Create a shift template

What this achieves

A shift template is a reusable definition of one kind of shift — its times, its break, and what it requires of whoever works it. Rosters are built by placing templates onto days rather than by typing times repeatedly.

Required role: Administrator.

Before you start

Templates can require a role and specific skills. Those are drawn from your organization’s job architecture and skill library, so define the skills you intend to require before you build templates around them.

Steps

Go to Time & Attendance → Shift Templates.
Select New template.
Enter a name.
Set the Start and End times.
Set the Break (min).
Choose a Color.
Choose the Required role, or leave it as No specific role.
Choose the Required skills, if the shift needs them.
Choose the Differential type and its Value.
Save the template.

Differential

A differential is extra pay attached to working this kind of shift, such as a night or weekend premium.

Option	Description
None	No premium attached to this shift.
Percentage	A premium expressed as a percentage.
Fixed	A premium expressed as a fixed amount.

Example: HC Corp UK Ltd attaches a percentage differential to its overnight warehouse template and none to the standard day shift.

Role and skills

Required role and Required skills describe who the shift needs, and they are what let coverage rules check whether a roster is genuinely staffed rather than merely full.

A shift filled by someone without the required skill is a headcount that will not do the work. Setting requirements here is what makes that visible on the board.

Example: a warehouse template at HC Corp UK Ltd requiring a forklift skill means the board can tell a covered shift from one filled by someone who cannot operate the equipment.

Colour

Colour is how a roster reads at a glance. Give shift types that must not be confused clearly different colours — a night shift and a day shift in similar tones is a mistake somebody will make on the board.

Deleting a template

Deleting a template does not affect shifts already created from it. Those shifts keep their times and settings; you lose only the ability to create more from that definition.

That makes deletion safe for a template you have stopped using, and it means deletion is not a way to remove shifts already on a roster.

What happens next

Templates are the building blocks for everything above them. A shift pattern sequences templates into a repeating rotation, and the schedule board creates open shifts from a template for you to drag onto employees. Coverage rules then read the role and skills you set here when they check staffing.