The Job Scheduler helps you catch scheduling problems before they affect your team. Issues automatically flag potential problems on your schedule, such as overlapping shifts, unavailability, or shifts that break your scheduling rules, so you can review and resolve them in one place. This helps you build cleaner schedules and avoid surprises for both you and your employees.
Issues are available on all plans. The specific issue types you see depend on the scheduling features your account uses. For example, unavailability issues appear when Unavailability is enabled, and running late issues appear when you have Time Clock users. You control which issue types are surfaced from the Issues tab in your Schedule Settings.
If you’re not familiar with the job schedule, first check out our Starting Guide To the Job Scheduler.
Types of Issues
The Job Scheduler can flag the following issue types. Each type can be turned on or off from the Issues tab in your Schedule Settings, and some appear only when the related scheduling feature is enabled.
Overlapping Shifts: An employee is assigned two or more shifts that overlap in time.
Unavailability: A shift is scheduled during a time the employee marked as unavailable. Appears when Unavailability is enabled.
Scheduling Rules: A shift breaks a company-wide or custom scheduling rule you defined, such as maximum hours per day, maximum shifts per day, minimum time between shifts, maximum hours or shifts per week, or minimum hours or shifts per week. Appears when Scheduling Rules are set.
Working Hours: A shift falls outside the employee’s defined working hours policy. Appears when a Working Hours policy is set.
Rejected Shifts: An employee rejected a shift that was assigned to them. Appears when shift rejection is enabled.
Unassigned Shifts: A shift has been created but no employee is assigned to it.
Pending Replacement Requests: A shift replacement request is open and waiting for action. Appears when shift replacement is enabled.
Unconfirmed Shifts: A published shift has not yet been confirmed by the assigned employee. Appears when shift accept or reject is enabled.
Unpublished Shifts: Draft shifts exist that have not been published to employees.
Running Late: An employee has not clocked in on time for their shift. Appears when your account has Time Clock users.
Short notice alerts: Create alerts for admins when editing shifts within
a determined amount of hours before the work week starts.
You can also enable Short Notice Alerts, which flag shifts that are published or edited within a set number of hours before they start. You define the number of hours in the Issues tab.
Choose Which Issues to Display
You control which issues appear on your schedule and in the unresolved issues bar from the Issues tab in your Schedule Settings. Turning an issue type off hides it from the schedule so you can focus only on the problems that matter to your workflow.
To manage which issues are displayed, follow these steps:
Click the Settings icon at the top of the schedule.
Open the Issues tab.
Turn each issue type on or off using its toggle.
For Scheduling Rules and Working Hours, click Manage to open the related company policy and adjust the rules that generate those issues.
Set the number of hours for Short Notice Alerts if you want to be warned about last minute schedule changes.
Note: Some issue types appear in this tab only when the related feature is active. For example, Running Late appears when your account has Time Clock users, and Pending Replacement Requests appears when shift replacement is enabled.
💡 Tip: Start with the issues that are most important for your team, then turn on more issue types as you refine your scheduling process.
How to Enable Issues in Job Scheduling
Enabling Unavailability
Unavailability can be set in the Job Scheduling Settings, allowing employees to mark their unavailable times and/or put their preferred work hours. This simplifies the scheduling process by providing clear visibility into your team's availability.
Setting Up Job Scheduling Rules
Job Scheduling Rules help you stay compliant with company policies and labor laws while avoiding unnecessary overtime. There are two ways to create scheduling rules: by setting up company-wide scheduling policies or by customizing rules for individual employees.
Company-Wide Scheduling Policies
These are general policies you can assign to specific groups of employees. For example, you might create policies for full-time employees, part-time staff, or those under 18.
To set up company-wide policies, navigate to the Users tab, click on Company Policies, and create the policies you'd like to apply (for example, a part-time policy or a full-time policy).
Want to learn more about setting Scheduling Rules? (Go to this link)
Custom Scheduling Rules
To set tailored rules for individual employees, navigate to the Employment Tab within the Users Tab. This allows you to set specific scheduling limitations for each user, such as maximum hours per week, maximum hours per day, and more.
How to View the Job Schedule Issues
Start by Navigating to the Job Schedule feature from the left sidebar and accessing the relevant schedule.
Enable Issues by Clicking on Viewing Options and toggling on Issues. This allows you to easily spot scheduling issues.
You can now identify issues directly in the schedule. Issues are marked with a red exclamation point on the shift. If you hover over the red exclamation mark, you’ll see details about the type of issue (as shown in the image below).
To get an overview of all issues, navigate to the Issues Tab by clicking on the red exclamation point in the top-right corner, near the settings. This will display all upcoming issues and additional details, as explained below.
Weekly and Daily Issue Warnings
You can also view issue warnings in the Job Scheduling weekly view. In this view, the warnings total will appear in the left sidebar under the user’s name whenever weekly or daily limitations are exceeded. You’ll see which specific rule was exceeded, making it easy to address and resolve the issue.
💡Tip: You can easily access your employees' Scheduling Rules directly from the weekly view in Job Scheduling, while you view the issues.
Same for the daily view as seen below:
Managing and Solving Issues
Now that we've covered how to enable and access your job scheduler issues, let's understand how they are displayed and how to manage them. As you have noticed, the Issues tab has two different tabs: Upcoming and History. The Upcoming tab displays any scheduling issues happening today or onwards, while the History tab shows all past ones.
Issues are categorized by type, based on the Scheduling Rules you have set for each user or the different company policies.
You will see a detailed description of any scheduling rule that has been exceeded. For example, if a user exceeds their maximum allowed working hours for the week, the admin will receive a notification indicating the issue is due to the hour's limitation. You can review the issue and take the necessary steps to resolve it based on your scheduling needs.
*The Issue capability for the Job Schedule is available from the Expert plan*
Related Articles
Need more guidance? 🙋 Our LIVE support team (at the bottom right crossroad of your screen) replies to ANY question.