Cross Schedule Conflicts
Understanding how to smoothly manage several job schedules
Shoshana Fleischmann avatar
Written by Shoshana Fleischmann
Updated over a week ago

Connecteam allows you to assign a user to more than one job schedule at once,

But this can create a conflict. This occurs if a user is scheduled to a shift on two schedules at the same time, or a user is marked as unavailable in one schedule but assigned to a shift in another. Connecteam wants you to be able to view all these possible problems in the most convenient way. For this reason, we created the cross-schedule conflicts capability.

If you’re not familiar with the job schedule, then check out our Guide To Job Scheduling article.

What are Cross Schedule conflicts?

Cross Schedule Conflicts allow you to view all the overlapping shifts, unavailability, and absences across multiple schedules. This option helps you, as an admin, manage all schedules accordingly, avoid unnecessary complaints, and manage your team’s schedule flawlessly.

Now, let us dive deeper into activating this capability step by step.

To enable this capability, go to the job schedule’s settings, to the “limitations” tab, and click on "enable conflicts with other schedules".

GIF of limitations settings in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Note: You will need to enable this setting on each of your job schedules.

When these settings are enabled, you see a notification if a user is already scheduled for a shift, marked as unavailable, or absent on another schedule.

Let's see an example of the notification for a shift marked on another schedule looks below.

Screenshot of user marked on shift on another schedule in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

In order to get further details about the shift, click on this notification “on another schedule,” and the shift details will automatically appear to the right of the shift.

Screenshot of details for user's other shift in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Take a look at how this looks below, notice how once I click on “on another schedule” inside of the shift details, I am automatically redirected from Branch A to Branch B.

GIF of going to other schedule in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

If you still wish to assign a shift to this user, regardless of the notification, we don’t prevent you from doing this. However, this action can create a cross-schedule conflict. As seen in the example below, I assigned a shift to a user that is already assigned a shift in another schedule.

GIF of assigning a user to a conflicting shift in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

In the schedule, conflicts are displayed by a red flag with an exclamation point in the upper right corner of the shift. When hovering over the exclamation point, a pop-up with information regarding the conflict will appear.

Screenshot of exclamation point with conflict information on Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Another way to view all conflicts is by clicking the exclamation mark on the top right corner of your screen, which will lead you to the conflicts tab.

Screenshot of conflicts icon in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

When opening the conflicts tab you will see all of your historical schedule conflicts. If you click on view, you will also be taken to that specific conflict so that you can directly take action.

Screenshot of conflicts tab in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

So, how do we solve these conflicts?

Simply click the three dots which appear when hovering over the shift, and click on “delete”, as shown below.

Screenshot of delete button for shift in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Now that we know what Cross Schedule Conflicts look at and how to solve them, let's take a look at a few common examples.

Common Use Cases of Cross Schedule Conflicts

Unavailability cross schedule conflicts

A user marked as unavailable can still be assigned a shift on the same day and hours, but this creates a conflict.

Screenshot of conflict created from unavailability in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Not familiar with our unavailability capability? Check out our Starting Guide to Unavailability.

How do we solve this conflict?

Go to the schedule in which this unavailability was added, hover over it, and click on the garbage icon in order to delete it:

Screenshot of trash can icon on unavailability in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Another way to solve this conflict is by deleting the overlapping shift, do this by accessing the job schedule in which this overlapping shift was published and clicking on the three dots that appear on the right side of the shift, then, press “Delete.”

Screenshot of delete button for conflicting shift in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Please note: Once inside the schedule containing the shift, the conflicting unavailability, or absence is displayed by a flag notification in the bottom right corner. If you’d like to learn more about the different schedule views, have a look at our article on Viewing Options In the Schedule. To learn more about conflicts check out this article.

Absence cross schedule conflicts

A user can be marked as absent on a certain day in one schedule. If we assign them to a shift on another schedule, on the same day, it will create a cross-schedule conflict.

In the schedule, the absence conflicts will be shown by a red flag with an exclamation point and when hovering over it we will see that “the user is unavailable at this time” and the details of the shift that was assigned to him regardless of the absence of the user.

Screenshot of red flag with an exclamation point saying 'user is unavailable at this time' in Connecteam's Job Scheduler admin dashboard

Please note: Absence will only appear on the Job Schedule if the Job Schedule is Synced with the Time Clock.

How do we solve this type of conflict?

The first option would be to delete the overlapping shift that was created, as shown

above. Another way to solve this conflict is through the user's timesheet by deleting their absence which is creating the conflict.

Let's go over how to do this step by step:

Step 1: Go over to the timeclock and enter the timesheets tab,

Step 2: Click on the relevant user to enter their timesheets.

Screenshot of timesheets tab in Connecteam's Time Clock on the admin dashboard

Step 3: Mark the absence on the timesheet and then click on the “Options” button and “delete entry” (Please note you may need to filter the dates to find the specific absence)

Screenshot of delete entries button in Connecteam's Time Clock admin dashboard

To learn more about deleting records in the time clock have a look at this article.

Need more guidance? 🙋 Our LIVE support team (at the bottom right corner of your screen) replies in under 5 mins to ANY question.

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