How to ask employees to accept shifts#

For: Admin You’ll need: Owner or Admin role.

You can ask employees to accept or decline each shift you publish — a lightweight confirmation that they’ve seen the shift and will be there. It’s off by default; turn it on for the whole company.

Open the company settings#

  1. Open the account dropdown (top-right) and click ‘Settings’.

  2. In the right column, find the ‘Attendance’ section.

Turn on shift acceptance#

  • ‘Require shift acceptance’ — when on, every employee assigned to a published shift is asked to accept or decline it. Their answer (‘Pending’, ‘Accepted’, or ‘Declined’) shows next to their name on the shift.

  • ‘Require decline reason’ — when on, an employee must give a short reason before they can decline. Leave it off to make the reason optional.

Click ‘Save’.

Note

Acceptance is a pre-shift confirmation. An employee can change their answer until the shift starts or until their hours are approved — after that it’s locked. Publishing a shift asks the assignees for the first time; if you later change a shift’s time, location, or position, their answer resets to ‘Pending’ and they’re asked again.

What employees see#

On a published, upcoming shift, the assignee gets a ‘Your response’ box with ‘Accept’ and ‘Decline’ buttons. For a repeating shift they can apply the answer to this occurrence, this and following, or all of them. See How to accept or decline a shift.

When someone declines, the company’s managers are notified — with the reason if one was given — so you can arrange cover. The rest of the team doesn’t see it.

Tip

General-event RSVPs (Going / Maybe) don’t need this setting — they’re always available on a general event. ‘Require shift acceptance’ only controls normal shifts.

Verify it worked#

Open a published upcoming shift. Each assigned person now shows an acceptance badge, and anyone opening their own assignment sees the ‘Your response’ box. Turn the setting off and those disappear.