Give up or swap a shift
For employees - hand a shift back as an open shift, or ask a colleague to take it, depending on what your company allows.
This page is for employees, and for planners who want to know what the options do. Your company chooses one of two ways to hand back a shift. An administrator sets it with Allow unassignment in the Planning settings (see Configuration).
| Your company allows unassignment | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Yes | I Am Unavailable: give the shift back until a deadline. It becomes an open shift anyone qualified can take. |
| No (the starting setting) | Ask to Switch: keep the shift until a colleague takes it over. |
You can only use either on your own published, upcoming shifts.
How the two ways work#
[planning-switch-workflow]
Give a shift back: I Am Unavailable#
- Open Planning → My Planning and open the shift.
- Press I Am Unavailable.
- Confirm "This shift becomes open again and someone else may take it. Continue?"
The shift becomes an open shift. The chatter says "Name is no longer available; this is now an open shift." Planners see it in Open Shifts; other qualified people can take it.
The button is shown only until the deadline: your company sets how many days before the start (Unassignment Deadline, 1 day at first). After the deadline you see no button, and a direct attempt gives "It is too late to unassign yourself: the deadline was n day(s) before the shift." Other messages: "Unassigning yourself is not allowed in this company.", "You can only unassign yourself from your own shifts." and "Only upcoming published shifts can be unassigned."
[planning-own-shift-form]
Ask a colleague to take your shift: Ask to Switch#
- Open your shift and press Ask to Switch.
- The shift stays yours, but now shows Switch Requested. A banner says "The assigned employee has asked someone else to take this shift."
- Nobody is emailed. Colleagues who hold the role, are free and may see the shift can take it from the card or the form with I Take It, and from their personal schedule link, where it is marked "Switch offered by Name". The dashboard counts it under Switch requests.
- The first colleague to press I Take It takes over. The chatter says "New name took over this shift from Old name."
- If you change your mind, press Cancel Switch Request. You can cancel your own request; a planner can cancel any.
Messages: "You cannot ask to switch this shift.", "Nobody has asked to switch this shift.", "This is already your shift." and "You can only cancel your own switch request."
Note
A switch request does not swap two shifts in one step. To exchange shifts with a named colleague, ask a planner to change both.
What a planner sees#
- The shift keeps its person while a switch is requested. The schedule shows an exchange icon; the card says "The employee asked to switch."; the filter Switch Requested lists them.
- After a take-over or a hand-back, the shift stays Published; planners do not need to publish again.