7shifts 101: Availability
In 7shifts, Availability allows employees to communicate preferred work hours and recurring conflicts to managers.
In this article, we'll dive into the different types of availability and provide you with the resources needed so you can manage your employees' scheduling needs.
Mobile: More menu icon > Availability.
Web: Schedule > Availability.
Things to Know
Important: For employees assigned to multiple locations, admins must enable Allow submissions for published schedules within Company Settings to allow availability submissions.
- Admins manage availability settings for the account under Settings, then Company Settings, and selecting Availability.
- An employee's availability profile applies automatically to all assigned locations; separate availability profiles for individual locations are not supported.
- Accounts can configure Availability Reasons to manage both recurring and temporary availability constraints.
Availability vs. Time Off
7shifts distinguishes between regular scheduling preferences and specific absence requests using separate workflows:
- Availability defines the general times and days an employee can or cannot work on a regular basis to help managers build consistent schedules around recurring commitments.
- Time Off specifies individual dates or periods when an employee requests to be away from work for one-off events. For more information, see the Time Off Guide.
Recurring vs. Temporary Availability
Employees can communicate long-term or short-term scheduling constraints depending on the expected duration of the conflict:
- Recurring Availability remains ongoing and applies automatically to all future and past weeks on the Schedule page.
-
Temporary Availability applies only to a designated date range and completely overrides recurring availability rules for those specific dates. Outside of the temporary availability timeframe, the schedule automatically reverts to the recurring availability profile.
Note: Admins must manually enable the temporary availability function under Company Settings within the Availability tab. If this setting is disabled, employees can only submit recurring availability requests.
Managing Recurring Availability Updates
7shifts allows only one active recurring availability profile per user at any time. When a user submits an updated recurring availability request, the submission modifies the existing recurring availability profile rather than creating a secondary ruleset.
Important: If a manager declines an updated recurring availability request, the system marks the entire recurring availability profile as Declined. This action removes the previous recurring availability rules from the schedule, resulting in the employee to appear completely available for every day of the week.
To resolve a declined status and apply the correct scheduling rules, accounts can use two different methods:
- The employee can edit and re-submit the recurring availability request for a manager to review and approve.
- A manager with the Can manage other employees' availability permission can manually update the recurring availability profile directly and save the changes.
Next Steps
After finalizing availability settings and adjusting profiles, managers can monitor the schedule builder page to ensure coverage matches weekly labor requirements.