Set up team schedules
About team schedules
With Square Shifts, you can set availability, add shifts, and publish schedules for yourself and your entire staff.
Availability refers to the days and times a team member can work. In general, availability is recurring and is separate from one-off time off requests. For example, a team member’s availability might state they can work 10 AM – 9 PM, Monday through Friday.
A shift refers to a period of time that a team member works under one job title. Shift scheduling includes multiple shift states, including scheduled shift, current shift, and completed shift. You can assign a team member multiple shifts in a workday.
Before you begin
Some advanced time tracking and shift management features are only available with a Shifts Plus subscription, such as managing time off, shift swapping, overtime tracking, and tip pooling.
Basic scheduling and time tracking features are available for free through the unpaid version of Square Shifts for up to five team members.
You can apply a maximum number of three shifts per team member per day. Approved time-off requests will be blocked off when creating the schedule. Learn how to Manage schedule requests.
You need to have at least one team member added to set up your schedule. Learn how to Add and manage team members.
Set team member availability
Once you add your team members, make sure their availability is accurate and up to date. You can either have your team members set their availability in the Square Team App or the Square Dashboard. You can also set it for them in your Square Dashboard.
Account owners and team members with the Manage availability permission can update availability through Square Dashboard.
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and select Staff > Shifts > Scheduling > Availability.
- Select the location from the drop-down menu. If needed, you can select multiple locations to view shifts and availability across each of those locations together. If you’re viewing multiple locations at once, the total hours calculation updates to reflect all of the locations selected.
- From a team member’s row, select + to open up their availability page for a specific day.
- Toggle on Available all day if the team member is available during all scheduled business hours, or enter a Start Time and End Time to specify when the team member is available.
- To add another layer of availability, select Add availability.
- To repeat the same availability for other days of the week, select the appropriate days in the Repeat on section.
- Select Save.
Team members can set their own availability from the Square Team App. Each team member is allowed up to four blocks of availability.
- From the Home tab of the Square Team App, select Me.
- Select Availability.
- Select the day of the week you want to edit to open the Add availability screen.
- Make any changes and select Save changes.
Add shifts to team members
After you set your team’s availability, you can start to build out your schedule by applying shifts to each team member.
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and select Staff > Shifts > Scheduling > Rota.
Select the time frame and location(s) from the drop-down menu. If you're viewing multiple locations at once, the total hours calculation updates to reflect all of the locations selected.
Select the All team members drop-down menu to filter specific team members or job titles.
From a team member’s row, select + to open the Add shift screen for a specific day.
Verify the team member, job title, and date(s) are correct and enter a Start Time and End Time. If the selected team member is unavailable or has partial availability for that day, you will see a note regarding their unavailability.
Add an optional note and select a colour to associate with the team member on the schedule. Notes are visible to employees when they receive their schedule via email.
If you want to repeat the same shift for another day of the week, select the days from the Repeat shift drop-down menu.
Select Save.
Repeat the steps for each team member until you finish your schedule.
Add open shifts
If you’re unable to fill a particular shift and want to open the option to all team members associated with a particular job title, you can add open shifts in your Square Dashboard.
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and select Staff > Shifts > Scheduling > Rota.
Select the appropriate time frame and location from the drop-down menus. You can select multiple locations to view shifts and availability across each of those locations together. If you're viewing multiple locations at once, the total hours calculation updates to reflect all of the locations selected.
From the Open shifts row, select + to open the Add shift screen for a specific day.
Verify the job title and date(s) are correct and enter a Start Time and End Time.
Add an optional note and select a colour to associate with the open shift on the schedule. Notes for open shifts are only visible to the person creating the schedule and do not appear to team members.
If you need to repeat the same open shift for another day of the week, select the days from the Repeat shift drop-down menu.
Select Save. Repeat the steps above for any days that you want to add an open shift.
Publish and print schedule
You can publish and print your schedule from your Square Dashboard.
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and select Staff > Shifts > Scheduling > Rota.
Once you finish creating your schedule, select Publish.
Review the summary to see the total number of team members scheduled, total shift count, and total hour count, and select if you want to Notify only affected team members or Notify all team members.
Select Publish schedule.
Team members will receive an email notification with their schedule with the option to view their schedule from the Square Team app.
Once you publish your schedule you can print a hard copy.
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and select Staff > Shifts > Scheduling > Rota.
Select … > Print.