Staff Availability in the Schedule

Availability is your staff's own picture of when they can work. It does not replace an absence request — it is a preference, not a decision. But it saves you a lot of phone calls.

What staff fill in

The staff portal has a My availability card. For each day the employee picks one of three modes:

• All day – can work any time
• Part of the day – can work within a time window they set themselves, for example 17:00–23:00
• Off – cannot work that day

Staff can plan eight weeks ahead. Days already past cannot be changed.

A day with no mode set counts as available. That is the default assumption throughout — otherwise every new employee would look unavailable.

What you see in the schedule

A small dot in the top right corner of the cell. Green means the person is available that day, red that they marked themselves off. The cell also gets a faint red background on days off.

A line in the warning list when you place a clashing shift. The text says what applies:

• "The person has marked the day as off"
• "The person can only work 17:00–23:00 that day"

The warning is orange, not red

That is deliberate. Availability is a preference the employee stated — not a decision taken. You should be able to place the shift anyway when the business needs it, but you should do so deliberately and preferably after a conversation.

Approved absence is the opposite: a decision, and therefore red. If both absence and an availability clash fall on the same day, only the red one is shown — the absence is what actually applies.

Neither of them stops you from publishing.

The AI suggestion respects availability

When you generate an AI schedule suggestion, the model gets staff availability day by day, and is instructed not to schedule anyone who marked themselves off. Approved absence is an absolute rule on top of that: the day is skipped entirely rather than filled.

That makes availability one of the most profitable things you can ask staff to fill in. Without it the AI guesses.

Copying, templates and AI suggestions also check availability in the preview notice before shifts are written — so you see the clashes before you have created thirty shifts.

Availability is not absence

The difference is worth making clear to staff:

Anyone who wants to be definitely off should request absence, not merely mark the day as off in availability.

Getting staff to use it

• Ask them to update weekly, ideally when you publish the next period
• Explain that eight weeks are open. Many assume only the published period can be planned
• Be clear that it is a preference. An employee who thinks "off" is binding will be disappointed; one who understands you are balancing the whole team will not
• Use it. If you never follow availability, they stop filling it in

Common questions

Does everyone have to fill it in? No. An empty calendar means available, and works exactly as before.

Can I fill it in for someone? No, availability belongs to the employee. You can however register absence for someone straight from the schedule cell.

Do I see why someone is off? No. Availability carries no reason, only the mode. Absence carries a type — holiday, sick, childcare — and that you do see.