Set availability for employees
Add employee availability in Zoho Shifts to ensure their working preferences are taken into account when creating schedules. This helps managers plan and schedule shifts more efficiently and avoid conflicts. This article walks you through how to set an employee’s availability.
How availability works
Availability shows when an employee prefers to work and when they’re unavailable. These preferences are visible to schedulers in the Schedule Editor and help them schedule shifts based on preferred and unavailable periods.
To avoid last-minute availability preferences that can impact coverage, you can configure restrictions on how advanced employees can submit availability. To enable the availability restriction, you’ll need the Administrator access level or the Manage account and other settings permission.
- Go to the Settings menu in the top-right corner.
- Select Preferences under Schedules section.
- Enable Availability changes and enter the number of Days in advance employees must submit their availability.
- Click Save.
Once enabled, employees can submit or update availability only if the request meets the advance notice requirement. While Managers don't have any restrictions on setting employees' availability.
To add availability for employees
To set your employees' availability, you'll need the Administrator access level or the Set other employees' availability permission.
- Navigate to Schedule > Availability.
- Click your name in the top right corner.
- Select the employee whom you want to set availability for from the dropdown.
- Click a date to set availability.
- Select availability type. If you want to set availability for preferred working hours, select Preferred; otherwise, choose Unavailable.
- Select the duration of the availability. If the availability is for a full day, select All day; otherwise, choose Partial.
- Set the Time Range if you opted for partial availability.
- Add notes to provide context (optional).
- To repeat this availability, select Repeat. If not, you can skip this step.
- Enter the repeat frequency and select days or weeks as required.
- Choose the weekdays you want to repeat the availability for, if you’ve selected weeks.
- Choose when this availability should end by selecting On (for a specific date) or After (for after a number of occurrences).
- Click Save Availability.
To edit or delete an availability
To edit or delete an availability, follow the same steps you used to create it and make the necessary changes. If it's a recurring availability, you can choose whether the edit applies only to this day or to this and the following days.
What happens next
Once availabilities are set, you can view employees’ availability preferences in the Schedule Editor.
- Green indicates preferred hours.
- Red indicates unavailable hours.
You can consider these availability preferences while scheduling shifts and ensure proper coverage. If you need to mark a mandatory absence for employees, refer to Add time off for employees.
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