Shift patterns

Building one

Add the shifts for the first week. Give each one a person or leave it open, a location, a start, an end and a break. Save them as drafts until the week is right, then publish the ones the team should see. Copy last week brings that week forward. Shifts that would overlap, or land on approved leave or a bank holiday, are skipped, and copying again does not duplicate the same shifts.

A shift template saves a start and an end. You can apply it to one date or to the week, for a person and a location. That is the tool for a repeating open and close. You name the template. There is not a built-in button called four on, four off. If that is the pattern, you place those shifts, including the days off, which are just days you do not fill.

Named cycles, placed by hand

Four on, four off is four shifts in a row and then four days with no shift. The shifts are often long. Shiftbrook has no button with that name. You add the four worked shifts and you leave the four days empty. Copy last week only repeats a seven-day block, so an eight-day cycle will not line up if you copy a calendar week and expect the days off to follow.

A continental pattern is a repeating mix of early shifts, late shifts and nights, with rest days between the blocks. Workplaces do not all use the same sequence. You publish the shifts you mean. There is not a continental preset.

Two-two-three, sometimes called a Panama pattern, is a fourteen-day idea: two on, two off, three on, then two off, two on, three off. Panama is a name used for that family of cycles. The days on your site may differ, so this page does not print one official calendar. DuPont is a longer cycle, often described over twenty-eight days as four on, three off, three on, one off, three on, three off, four on, then seven off. That description is the usual outline, not a rule Shiftbrook enforces. You place those shifts yourself, including the nights, and the days off are the days you do not fill.

Saving any of those shifts still shows the working time warnings. A long night can break the 48-hour average or leave fewer than 11 hours before the next shift. The warning is shown and the shift can still be saved. The pattern is not generated, and it is not checked against a named catalogue.

Where a pattern breaks

Leave, sickness and a pending request show on the same grid. A pattern that ignores them will try to put someone on a day they are away, and the form asks you to confirm. Working time warnings show when the repeated week would break the 48-hour average, the 11-hour rest, or the weekly 24-hour break. Open shifts are how you publish the hours before you know the name.

The free plan is one location and up to 5 staff. A second location, and departments, are on the paid plan. The 14-day trial is that paid plan, once, with no card. A pattern that needs two sites is a reason to look at the trial. It is not a second product.