Scheduling Board for Staff Planning

The Scheduling Board shows staff × weekdays at a glance — across every event running that week. Instead of planning shift by shift inside a single event, you immediately see who's working where, and you can reassign anyone with a drag.

The video shows how you create and staff shifts on an event and plan the whole week on the dispatch board.

Play video4:28

You’ll find the individual steps written out below as well.

Where to find the board

1. Open Staff in the left navigation.
2. Switch to the Shift Plan tab.

Unlike the shift plan inside an event (which only shows that event's shifts and is where you create and price jobs), the Scheduling Board shows every staff member across all events of the visible week at once.

Reading the board

• Rows are your staff members, columns are the seven weekdays.
• The arrow icons next to the period label (e.g. “Wk 34 | Aug 18 – Aug 24”) step one week back or forward. In the month view the same arrows move a whole month.
• Every shift tile carries a colored dot linking it to its event. The Events this week legend above the board maps the colors.
• When more than one event runs that week, the filter chips (All + event names) narrow the board down to a single event.
• The board only shows events that are still going ahead. Cancelled events and declined requests appear neither as a filter chip nor in the legend nor as a shift tile — open requests do, because they are still real work.

Month view: the whole month, and the shifts nobody has taken

The toggle in the top-right of the board switches between Week and Month. It always opens on Week, so nothing about your usual view changes until you switch.

The month view answers two questions the weekly grid cannot: “How full is this month?” and “Which shifts has nobody taken yet?” In the weekly grid every row is a person — a shift with nobody assigned has no row there and stays invisible.

• The month shows six week rows, Monday first. Days from the previous and next month sit faded at the edges, but their shifts still count.
• Each shift is a tile inside its day, in chronological order: start time, name, and the staffing count 2/3 — two of three people needed.
• The colored dot links the shift to its event just like in the week; for a shift without an event it is the job's color.
• When a day holds more than three shifts, +2 more appears underneath.
• Cancelled events and declined requests stay out here too — the same rule as in the week.

Finding open shifts

Tiles are colored by staffing. The Staffing legend above the grid names the three levels:

The Open shifts only toggle above the grid hides every fully staffed shift. What remains is exactly the work still waiting to be assigned. The toggle stays on while you page through months.

From the month back into the week

Clicking a day — or +2 more — switches to Week, landing on exactly that day's week. The month is the overview; the week stays the surface for reassigning and creating.

On a phone an agenda list replaces the grid: every day of the month that has shifts, listed in chronological order.

Reassigning a shift by drag and drop

1. Grab a shift tile and drag it onto the cell of the staff member you want — on the same day. Dragging to another weekday isn't possible; the board shows "Shifts can't be dragged to another day" instead.
2. Drop the tile on a valid cell and the shift is reassigned immediately.
3. If the target person has a vacation or overlap conflict that day, a Confirm reassignment dialog opens first with the conflict details. Click Reassign to proceed anyway, or Cancel to keep the original assignment.
4. You don't have to drag: click the small swap icon in the top-right corner of the tile (always visible on touch devices) and pick the target person from the Reassign to … list.

Creating a shift directly on the board

1. Hover an empty cell — a plus icon appears in the top-right corner.
2. Click it to open the Add shift dialog. If there are already open, unfilled shifts that day, you can assign the person straight to one of them (Open shifts on this day section, Assign button).
3. Otherwise, fill in Name, Start Time, and End Time under New shift and click Create shift — the shift is created directly for this person and day, without an event assignment.
4. For a full shift with an event assignment, click New Shift in the top-right of the board instead. The larger dialog requires selecting an event and offers all the fields from the event-level shift planning.

Copy week: carry the plan over to the following weeks

If you plan the same shifts every week, for example a lunch service Monday to Friday with the same people, you don't have to create them again each week. Plan one week and copy it.

1. In the Week view, go to the week you want to use as the template.
2. Click Copy week in the top-right.
3. Enter how many following weeks to copy to (1 to 12). The target calendar weeks and dates are shown below.
4. Keep Copy assigned people ticked if the assigned people should come along. Without it, only the shifts are created and the slots stay open.
5. Keep Skip public holidays ticked if no shift should be created on public holidays. The holidays you set up for the workspace in the settings apply.
6. Check the preview and click Copy.

The preview recalculates with every change and creates nothing yet. It shows you:

• how many shifts will be created,
• which ones are skipped and why: Public holiday or Already exists (the shift is already in the target week, for example because you copied the same week before),
• which people are not assigned and why: Vacation (approved vacation that day) or Overlaps own shift. The shift is still created, only the slot stays open,
• as a note only, who has marked the day as unavailable. These people are still assigned.

What applies when copying:

• Only shifts without an event are copied. Event shifts stay with their event, use Duplicate event for those. The dialog tells you how many there are that week.
• Every copy lands on the same weekday at the same time of day, also across the clock change. A night shift from Friday 22:00 to Saturday 02:00 stays a night shift.
• Job, required headcount, location, person in charge, hourly rate, staffing cost rows and the self sign-up settings come along.
• Assigned people keep their status: whoever confirmed is confirmed on the copy too, whoever still has to confirm still has to. Sick notes, declines and applications are not copied.
• At most 500 new shifts per run.
• Every assigned person gets one phone notification, for example “5 new shifts from 21 Oct to 15 Nov.”, not one email per shift. People without notifications switched on see the shifts in the app and in their calendar subscription.

After copying, the board stays on the template week. Use the arrows to look at the new weeks.

Undoing a copy

Right after copying, the message at the bottom shows an Undo button. Later you find it in the Copy week dialog under Undo last copy; there Univents asks you once more, showing how many shifts in which calendar weeks will be deleted. This removes exactly the shifts of that run, including assignments and staffing cost rows. The people affected get one bundled notification, no cancellation email.

Undo only works as long as none of the copied shifts has been changed. If one of them has been reassigned, confirmed, declined or someone has logged time on it, you see “Some shifts were already edited, please delete them individually.”

Editing a shift straight from the list

Next to Shift Plan sits the All Shifts tab. It lists every shift in the workspace with its event, start, end, staffing level and status — including the ones not tied to any event (filter Without Event).

1. Click a row. The same editing panel opens that you know from the event.
2. There you change the name, start and end, the required headcount, address, person in charge, notes and the pricing rows.
3. In the same dialog you assign people, duplicate the shift or delete it.
4. After saving, the new state is in the list right away, staffing level included.

Anyone without permission to edit events can still read the list but cannot change anything.

Live staffing cost

Below the board, the Planned staffing cost bar totals every planned shift in the visible week.

• Each event gets its own row with hours and cost; shifts without an event are grouped under No event.
• The week's Total is shown in the top-right of the bar.
• The bar refreshes automatically after every reassignment or new shift — a row whose amount changed briefly flashes green.

This cost figure is calculated from the hourly rates (payroll products) linked to your staff — see Creating & configuring staff for details.

Frequently asked questions

How is the Scheduling Board different from the shift plan inside an event? The shift plan inside an event only shows that event's shifts and is where you create and price jobs. The Scheduling Board under Staff > Shift Plan instead shows every staff member across all events of a week — useful for spotting overlaps and reassigning quickly. See Creating and Pricing Shifts & Jobs for job and shift creation.

Why does a shift show in the month view but not in the week? Because nobody is assigned to it yet. The weekly grid has one row per staff member, so a shift without a person has nowhere to go. The month view lists shifts per day and therefore shows it — as 0/3 in the warning color. Click the day to assign someone in the week.

Why can't I drag a shift? Reassigning by drag and drop requires the Events → Edit or Staff → Edit permission from the role matrix. Without it, the board still shows the week's schedule, but dragging and the swap button are disabled.

Why don't I see the “Copy week” button? It only shows in the Week view, not in the month. Your role also needs Create and Edit in the Staff module (or both in the Events module). Edit is needed because the staffing cost rows of the shifts are copied too. Undoing additionally requires Delete.

I don't see the cost bar or availability colors — what's missing? Both layers require the Staff → Create permission. Without it, the grid with the shifts stays fully usable, only the cost bar and the availability tint stay hidden.

Why is a cell tinted green or red when there's no vacation entered? Green and red come from each staff member's availability settings (preferred / unavailable), not from the vacation calendar. Vacation is shown separately as a green Vacation badge. See Time Tracking & Leave Management for managing availability and leave.