Build and Publish Your First Schedule

Building and publishing your first schedule in 7shifts replaces your spreadsheet, puts shift information directly in your team's hands via the mobile app, and gives you a real-time view of labor costs before the week begins.

Things to know

• Schedules in 7shifts are organized by department. Build one department's schedule at a time and start with the one you manage most directly.
• Shifts in draft mode appear in light yellow and aren't visible to Employees until published.
• Each department publishes independently. You can publish the Kitchen schedule even if the Front of House schedule isn't ready yet.
• Publishing sends a notification to every Employee on that schedule via push notification if they have the app installed, or via email if they don't. Employees are notified the moment you publish.
• Managers will need the "Can manage schedules" permission to build and publish a schedule. Admins have this access by default.

Before you begin

• Employees need department and role assignments before they appear in the schedule builder. See Assign Employees to Departments and Roles
• Confirm your core staff have activated their accounts before publishing. If activation isn't complete, see Send 7shifts Invites and Confirm Employee App Activation if activation isn't complete.

Build your schedule

1. In the left navigation bar, select Schedule.
2. Use the location filter at the top of the page to select the location you're scheduling.
3. Use the department filter to select the department you're scheduling first.
4. Use the date navigation to move to the week you want to schedule.
5. Your Employees are listed in the leftmost column. Click on an empty shift space (the + cell) at the intersection of an Employee's row and the day you want to schedule them.
6. Enter the shift start time, end time, and confirm the role for this shift. Click Save.
7. Repeat steps 5–6 for each shift in this department's schedule.
8. Review the completed schedule. Shifts flagged with a warning indicator signal issues like overtime risk, availability conflict, or a labor compliance exception. Click any warning to see the specific issue and the resolution options available.
9. Resolve any flagged warnings before publishing.

Publish your schedule

1. Review your draft shifts (in light yellow) one final time. Confirm all shifts are assigned to the correct Employees, roles, and days:
   
2. Click Publish Schedule at the top right of the schedule page.
3. Select your notification preference:
   • Notify everyone: All scheduled Employees immediately receive an SMS, push notification, and email with their weekly shifts.
   • Notify only those with changes: Only Employees whose shifts have been edited since the last publish receive a notification. This option appears only after the schedule has been published at least once.
     Note: The Notify only those with changes option appears only after the schedule has been published at least once. For your first publish, select Notify everyone.
   • Don't notify anyone: Shifts go live silently, without notifying staff.
4. Click Publish Now. Published shifts will turn white.
5. To print the schedule, click the tool icon and select Print. You can filter by location, department, role, or individual employee, and download a PDF if you prefer a digital copy.

Troubleshooting

An employee doesn't appear in the staff list when building the schedule
The employee is missing a department or role assignment for the department being scheduled. Go to Team, open the Employee's profile, select the Assignments tab, and add the correct department and role. Return to the schedule builder and they'll appear.

An employee didn't receive a notification after the schedule was published
The employee may not have activated their 7shifts account, or may not have notifications enabled on their device. Confirm the Employee's activation status on the Team page and ask them to enable push notifications in their phone settings for the 7shifts app. 

Labor cost shown on the schedule is zero or unexpectedly high
Labor cost calculations need wage data on employee profiles or roles. To fix it now, update the Wages and Payment tab within an employee profile. The schedule's cost summaries will update immediately. Wages, labor targets, and cost reporting are covered in Phase 3: Run your business. If this isn't blocking your first publish, you can set wages there.

You need to make changes to a published schedule
Published schedules can be edited at any time. Return to the Schedule page, make your changes directly to the published shifts, then click Publish Schedule again. Use the Notify only those with changes option to alert only the employees whose shifts were affected.

You need to add a break to an employee's shift
Open the shift from the Schedule page, click + Add break, select a break type from the dropdown, and optionally set a start time. Click Save when done. Break types are set up by Admins under Settings > Company Settings > Labor & Compliance > Breaks.Adding and editing scheduled breaks is only possible in the web app. For the full setup and scheduling steps, see Scheduled Breaks. If you want breaks to be automatically enforced through 7punches rather than manually added to shifts, see Enforced Breaks.

What's next

Congrats! Your first schedule is live 🎉 Your team has their shifts, and Phase 2 is complete. Below is a 7shifts Product Overview video so that you can further familiarize with the various areas in 7shifts:

Your next step is Connect the Stack: Time Clocking and Labor Reports. Phase 3 connects 7shifts to your payroll workflow and confirms time tracking is running accurately.

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