The Self-scheduling tool allows employees to schedule themselves for shifts that they want to work. This process begins with the User creating a range of Open shifts within the Schedule, and then marking them as Self-scheduling shifts to ensure that they can be picked up.

In this article, we'll look at the following on Self-scheduling:

Why use Self-scheduling

Self-scheduling criteria

Creating Self-scheduling shifts

Advanced selection

The major benefit for companies using Self-scheduling is that it saves them time by allowing the employees to shape their own schedule. So not only does this benefit the User, but also gives employees a level of empowerment and control over when and where they'll work.

You'll need to select your Self-scheduling criteria to ensure that those who self-schedule meet the requirements of the shift. Let's look at how you can do this.

Before creating Open shifts for Self-scheduling, it's important that you define your criteria to ensure that only employees who are competent enough to undertake a shift can schedule for it. This is managed in eTime Xpress.

In eTime Xpress, head to Visual Scheduler > File > Self-Scheduling Options. In Self-Scheduling options, you're able to define a range of criteria that determines the shifts an employee can schedule on to, and the Self-scheduling display.

Let's break down each section of the Self-Scheduling Options.

General allows you to define the shift submissions. You can change the following to suit your requirements:

Save Options allows you to define when you choose to 'ignore' a list of validations by selecting either Yes or No. For example, if you choose Y (Yes), that means that you want the system to ignore this validation.

See the list of validations:

We strongly encourage that you pay close attention when setting up validations.

Search Filters allow you to define filters to search for specific shifts. We'll use an example that will break down multiple filters per Customer.

Note: You can also have a filter for All Shifts, rather than just search for specific shifts.

Here's an example of how the filter will look in Team Xpress. If you've created multiple filters, these will appear in dropdown format.

Shift Grouping allows the User to define fields in which they want to group shifts by. This prevents the same shifts showing when an employee in trying to self-schedule.

For example, some companies may create 10 shifts at the exact same location, at the same time. This will prevent that shift from showing 10 times when employee's try to self-schedule, meaning that the shift will only show once.

Display relates to the shift fields that are visible to the employee when they search for Self-scheduling shifts.

Sort relates to the order in which the shifts are categorized. These can either be setup using A (Ascending) or D (Descending) order.

For example, if Date was your first option, and you chose it in Ascending order, then when an employee searches for shifts, they will show with the latest date first. For shifts that are on the same day, then it will revert to the second Sort selection, which is Scheduled Start time.

The first step to creating shifts for Self-scheduling is to create Open shifts. When creating the shifts you want for Self-scheduling, you'll need to ensure the Employee Name is set to Open.

If you're creating multiple of the same Open shifts, we encourage that you use the repeating shifts or Shift Templates tools.

For the system to recognize that a shift is for Self-scheduling, you must ensure you check the Self-scheduling flag in the shift panel. This flag will be in the Publish Options section of your shift panel.

Note: If you don't see this option, please visit your shift form to ensure that it's made visible.

Rather than check every Self-scheduling flag singularly, you can update multiple shifts for Self-scheduling at one time.

You can add the Self-scheduling flag and Self-scheduling start and end times, and update all shifts at once.

Note: This can only be used for shifts that require the same setup.

You can set up some employees to have advanced selection by creating a rule for Self-scheduling start time in Branch rules in eTime Xpress. This can be useful in ensuring that favored or senior employees get priority selection ahead of all other employees.

For more information on Self-scheduling, please Contact Support now!