For shift work

Shift scheduling software for teams that run in shifts: mornings, nights, rotations and coverage

A shift in InShift is a type with a name, a start and an end, the days it runs and a color, placed on a person with one click and published to their phone. Rotations are laid out week by week and read on the month view, nights past midnight count as one shift, and the premiums for night hours and overtime are rules you set once. Every frame is the live demo company.

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What a shift is here

Every location keeps its own shift types under “Shift types”: “Morning 08:00–16:00”, “Night 22:00–06:00”, or whatever your operation calls them, each with the days of the week it runs, a “Shift colour” and a “Shift price” for the teams that pay by the shift. The planner offers a day’s types from the cell menu, and a one-off is a “Custom shift” with its own hours. A shift that ends after midnight is entered as it is, 22:00 to 06:00, and counts as one shift on the date it starts.

InShift does not generate rotations from a formula. The manager lays the first cycle out from the shift types, “Copy last week” carries a fixed week forward, and the “Month” view shows the whole pattern as it will be worked. What the software adds is everything around the placement: a conflict flagged as it happens, hours and pay next to each name, coverage counted per shift, the night and the overtime paid by rule, and every published shift on the person’s phone with a push.

Shift types

Set the shifts once, per location, with the days each one runs

The location card holds the shift types. Each has a name, a start and an end, a row of day chips from Monday to Sunday, a color and a price. The planner then offers only the types that run on that day, so a Saturday cell never suggests the Monday-to-Friday office shift. Positions with hours of their own get their own types on the same card.

  • “Add shift type”: the name, the times, the days, the color, and the “Shift price” if the team is paid per shift
  • A type with the end before the start is a night shift: 22:00–06:00 is one shift, counted on the day it starts
  • Twelve-hour shifts are one type each: “Day 06:00–18:00” and “Night 18:00–06:00”
  • Positions on the card: reception, the back office, the line, each with types of its own where the hours differ
  • The same types on the manager’s phone, in the planner’s columns
Creating a location and its shift types

The month

The rotation is read on the month view, a letter per shift

For one location the “Month” view puts every person in a row and a colored letter in each day’s cell: M, E, N, whatever the first letter of the type is. A rotating pattern shows itself as a diagonal, a fixed week as stripes, and a gap as a white cell. Under each name the hours and pay for the month, at the end of the row the number of shifts, so an operator with 22 shifts and one with 14 are spotted before payroll asks.

  • 174 shifts for the month on one screen, by department
  • The hours and pay per person from the placed shifts, night and overtime rules included
  • A person’s shifts for the month at the end of the row: 22 against 14 is visible at once
  • “Year”: twelve months of the location on one screen, the scheduled days marked
Placing, moving and removing shifts

A 2-2-3 rotation on twelve-hour shifts, as it goes into the planner

The pattern American plants and control rooms call the Pitman or Panama schedule: two on, two off, three on, then the reverse. Four crews, two shift types, every day and every night covered. Here are two weeks of day shifts for one crew, with the cycle starting on a Monday.

SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
Week 1offDDoffoffDD
Week 2DoffoffDDoffoff

D is “Day 06:00–18:00”. Crew B works the days Crew A has off, Crews C and D do the same on “Night 18:00–06:00”, and after two weeks days and nights swap: a 28-day cycle, 84 hours per person every two weeks, an average of 42 a week. The first two weeks are placed by hand from the two types, the next two are the same with the crews swapped, and the “Month” view shows the diagonal.

The week

A fixed week is copied forward, and only the differences are edited

For the teams whose week repeats, “Copy last week” brings every shift of the previous week into the next one as drafts: “39 shift(s) will be copied as drafts. Your team won’t see them until you publish.” The manager moves the few that change, swaps a name where someone is off, and presses “Publish”. A shift landing on a person already working gets “Time conflict: already working 08:00–16:00 (Morning)” on the spot.

  • Drafts are visible only to the manager; the team sees the week when it is published
  • A shift copied onto a person already working those hours is skipped and counted: “Copied 39 shift(s), skipped 2 due to overlaps”
  • The number of shifts under each day, the hours and pay under each name
  • “Print” for the wall and “Download Excel” with a “Coverage” sheet
Copying the week

Coverage

The list view counts heads per shift, day by day

The “List” view turns the same schedule around: a row per date, a column per shift type, and in each cell the people on that shift with their photos. An empty slot with a plus is a shift nobody is on yet. It is the view for a shift supervisor who thinks in “three on the morning, two on the night” rather than in names.

  • “Morning”, “Midday”, “Evening” and “Custom shift” columns; Sunday in red
  • A click on the plus opens the list of people for that shift and date
  • On the “Dashboard”, “Week ahead” shows shifts and hours per day with “gaps: 1” where a shift still has nobody
  • In the manager’s app, the day view groups the same people “By location” with their shift times
Shifts with nobody on them

Open shifts

A shift with nobody on it goes out to the team, with the headcount you need

“Open shift” in the planner creates a shift without a name: a position or “Any position”, a shift type, the days, and “How many people needed”. With “Offer to the team” ticked, matching people see it in the app once the schedule is published and tap “I want it”; the manager picks from the volunteers, the rest hear “The shift went to someone else”. Without the tick it is simply a marked gap until someone is placed.

  • Several days at once: the same open shift on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in one dialog
  • “How many people needed”: 2 or 3 for a shift that runs on a crew
  • “Requests, manager picks”: the rule set once in “Request rules”
  • “Open shifts awaiting claims: 6” on the dashboard until they are filled
How open shifts work

Nights and overtime

The night and the overtime are paid by rule, from the same shifts

The “Premiums” tab of “Payroll” holds the rules that turn shift hours into money. “Night hours” pays a percentage on top for the hours inside a window, 20:00 to 06:00 in the demo at +20%. “Over the daily norm” pays the hours past a threshold at a multiplier, over 8 h at ×1.5; “Flat overtime pay” is the same with a fixed amount. “Holiday work” pays the days from your own calendar at a multiplier. A rule applies from the date you pick and never rewrites a month already closed.

  • “Per-shift bonus”: a fixed amount for every shift worked, whatever its length
  • “Second shift in a day” and “Shift at another location”: fixed amounts for the circumstances of a shift
  • Each person’s pay term is “Per hour”, “Per shift”, “Monthly salary” or “Shift price”, for the company, a job position or one person
  • “Accruals” shows shifts, hours, rate, premiums and the total per person; “Export to Excel” for whoever runs payroll
Pay from shifts in detail

More screens

Six more screens from the same demo

The panel as it is, with the demo company’s data.

  • The “Week”: a colored shift per cell, the count per day, the hours and pay per name.
  • The “Year”: twelve months of the location on one screen.
  • “All locations”: the plant, the warehouse and the office as blocks, each with its own crews.
  • “Add Employee”: the primary position and the positions the person can cover, for the substitute search.
  • “Pay”: a term per person, by the hour, per shift, a monthly salary or the shift price.
  • “Print”: this location or all of them, or “Download Excel” with a sheet of shifts and a sheet of coverage.

What the shift carries with it

Once a shift is placed, the rest follows without a second entry anywhere.

The phone

The person gets “You are on this shift” with the date, the time and the location, “Shift starts soon” before it begins, and “Shift time changed” or “Shift moved” if it moves.

The hours

Scheduled hours per person for the week and the month, night hours inside the window counted apart, overtime past the daily norm marked.

The money

Hours times the rate, or the shift’s price, or a share of a monthly salary; the premiums on top, line by line in “Accruals”.

The cover

A person who cannot make it offers the shift in the app; a coworker takes it; the manager approves; the schedule updates itself.

The record

Who is looking for cover, who took the shift, which open shift was confirmed: the “Activity” feed on the dashboard, and “Substitutions” counted for the month.

The assistant

Claude or ChatGPT with an API key reads the same shifts: who is on tonight, whether anyone has six days in a row, what the night crew accrued.

A rotation set up in an afternoon

  1. 1

    The location and its shift types

    The site, then “Add shift type” for each shift it runs: “Day 06:00–18:00”, “Night 18:00–06:00”, or three eights. The days each type runs, a color, a price if you pay per shift.

  2. 2

    The people, with their position

    “Add multiple” with the names from your sheet, a job position and the location for each. A crew is easiest as a department: the planner groups by it and filters by it.

  3. 3

    The first cycle, by hand

    Place the first one or two weeks from the shift types; the month view shows the pattern as you go, and the hours and pay under each name tell you it is balanced.

  4. 4

    Premiums, then “Publish”

    “Night hours”, “Over the daily norm” and “Holiday work” in “Premiums”, from the first day of the cycle. Then “Publish”: every crew gets its shifts on the phone, and the next cycle is the same moves again.

Patterns, calculators and guides

12 hour shift patterns →

4 on 4 off, Panama (2-2-3), DuPont and continental compared, and why each averages 42 hours a week.

4 on 4 off calculator →

Which days you work, hours and pay for any month of the pattern. No sign-up.

Pitman schedule calculator →

The 2-2-3 rotation for four crews, fixed or rotating days and nights: each crew’s calendar and hours.

DuPont schedule calculator →

Four crews on a four-week cycle of days, nights and a full week off, with weekly hours and overtime.

Shift schedule templates →

Pitman 2-2-3, DuPont and a rotating 8-hour schedule in Excel, coverage rows included.

Time card calculator →

Time in and out with AM/PM, minus lunch: hours, decimal hours, overtime and pay for the week. No sign-up.

Employee scheduling software →

The whole system for a small business: requests, payroll, locations, the app.

The planner in detail →

Week, month, year and list views, drafts and publishing, the print and the Excel.

Frequently asked questions

Does the software generate the rotation automatically?▾

No. You place the first cycle from the shift types by hand, the “Month” view shows the pattern, “Copy last week” carries a fixed week forward, and the next cycle is the same moves. What the software does on its own is flag conflicts, count hours and pay, count coverage per shift and put every published shift on the person’s phone.

How is a night shift that crosses midnight handled?▾

It is entered as it is, 22:00 to 06:00, and counted as one shift on the date it starts. The hours inside the “Night hours” window are paid with the premium you set, and the timesheet shows them apart from the day hours.

Can I schedule a 24-hour shift?▾

Not as one shift: a type whose end equals its start is read as a day off marker. A 24-hour post is scheduled as two twelve-hour shifts, “Day 06:00–18:00” and “Night 18:00–06:00”, which is also how the hours and the night premium come out right.

How is overtime paid?▾

Through a rule in “Premiums”: “Over the daily norm” pays the hours past a threshold, over 8 hours for example, at a multiplier such as ×1.5, and “Flat overtime pay” does the same with a fixed amount. The rule applies to the whole company from a date you pick. InShift does not enforce labor law on its own; the thresholds and multipliers are yours.

How do I make sure every shift has enough people?▾

The “List” view shows the people on each shift type per day and an empty slot where someone is missing; “Week ahead” on the dashboard counts the gaps per day; an open shift carries “How many people needed” and stays on the dashboard as awaiting claims until it is filled.

Can I schedule crews rather than individuals?▾

People are scheduled one by one, and a crew is a department: the planner groups the rows by it and filters by it, so a crew’s week is placed as one block of rows. Departments are a way to read the schedule; the rights come from roles.

What if someone cannot make their shift?▾

They offer it in the app to a specific coworker or to everyone available that day; a coworker takes it, the manager approves, and the schedule updates itself with the cover recorded. The manager can also place a substitute from the planner’s “Substitution” row.

Is there a time clock for the shifts?▾

Yes, with “Time tracking”, which comes with Basic at no extra charge: a tablet by the door shows a code, the person scans it with the app or types a staff number and a PIN, and the “Time tracking” board shows who is on site, on break and expected. Pay still comes from the published shifts, with the clocked hours in their own column next to them.

Lay out the first cycle today

Two shift types, the crews, the first two weeks. The month view will show you whether it is balanced before the team sees it.

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