to the employee on their shift. 

Key considerations when using notes on your roster:

• For each note type, you can select your audience. For instance:
  • An 'Admin note' (visible only to admin users) 
  • An 'Employee note' (visible to both employees and admin users)
• Notes marked as 'admin' will only be visible to admins on the online roster and will not be printed due to privacy concerns.
• Weekly notes can be ongoing. If selected, ongoing notes will persist indefinitely and stay visible until deleted or modified.
• Shift and day notes can be optionally copied forward using the Copy roster function.
• Shift, day and weekly notes can be optionally loaded onto a roster when using Roster Templates.

Weekly notes

Weekly notes can be added per roster, appearing in your employee rosters and on the printed roster (unless note visibility is set to admin note).

Common use cases:

• A primary contact for that roster, set to be ongoing, for employees to easily access.
• A featured theme, menu or reminder to all employees for the week.
• To keep track of which week you're in the roster rotation. For example, week 1 of 2 in the rotation is set to admin only for rostering purposes.

Weekly notes are a great reminder; all employees will see this message, provided they have at least one shift for that week.

To add a Weekly note:

1. Select the note icon next to the roster name or at the bottom of your roster. 

   

2. You'll have the option to add 2 weekly notes:
   • 1 employee note, and
   • 1 admin-only note
3. Select Ongoing if you would like your message to persist indefinitely. You can change it in future weeks if needed.
4. Save once complete. You'll now see the roster displayed at the bottom of the roster (if you have enabled the relevant display setting). 

  Hot tip: If roster notes are visible to the employee, they can see the note on their shift when viewing it in their Employee App. If the shift already existed before you added the note, you will not need to republish the roster for the employee to see it.

Day notes

Day Notes can be added per roster and will display in your employee rosters on the selected day and on the printed roster.

Common use cases:

• Daily events, function notes or delivery times
• Booking numbers, staff ratios, and meeting reminders

This is an ideal note for team announcements and for internal reminders for admins to perform specific tasks that day or follow up with certain employees.

To add a day note:

1. To add Day notes, you can add them for the entire week or for selected days in the Notes drawer. To do so, select either:
   • The note icon next to the roster name, or

   • The ellipsis on the day > Day note. 

     

2. You'll have the option to add in 2 day notes for each day of the week:
   • 1 employee note, and
   • 1 admin-only note
3. Add in your notes for any relevant days.
4. Save once complete. The note icon will appear in orange above any days with notes.

  Hot tip: To view the notes on the roster, hover over the orange note icon, or ensure that the 'weekly and day notes' display setting is enabled. Employees will be able to see the notes if they are visible to them in their Employee App, provided they have a shift rostered for that day. 

Shift notes

Notes can be added to individual shifts. This is excellent for personal communications regarding an employee or a shift (e.g., please remember to bring your keys as you are closing tonight).

To add a shift note:

1. To add a new shift note or edit an existing one, select the relevant shift on the roster.
2. Select Shift notes, then include your comment.

3. Optionally toggle 'Note is visible to employee'. 

   

4. Select Save shift to save your notes.

  Hot tip: If shift notes are visible to the employee, they can be seen from the employee profile once the roster has been published. Shift notes are also displayed in the email or SMS communication sent to the employee.

We understand that, depending on the industry you work in, you may require your employees to meet specific compliance requirements before they can perform a certain task or work at a particular site. You can now ensure you never miss a compliance by marking it as mandatory on your rosters and shifts. 

  Please note: When using requirements on your roster, any employee who does not meet the marked items will appear blocked on your roster. You can learn more about other causes for blocked employees in our guide here. 

There are two types of Requirements you can use:

• Compliances - Select to apply any of the items created in your Compliance records page. Depending on the record selected, there may be expiry dates to consider. 
  
    Hot tip: Ensure expiry notifications are enabled for both your employees and their managers. 
• Tags - Select to apply any of the items created in your Tag Library. Depending on your platform setup, Tags may be self-applied by employees during onboarding or manually added by an admin user. 
  
    Hot tip: You can use the handy filters on our People pages to search for employees with or without specific Tags applied. 

Requirements can be added in two ways:

• Per Roster - If every employee on the roster requires a specific compliance. 
  • For example, a bar roster needs every employee to have a valid RSA
• Per Shift - If only 1 or a few employees on a roster require a specific compliance, you can add it as a requirement for specific shifts. 
  • For example, if you only need 1 first aid officer on the floor at all times

To add a requirement to an entire roster:

1. Navigate to Work > Rosters.

2. Either add a new roster or select the ellipsis to edit an existing roster. 

   

3. In the Requirements section, add the compliance record or tag, then select Save roster to update. You can select multiple requirements based on your business's needs. 

  Please note: Any new roster requirements added will only apply to new shifts created in your roster. Draft shifts already rostered will not update; to apply the updates, select the 'Reverify shifts' icon on your roster.

To add compliance as a shift requirement:

1. Navigate to Work > Rosters. 
2. Open your roster and create a shift as you usually would. 
3. Add the shift details, then select the Requirements tab.

4. Select the compliance record or tag you'd like to filter based on. You can select multiple requirements based on your business's needs. 

   

     Hot tip: Any compliance set as a roster requirement can be viewed when editing your shifts. They can be located from the Requirements drawer > Roster Compliances. Additionally, you cannot select any roster requirements as shift requirements, as they are currently in use. 

5. The employees who are now selectable from within the drop-down will all have the desired compliance record. 

Allowances can be added directly to a shift on your roster. This is ideal for applying one-off allowances that employees typically receive when working specific shifts or meeting particular requirements. 

Common allowances that some of our customers may want to add in this way include:

• Airport Travel Allowance
• Sleepover Allowance
• Supervisor Allowance
• Split Shift Allowance

To add an allowance to a shift on the roster:

1. First, navigate to the roster you are working on via Work > Rosters and either select and edit an existing shift or follow the steps outlined above to create a new shift. 
2. Select the Allowances tab, and from the drop-down, find and select the allowance you wish to add to the shift. 
   • Depending on the allowance selected, you may need to add details, such as the required quantity. 
3. Select the green tick to save your added allowance, then Save shift.
4. Publish your roster as normal, and the shift allowance will flow through to the Approve Shifts page, where admins can see it applied. 

  Please note: Adding shift allowances to already published shifts will revert them to a Draft state. Please ensure you republish that shift so the allowance flows through correctly. 
 

Have you ever wondered why the shifts on your roster sometimes appear in different colours or have different symbols? This shows that your platform is alerting you to shift status changes, warnings, or errors that could greatly affect your rosters.

To understand the basic definition of these: 

• Shift Warnings - You have a soft warning regarding this shift. Once reviewed, it can still be published if you are happy to proceed.
  • Shift warnings are generally highlighted to you by the orange exclamation symbol. However, they can also appear as other symbols depending on the item affecting the shift. 
• Shift Errors - There is a significant error with this shift. It cannot be published or sent to an employee until it has been rectified.
  • Shifts in error are highlighted to you by the red exclamation symbol and shift tile. 

Below are the common causes for shift errors:

• The employee does not have the selected position assigned - This error happens when a position is transferred from one employee to another (dragging a shift) or when an unassigned shift is allocated to an employee who is not eligible to work that role. As the foundU roster is adjustable and flexible, it's entirely normal to encounter these errors when moving and copying shifts on your roster.
  • To resolve, select the employee's available role from the drop-down menu, or assign the shift to an eligible employee for that role. 
• The employee has a conflicting shift - There are two shifts on the roster that overlap in time for the employee.
  • Enabling the 'Show External Shifts' Display Option in your roster may help you identify shifting conflicts.
• The maximum shift duration of 12 hours has been exceeded - Check that the Start and End times are correct on the shift.
  • i.e., AM and PM are inputted correctly. For example, you have entered the shift as 8 AM - 5 AM instead of 8 AM - 5 PM, or reduced the hours on the shift.
• The Employee is not set - No employee has been added to the shift.
  • Any unassigned shifts will appear as errors on your roster. To clear this error, add the relevant employee to the shift.
• The employee is Blocked from the roster - Employees could be blocked from a roster or shift due to a specific rostering condition. 

  You can learn more about shift warnings and errors from our extensive Rostered Shifts - Status, Warnings & Errors guide. 

Publishing your roster is the final step in your rostering process. Once you publish your roster, you make your shifts visible to the employees they are assigned to. 

When you publish your roster, your employees can be notified of their new shifts in three ways:

• Email
• SMS
• Push Notification 

  Please note: The method your employees receive will depend on how you have your Communication Settings enabled. You can also confirm communications sent to your staff from your platform's Communication Log. 

You have three options for publishing: 

• Publish & Notify - Employees will receive an email, SMS, or Push Notification regarding their upcoming shifts. 
  • This is the default option and will be used in most cases.
• Publish - Employees will not receive notifications about their shifts, but can still see them in the employee app.
  • This option is ideal for when you make minor changes to an already published roster. If you don't need your employees to be aware of the changes you've just made, you can publish without notifying them.

• Send offers - Employees can accept or decline the shifts you assign to them. A notification email, SMS, or Push Notification will be sent.

    Hot tip: If your business allows employees to accept or decline shifts, this option will help facilitate that. You can read more about shift offers here.  

Additionally, you can select to Resend notifications. This option will only be available once you have already published or offered your rostered shifts. This will send a reminder notification to the employee. 

  Hot tip: If you allow your employees to see who they are working with on their shift, once you publish a shift or the employee accepts an offered shift, their coworkers will be visible to them in their Employee App. You can learn more about our coworkers feature here. 

Publish a roster

When publishing your rosters, you have the option to publish your entire roster in one go, or alternatively, you can use your Filters to either hide or show shifts, based on Operation, Employee, or Position, to only publish certain shifts and leave the remaining in draft state. 

This is a common scenario for those who want to publish and assign certain shifts out, but leave the remaining shifts to be offered or assigned at a later date. 

If you want to publish your entire roster, you can simply select the Publish & notify button in the top-right corner.

  Please note: If you are viewing all your rosters when you select Publish, it will publish all of your shifts across all rosters currently displayed. 

• This will notify your employees of their shift details. Employees will also be able to see their assigned shifts in their employee app. 

  

• In the roster menu, shifts will turn green to indicate that they are published.  

  

  Hot tip: If you have your rostering team working to a budget, you can also lock rosters from being published if they exceed your set budget. You can learn more about this feature in our Work Settings guide. 

Using your Filters when publishing

As mentioned above, you can also use your Filters before publishing your shifts. Some examples of how this can be used are:

• Publish shifts for specific employees and send offers to others: 
  • Use the filters to select individual employees or positions; this will hide all other employees or those with different positions assigned to them. When you publish the roster, the shifts filtered to be in view will also be published. 
  • Clear the filters to reveal the remaining shifts still in draft, then, from the drop-down, select Send offers.  
• Publish shifts for specific days that are completed before you finish the entire roster: 
  • Switch your roster to Day view and select the correct day. Selecting to publish the roster will publish only the shifts for the day you are currently looking at. 
  • All shifts across the other days will remain in draft state. 

Depending on your business's processes, you may prefer to send all or part of your shifts as offers to your workforce, allowing your employees to accept or decline hours. 

Shift offers can be sent from three places in your platform:

• Rostering page - Useful if you wish to offer individual shifts to single employees.
• Bulk shifts page - Useful if you wish to create and offer out bulk shifts to a large pool of employees.
• Unfilled shifts page - Useful if you want to view remaining unfilled shifts on your rosters and offer them out to select individuals or a large pool of employees.  

  Check out our comprehensive guide to offering shifts here!

In some scenarios, you may need to cancel an employee's upcoming shift or reassign it to another team member. Actioning this on your roster is easy, but there are a few key actions you will need to take to ensure this is communicated to your team. 

  Hot tip: If you would like to give your employees the option to cancel their own shifts, you can enable this in your Work Settings and even set a minimum notice period for them to do so!

To cancel or reassign a shift:

1. Navigate to Work > Rosters to find the roster for your employee's shift.
2. If you are cancelling the employee's shift and not reassigning it to someone else, simply select the shift and select Cancel shift. 

   • The shift tile will change from its published green colour to grey with the shift hours highlighted and struck through in red. 

     

3. If you are reassigning the shift, simply select the shift and drag and drop it to another employee.

   • The shift tile next to the original employee will change from its published green colour to grey with the shift hours struck through.

     
      

   • The shift next to the newly assigned employee will appear in draft state.
4. Regardless of whether you are cancelling or reassigning the shifts, you will need to ensure you select Publish & notify the changes, so your employee knows their shift has been cancelled or that they have been assigned a new shift. 
   
     Please note: Once you publish your roster, the cancellation or reassigned shift tiles will disappear from your roster view.

If your rosters remain consistent from week to week, or if you use similar shifts for different employees, you can duplicate an existing roster from a previous week to a future week. by either Copying the roster or loading in a Roster Template. 

Both options will help you streamline the rostering process. In the table below, we have outlined the three key differences between these functions. 

Roster Templates

Once you've created a roster, you may want to save it as a template to make rostering easier in the future. Roster templates are a great time-saving tool that makes rostering faster and easier! 

Some common use cases for Roster Templates include:

• 2 and 3-week rotating rosters
• Using a roster template to build out rosters 8-12 weeks in advance
• Event rosters
• Rosters for busier weeks or quiet weeks

  You can read more about Roster Templates in our dedicated guide here.

Copying a Roster

When copying a roster forward, you'll be able to choose which elements of the roster you would like to carry forward onto the copied week. Included in a roster copy are:

• Employees
• Breaks
• Budget 
• Shift comments 
• Day notes
• Cost codes 

Some of the above elements are optional to include in the copy; however, the Employee and Breaks options will always be selected by default. 

  Hot tip: Deselect the employee option to copy shifts forward to a future week as unfilled shifts. Using this method, you'll be able to reassign shifts to new employees each week, depending on availability.

To copy a roster:

1. Select the Toolbar icon > Copy roster.
2. Select the week commencing date you'd like to copy the roster to.
   • Starting next week - The dates will default to the upcoming week, making it easy to copy shifts week to week.
   • Starting another week - This will activate the date picker, allowing you to select which week you want to copy shifts to.
3. Choose the roster elements to include in the copy. By default, 'Employees' and 'Breaks' are selected, and the additional fields are unselected. Make adjustments as you wish.
   
     Please note: Allowances, requirements, and tags attached to shifts will automatically copy with the associated shifts, eliminating the need to select a checkbox for each item.
4. Review the copy roster summary in the blue field to ensure you are copying to the correct week. This will include the number of copied shifts and the date the shifts are being copied.
5. Select Copy roster.

Your copied shifts will be in a draft state, allowing you to edit them before publishing. You're now ready to review any errors and warnings before publishing and notifying your employees of their shifts.

  Please note: If you have copied a roster into a week in error, you can individually delete shifts that are not required, or use the Bulk delete shifts option from the Tools menu.

If you'd like to create shifts in bulk to save time, there are three options available to you:

• Using the Bulk shifts option from the Roster overview page to:
  • Create shifts in bulk across single days or recurring weeks and days.
  • You can also use this method to offer shifts in bulk.
• Use the Shifts Import to easily create shifts in bulk on your rosters.
• Selecting 'Or create multiple shifts' from the Create shift modal on the roster. 

We will go through each of these options in more detail below. 

Using the Bulk Shifts option 

The Bulk Shifts feature is the general go-to method when offering shifts and is particularly beneficial in the following situations:

• Filling shifts when employees call in sick
• Rostering for a large event or shift work
• Building out rosters months in advance
• The ability to create rosters with assigned shifts (for your A-grade team) while using Shift Offers to offer remaining shifts (for your casual pool) in one place 

  To understand the full details about using this feature, please check out our detailed guide. 

Using the Shifts Import

The Shifts Import feature allows you to quickly and easily create rosters, with or without employees attached, using a CSV Import. This is beneficial in the following situations:

• As an alternate method of templating rosters
• To create a large number of shifts in bulk
• To create rosters quickly in foundU when coming from another software system 

  To understand the full process of this import, check out our dedicated guide to using the Bulk Import Roster Shifts feature. 

Create multiple shifts

If you prefer to create multiple shifts at once directly from your roster, you can easily do so by selecting to create a new shift in your roster and then choosing the 'Or create multiple shifts' option from the Create shift modal. 

Once you have selected to create multiple shifts, you will need to:

1. Select and add the following details:
   • Days - The individual desired days you want to add the shifts to. Alternatively, you can select Weekdays or Weekends to auto-select those days.
   • Shift start and end time - If the end time is flexible, you can optionally select the 'Display end time to employee as 'Until required'.
   • Unpaid Break length and start time - If applicable. 
     
       Please note: You will not be able to add paid breaks or multiple unpaid breaks while using this feature. 
      
   • Roster - This will automatically pre-fill with the one you are working on. 
   • Position and count - The position you need filled and the number of shifts required. 
2. Additionally, if you have any specific requirements, you can also add the following.
   • Comments

   • Requirements 

     

3. Select or search for employees you would like to assign the shifts to, or leave this blank if you would like to assign or offer the shifts out at a later time.
4. If you would like to add shifts for multiple positions, select Add Position and repeat the steps outlined above before selecting Create.
5. The shifts will then display on your roster in draft state, either next to the employees you selected or unassigned. 
   • You can select and drag the unassigned shifts down to employees on your roster to assign them. Or additionally offer the shifts out in bulk to employees from the Unfilled shifts page. 

  Hot tip: Each 'bulk shift' will have the same start/end time. You can change shift times using the edit function if required. 

When rostering employees, it's important to understand the notifications that are triggered automatically when shifts are published or offered. These notifications are enabled by default on your platform, and your employees can receive them via email, SMS, or Push Notification. 

Employee notifications are triggered when:

• Rosters are published or republished after updates, informing employees of upcoming shifts or shift changes.
• Shifts are cancelled or reassigned, informing employees when their shifts have been cancelled or reassigned to them.
  
    Please note: You will need to republish your roster to process the cancellation and activate the shift cancellation notification for your employees.
• Shifts are offered to employees from the Roster, Bulk Shifts, or Unfilled Shifts pages.
• Shift offers have been cancelled, expired, or are no longer available due to someone else accepting the shift.

You can review, update, and customise the content of these communications by navigating to the main menu > Communication > Communication Content. 

Below, we will outline the available templates on that page; you can use the search bar to find them within your platform. 

• Shift Assign/ Updated

• Shift Offer

• Shift Cancelled

• Shift Offer Modified

• Shift Offer Expired

• Shift Offer Declined Positions Filled     

• Shift Offer Cancelled

• Employee submits a leave application

• Employee submits a leave application

• Employee submits a leave application

  You can also see a history of communications sent to employees in their employee profile and in the Communication log.

Ensure your rostering team stays up to date by enabling shift notifications. These notifications can be enabled per roster, and you can customise which admin users receive each notification. 

  Hot tip: Selecting Preview lets you view and edit the message content sent to your admin users.

With roster notifications enabled, admins can receive notifications when:

• Employees accept or decline offered shifts
• Employees cancel an assigned shift
• There are pending shifts awaiting action in Approve Shifts 

  You can learn more about admin shift notifications and how to enable them in our guide here. 

If you would like to display additional metrics on your roster to better understand the data behind your workforce, you can optionally use the roster features below.

To get the most from your roster data, consider using the following features:

• Roster Budget -  From the Tools menu, set a daily or weekly budget to ensure you use your employee labour accurately.
• Roster Analytics - See a total running summary of your weekly totals for your rosters. This permission-controlled feature will allow you to see more detailed roster metrics, including key costs such as estimated wage costs, average hourly wage, and many more.
• Import additional data to display in Roster Analytics - You can import sales values, number of sales, number of customers, or number of items sold to display in Roster Analytics.

Using the Roster Budget

Generally, in most industries, the number of employee labour hours used each week is dictated by a budget based on the business's needs or sales. In foundU, you can use your Roster budget to:

• Set a daily or weekly budget in either a dollar figure or an hours figure.
• See a percentage of the budget used in your Roaster analytics bar after and during the roster drafting process.
• Prevent a roster from being published when over budget.
• Roster budgets can also be imported in bulk if your business forecasts this far in advance.

  To understand the full details about using this feature, please use our Roster Budget detailed guide.

Using Roster Analytics

Understand all of your labour costs at a glance on the top of your roster as well as in a more detailed Roster Analytics drawer. In foundU, you can use your Roster analytics to:

• Deep dive into all of the key metrics used on your roster displayed in 2 key places - The Roster Analytics Bar at the top of your roster, and the more detailed Roster Efficiency Drawer.
• Within Roster Analytics, you can see a running summary of your weekly totals for your rosters. Key roster metrics include:
  • Staff - Number of staff with shifts. 
  • Hrs -  The total number of hours from shifts. 
  • Sales - A total of estimated sales. 
  • Est. wage - The total of estimated labour costs.
    • You can hover over Est. wage to see the percentage of your budget used. 
  • Avg. hr wage - Average hourly wage for the week. 
  • Labour: Sales - The percentage of sales estimate used by labour costs.
  • SPLH avg - Average dollar value of sales per labour hour.

  To understand which costs are included in Roster Analytics and how to use the Analytics drawer, please use our Roster Analytics detailed guide.

Import data to display in Roster Analytics

Create a new data source to flow into your Roster Analytics. In foundU, you can set up an additional data source to display, including:

• Sales made in $ values per day (hourly, or in 15-minute intervals). 
• Number of sales orders or transactions made (quantity).
• Number of customers.
• Number of items sold.

  To understand the full details of using this feature, please use our detailed guide, Import data to display in Roster Analytics.

If you wish to view your roster externally from your platform or simply have a copy printed out on hand for your team, you can easily manage this by using our Export or Print functions. 

Some key reasons you might want to use these features include:

• Export your roster to easily check shift statuses.
• Provide day sheets for your on-site management team.
• Offer a summary of the rostered shifts for sign-off by a higher admin user or manager before publishing.
• Allow your employees to easily see who they are on shift with by giving them a printout of the weekly roster for their site. 

Printing the Roster

Printing your roster allows you to keep a hard copy version of your roster on site or have it on hand for use as a day sheet for your managers. 

When printing your roster, it respects the display options you have in place, allowing you to easily view items such as weekly, day, and shift notes, along with your employees' rostered hours. 

  To learn more about this feature and how to use it, check out our guide here. 

Exporting the Roster

When exporting the roster, you can easily select which shift status to include, making it a great tool for providing a quick overview of certain shifts in an easy-to-read CSV File. 

To export your roster:

1. First, navigate to Work > Rosters and select your relevant individual roster or view all rosters under a selected Operation. 
     Hot tip: You can always use your Filters to select and view additional rosters if you decide you need to. 
2. From your roster page, select the toolbar icon > Export roster, and select the shift statuses you require. The default selections will be Published, Offered and Unpublished shifts. You can additionally select:
   • Cancelled shifts
   • Declined shifts
3. A message will appear indicating that your export is downloading. This may take a minute or so, depending on the number of rosters you have selected. Once completed, you will be able to open your download from the notification bell icon in the top right corner. 

Is there a way I can make my rosters "view only" for certain admin users? I want some of my team to be able to view shifts but not add, change, or delete them.

Unfortunately there is no way to make rosters view only within your admin user permissions. We would recommend you utilise our Print rosters function, and provide a hard copy of the roster to those in your team that you would like to restrict access to. 

I have an employee who is not appearing on my roster. Why is this?

Employee's may not appear on a roster due to various factors, including missing position, location, or changes to your rosters requirements or conditions. When searching for employee's on the roster, ensure you have the toggle to show 'Blocked employees' as they may appear once you have that selection enabled. You can learn more about this, in the Blocked employees section of this guide. 

How far in advance can I do my rosters, and can my employees see?

You can create your rosters as far in advanced as you would like. If you are using a Roster Template you can load this into your rosters for up to 12 weeks at a time. Your employees will only be able to see their shifts, once your have Published your roster. 

Can my employees see who else they are working with on the same roster?

No, your employees can currently only see their shifts when viewing their roster from the Employee App. If you would like to provide your team with visibility across who they are working with each day, consider exporting or printing a hard copy of your roster to keep on site.

Can I export roster times, shifts, comments and clocked times?

Yes, rostered times along with your employee's worked times and shift comments can all be exported from our handy Approved Shifts CSV Export. 

Do I have to roster my salaried employees?

Salaried employee's do not need to be rostered as their draft payslip will be created automatically based on the work pattern set on their position card. If you would like to provide your salaried staff with a roster, you can still do so, however their clocked hours will not appear for approval in the Approve Shifts page. Check out our comprehensive guide on Salaried positions to learn more. 

An employee has not been rostered. Can I still call them into work?

Yes, if you have not rostered an employee or need to call someone in to cover a last minute shift, you can still do this. Employee's can clock in without a rostered shift, they will appear as 'Unassigned' in your Approve Shifts page.

Can I publish a roster for a single day?

Yes, if you change your roster to 'Day' view, and select the day of the week you require, when selecting to Publish, this will only publish the day in which you are currently viewing.

I have published a roster by mistake and sent out all my shifts - can I undo?

Unfortunately, you cannot undo published shifts. However, you can quickly bulk delete the shifts and re-publish your roster. Ensure you select the 'Publish only' option, and your employee's will never know!

What's the best way for me to communicate shifts quickly to my employees?

Ensure you have either email, SMS or Push notifications enabled in your platform, employee's will receive notifications via one of these avenues when your Publish & notify or Offer shifts out.

How can I hide the employee's contact details from the roster? I don't want my admins to see this.

You can disable this feature from your Work Settings. Check our our guide here, to learn how to do this!

Can I publish a roster for a single employee/ employees like my full-time staff before I publish shifts for my casuals? 

Yes you can, use your Filters and filter by the employees in question, then publish. You can then publish or build the shifts for your casual employee's after. 

Can I publish a roster for just a single position or role first, then my other roles?

Yes you can, use your Filters and filter by the position/s in question, then publish. All other positions will remain in draft state until you are ready to publish them.

Can I enter a colon (:) or a decimal (.) in my times?

When you enter the time, you don't need to enter either! If the time is 10:30 am, simply type 1030 and your platform will anticipate the time as 10:30am.

Keep in mind you can use the colon (:) if you prefer to! 
In the case of the decimal or full stop (.) - the platform will interpret this as a portion of an hour, so 10.3 will be interpreted as 10:18 am.

Why does the time I enter keep changing? I.e 11.30 changes to 11:18 am

If you use a decimal in your typing, the platform anticipates you are using a portion of an hour and it calculates that portion for you. For example, in the above time, .3 of an hour is 18 minutes.

Please refrain from using decimals (fullstops) unless you are entering a portion of time intentionally. It is great for breaks, by entering 0.5 it will automatically add a 30 min break!