Template

A blank request to swap a shift.

A free shift swap request form. One row is one ask: the shift, the two people, and the manager’s decision. Download the .xlsx. No email address. The file does not move the shift.

Download the shift swap request form

The .xlsx is the file. Google’s guide shows how to upload it to Drive, or how to use File then Import, so the copy sits in your Drive. No email address is asked for here, and there is no Shiftbrook copy link.

How to use it

  1. Download the .xlsx. The page does not ask for an email address.
  2. On Swaps, enter the date, the start, the end, the person asking and the person they asked.
  3. Manager decision stays blank until someone has actually decided. A filled name is not an approval.
  4. In Shiftbrook the person asks to swap the shift with someone else, and a manager approves the swap. Use this file only when you are still on paper.
  5. Open it in Google Sheets by uploading the file you just downloaded. There is no hosted copy.

A request is not a new rota

Two people agreeing in a message is how a Saturday gets covered twice, or not at all. This row is a place to write the shift, both names, and the decision. Until the manager decision says yes, the published week has not changed. Tell the team from the rota they already use, not from a spreadsheet only the two of them have seen.

In the product, a person can ask to swap a shift with someone else. A manager approves the swap. Drafts stay hidden, and the published shift is what staff see. This template does not connect to that flow. If you are using Shiftbrook, you do not need this file for the approval. It is here for a week that is still on paper, or for a record you want beside the product.

What to look at before you say yes

A swap can fix a fair week or break a rest rule. Eleven hours between working days, a 20-minute break when the day is over six hours, and a weekly rest still apply to the hours after the swap, not to the hours on the original plan. The sheet will not check them. The rest-break calculator looks at one day’s length. The working time guide is the wider rule. Young workers have tighter daily and weekly limits.

An open shift is the other way to cover a gap: publish the hours with no name, and let someone take them through the normal rota, rather than a private swap that never reaches the grid. If the person asking is also on holiday that day, the swap is the wrong tool. Look at the leave before you approve the row.

What the file does not do

It does not notify either person, and it does not rewrite a published week. It does not calculate the pay for the hour that moved. A premium for nights or Sundays, if the contract has one, is payroll’s problem after the hours are agreed. Shiftbrook does not store that premium either.

The free plan covers up to 5 staff and one location on the first organisation. A 14-day trial of the paid plan needs no card. Approved hours in the product download as a CSV. Sending approved hours to Xero Payroll UK is not available until that connection works end to end.

Questions

Does a completed row change the rota?

No. Update the published week yourself. In Shiftbrook a manager approves the swap inside the product.

Who fills in the decision?

The manager, when they have decided. A conversation between the two people is not the decision column.

Will this check the 11-hour rest?

No. You check the joins between shifts. The file only stores the request.

Is an email required?

No. Download the .xlsx directly.

Rotas · Rest break calculator · Staff rota template · Shift swaps

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Free Shift Swap Request Form for UK Teams | Shiftbrook