Copy Previous Week's Schedule – with Conflict Handling
Copying a previous week is the fastest way to build next week's schedule. A typical restaurant has similar staffing week to week – copy and adjust instead of building from scratch.
Step by step:
- Open Staff → Schedule
- Navigate to the week you want to fill (use arrows or week picker)
- Click Copy week in the toolbar
- Choose source week (usually previous week, but any of the last 12 weeks works)
- Choose target week (if different from current)
- Click Copy
The system copies all shifts with:
- Same people
- Same times
- Same stations
- Same breaks
- Same notes
Shifts marked as draft or published are all copied. Copies are always drafts – you must actively publish.
Copy multiple weeks at once:
Need to fill an entire month in advance? Select the target area as multiple consecutive weeks.
- Click Copy week
- Choose source week
- In the Target week field, select a week or a range (e.g. "Week 18–22")
- The system copies the source week's pattern to each target week
Conflict handling – how the system resolves issues automatically:
When you copy shifts, some may conflict with new conditions. The system flags this immediately after copying in a summary view:
| Conflict type | How the system handles it |
|---|---|
| Approved absence | Shifts on days with vacation/sick/VAB are marked with red warning. You choose: skip, replace with another person, or shorten the shift |
| Deactivated employee | Shifts assigned to a since-removed person are marked as "missing person" – assign someone else |
| Holiday that didn't exist last week | Shifts now colliding with major holidays (Christmas, New Year, Midsummer) are flagged – OB changes automatically, but you can choose to close instead |
| Salary change | If an employee's employment rate or hourly rate has changed, new cost is shown for the shift |
| Changed competency | Person moved to another station is warned about |
Resolving conflicts:
- When the warning list appears, click each row
- Choose action: Move shift, change person, shorten, or mark OK anyway
- The system updates the schedule
Partial copy – only selected days or people:
Sometimes you only want to copy parts of the previous week.
- Click Copy week and choose Custom
- Select days – e.g. only Monday–Thursday (weekend is different)
- Select people – e.g. only kitchen team, not servers
- Click Copy selected
Useful when:
- Weekend differs from weekdays (event on Friday, wedding Saturday)
- Some employees have varying schedules while others are stable
- You want to build weekdays from copy, weekend from scratch
Tips for efficient scheduling:
- Build a reference week first – perfect one week and use it as the basis for the rest
- Copy, adjust, publish – always in that order
- Check absence calendar before copying – approved vacation weeks create many conflicts
- Use week templates for seasons – long-term patterns work better as templates
- Don't copy holidays straight over – Christmas/Easter/Midsummer often have different staffing than normal weeks
This feature is part of Vendion Staff.
Curious how it looks in practice? Read more about the product or book a short demo.
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