Schedule shifts and approve time off

Create a shift template, put it on your team’s calendar, then follow a time-off request from submission to approval. About three minutes.

Before you start: shift creation stays blocked until your working hours are configured. If the Shifts page shows a “Finish shifts setup” banner, follow it into Company Settings first — and add your leave types under Leave & Holidays while you’re there.

1. 1In the desktop or web dashboard, open Shifts from the sidebar and switch to the Shift Templates tab. Click New Template, name it (say, “Morning Shift”), set the Start Time and End Time, add breaks with Add Break, and click Create. The dialog warns if the shift breaks company policy.
2. 2Back on the calendar, click Assign Shifts. Pick a Shift Template, select the employees and the dates, then click Assign. If someone already has a shift on a chosen day, you choose whether to replace it or add alongside; approved leave on a date is a conflict you must acknowledge first.
3. 3Now the worker’s side — any member can do this: click Request Time Off, choose a Leave Type (each shows whether it’s paid and its days per year), pick days on the calendar, add an optional Reason, and click Submit Request. The request is now pending approval.
4. 4As a manager, pending requests reach you in two places: a “Time-off requests awaiting your review” banner at the top of the Shifts page, and rows in the Pending tab of the Approvals page. Click Approve or Reject in either one.
5. 5Only someone who holds the right permission can decide: the review banner appears only if you can assign shifts, and on Approvals, leave decisions are offered to team leaders and above for the people in their scope — seniority alone doesn’t surface the buttons.
6. 6Check the result: approved days are deducted from the person’s balance — open Leave Balances on the Shifts page to see used, remaining, and pending days — and any shifts already assigned on the approved dates are removed automatically (the request dialog warns about this up front).
7. 7Managers get a shortcut: if you can assign shifts, the Request Time Off dialog adds an Auto-approve toggle and the button becomes Approve & Record — use it to log someone’s leave without the approval round-trip.

For calendar views, templates, statistics, and compliance alerts in depth, see shifts and scheduling; for how shift hours turn out-of-shift work into overtime, see time states.