Shift Assignment Tool
In the week of 7 December 2026, the Nova Industries Pune branch runs a maintenance job on the press line in the evenings. Meera Kapoor, Arjun Pawar and Neha Gokhale from Production move from the Day Shift to the Evening Shift, 14:00 to 22:00, from Monday to Friday. A Shift Request is also waiting from Kavya Rao, who wants the Evening Shift the week after.
The Shift Assignment Tool handles this kind of work in bulk from one screen. It lists the employees who can take a shift on the chosen dates, and creates one Shift Assignment for each employee you select. It can also put employees on a repeating Shift Schedule, and approve or reject open Shift Requests in one step. You do not save the tool itself; it only creates the other records. For how these fit together, see Shift Management.
Before you begin
- The Shift Type or Shift Schedule you want to assign exists.
- The employees are Active and have joined by the start date.
- You have the HR User or HR Manager role.
Open the tool
Open the Shift & Attendance workspace and select Shift Assignment Tool under Shift Assignments. Choose what to do in Action, and check the Company. You can also open the tool from Shift Tools on a Shift Type, Shift Schedule or Shift Location, which fills that record in for you.
Assign a shift to several employees
- Set Action to Assign Shift.
- Select the Shift Type, here Evening Shift, and the Start Date, here 7 December 2026. Set an End Date, here 11 December 2026, or leave it empty for an ongoing assignment. Optionally select a Shift Location.
- Narrow the list in Quick Filters, for example by Department Production - NID, or by Branch, Designation, Employee Grade or Employment Type. Advanced Filters accepts any other Employee field.
- In Select Employees, tick the employees, here Meera Kapoor, Arjun Pawar and Neha Gokhale, then select Assign Shift and confirm.
The list shows only employees who are free on those dates. An employee who already has an active, submitted Shift Assignment on any of the dates is left out. In this example Pooja Nair is missing because she is on the Evening Shift from 23 November with no end date. With Allow Multiple Shift Assignments for Same Date ticked in HR Settings, only employees whose existing shift overlaps in time are left out. Setting Status to Inactive lists everyone, because inactive assignments do not conflict.
The tool creates and submits one Shift Assignment per employee and then shows which ones succeeded and which failed. Up to 30 employees are processed at once; for more, the work runs in the background and you are notified when it finishes.
Assign a shift schedule
Set Action to Assign Shift Schedule, select the Shift Schedule and the Start Date, then select the employees and Assign Shift Schedule. The tool creates a Shift Schedule Assignment for each employee and their Shift Assignments from the Start Date. This always runs in the background.
With an End Date, Shift Assignments are created up to that date and the Shift Schedule Assignment is left disabled. Without one, about 90 days are created and the Shift Schedule Assignment stays enabled, so a background job keeps adding more. Employees who already have an enabled Shift Schedule Assignment on any of the same weekdays are left out of the list.
Approve or reject Shift Requests
Set Action to Process Shift Requests. The table lists Draft Shift Requests, which you can narrow by Shift Type, Approver, From Date and To Date, and by the employee filters. Tick the requests, select Process Requests, then Approve or Reject.
Each request is set to Approved or Rejected and submitted. An approved request creates its Shift Assignment as usual. A request fails if the approver on it is not allowed to approve it or if the new assignment conflicts with an existing one.
Troubleshooting
There are no employees without Shift Assignments for these dates
Every employee that matches the filters already has an active assignment on the dates. Check the dates and filters, look at the week on the Roster, or end the conflicting assignments first.
An employee is missing from Select Employees
The employee is not Active, joined after the Start Date, leaves before the Start or End Date, or already has a conflicting assignment. Open the Employee record to check the dates and status.
Some assignments failed
The result lists the employees that failed. The reason is in the error log, usually an overlapping shift or an inactive employee. Fix it and run the tool again for those employees only.
Frequently asked questions
Does the tool mark attendance?
The tool only creates assignments. Auto Attendance later marks attendance from check-ins for each shift that has it turned on.
Can I undo a bulk assignment?
Cancel the created Shift Assignments from the Shift Assignment list. Filter by shift type and start date to find them, select them and cancel them together.