Shift planning (beta)

Shift planning is an add-on and marked as beta: it is fully usable but will be refined based on practical experience. An admin switches it on under Company → Features ("Shift planning", and additionally "On-call duty" for on-call).

Templates

Under Shifts → Shift templates planners create templates: name, start, end, break, colour – e.g. early 06:00–14:30, late 13:30–22:00, night 22:00–06:00. If the end is before the start, the shift runs past midnight. A template applies to one team or (created by admins only) to all teams. Changes to a template only affect newly planned shifts.

Weekly plan

The shift plan shows one week per team as a grid of people × days – on the phone as a list per day.

• Planning: click "+" in a cell and choose a template or a custom time. Click a shift to change or remove it. Punchify does not allow overlaps with other shifts of the same person.
• Copy previous week copies the shifts and demand of the previous week.
• Hours: on the right are the planned hours per person and the target according to the work plan.
• CSV exports the weekly plan.

Admins (all teams) and team leads (their teams) may plan. A plan "without team" covers the people without a team and is reserved for admins.

Staffing demand

In the demand rows below the grid, planners set how many people a shift needs at least on a day. Punchify shows in text and colour whether the shift is covered, how many are missing or whether more than needed are planned.

Checks and publishing

As long as a plan is a draft, only planners see it. Before publishing, Punchify checks the plan:

• against the rules of the working time checks – maximum hours, rest period (also across the change of week), breaks, continuous work, Sundays and holidays, protection rules;
• for conflicts with requested or approved absences and company closure days.

If there are violations or conflicts, a reason is required to publish; it is stored with the plan and in the log. Notices (e.g. Sunday work) do not block.

After publishing, everyone in the team sees the plan; each person also sees their shifts under Today → My shifts. Changes to a published plan are possible but are logged one by one. Back to draft hides the plan again.

Shift swaps

1. Under Today → My shifts, a person offers one of their own published future shifts for a swap – to a specific colleague or to the whole team, optionally with a note.
2. A colleague from the same team takes it over – if desired in exchange for one of their own shifts. Overlaps are excluded.
3. The team lead or an admin sees the swap under Shifts → Shift swaps including warnings for the people involved (working time rules, absences) and approves or rejects it (with a reason).

Only the approval changes the plan. All steps appear in the log; the people involved are notified by email or push (can be switched off under Settings → Notifications). Whoever offered can withdraw the offer; whoever took it over can withdraw before the approval.

On-call and standby duty

With the "On-call duty" add-on enabled, each template has a type:

Call-outs during on-call duty are recorded by the person under Today → My shifts → Record call-out (or by planners on their behalf): start, end and a short note. The call-out is created as an entry, counts as working time in the time account and is included in the rest period checks. Deleting is possible with a reason as long as the month is open.

Month, CSV and PDF show separate totals: on call (not working time), standby duty (with an adjustable share, default 100 %) and call-outs (included in working time). Admins set the share for standby duty in the Shift templates card; it only affects reporting, e.g. for pay.

Note: According to the case law of the CJEU and the German Federal Labour Court, standby duty is working time and on-call time generally is not. The defaults are not legal advice; collective agreements may differ.