In Oplist, shifts are managed at two levels:

A Global Shift is created by the Organization Manager and shared across all departments.

Departments activate the global shifts that fit their needs and configure department-specific settings.

Core shift definitions are set at the global level, while some planning-specific configurations are managed at the department level.

In general:

Global shifts can only be created or edited by users with the Organization Manager role.

They are shared across all departments.

To create a Global Shift:

In the General tab, complete the main shift information.

You can define:

The shift name, start and end times, break settings, and icon are part of the global shift definition.

These values are shared with departments that activate this shift.

If you want to define a break, activate the Break Time option.

Break duration can be defined in two ways:

The defined break duration is deducted from the total working time and included in calculations.

In the Rules tab, you can configure shift rules.

This tab includes:

The Post-shift Rule setting defines what can happen after this shift.

There are three possible options:

For example, if the Night shift should not be followed by a Morning shift, the Morning shift can be selected as a restricted shift.

This setting is defined at the global shift level and is shared with departments.

At the department level, the post-shift rule can be viewed but cannot be changed.

The Limit shift assignments per period setting is used to limit how many times this shift can be assigned to the same staff member within a defined period.

For example, you can define that a staff member can work a Morning shift no more than 2 times within a 3-day period.

This setting can be defined globally when creating or editing the Global Shift.

The global value is shared with departments, but it can also be customized later at the department level for that specific department.

If the organization-level Real Off setting is enabled, the shift rules screen includes a Real Off option.

This option determines whether this shift can be counted as a real off after the assignment.

In other words, it controls whether the day after this shift can be treated as a real rest day according to the organization’s Real Off logic.

This setting is especially important for shifts that extend into the next day or affect whether the following day can be considered a true rest day.

After entering all information, click Create Shift to complete the process.

Once a Global Shift is created, the next steps are performed by the Department Manager at the department level.

To use a created Global Shift in a department, it must be activated.

To activate a shift:

This makes the shift available in the selected department.

After a shift is activated in a department, click the edit icon next to the shift to access department-specific settings.

This screen contains four main tabs:

The General tab displays the main shift information.

The following fields come from the Global Shift definition and cannot be changed at the department level:

The field that can be edited at the department level is:

The Shift Color setting allows the department to visually distinguish this shift in the schedule.

The Rules tab displays the scheduling rules for the shift.

The post-shift rule comes from the Global Shift definition and cannot be changed at the department level.

However, the Limit shift assignments per period setting can be customized at the department level.

This means the global shift can have a default period-based assignment limit, but each department can adjust this limit according to its own planning needs.

For example, the global setting may limit a shift to 2 assignments within 3 days, but a department can update this value for its own schedule requirements.

The Exclude tab is used to select staff members who should not work this shift.

Selected staff members are excluded from automatic scheduling for this shift.

This setting is department-specific.

For detailed information, refer to the Exclude Staff from a Shift article.

The Requirements tab is used to define how many staff members are required for this shift on each day.

Daily staff requirements can be defined as:

If staff groups are defined in the department, separate requirements can also be added for those groups.

For example, a department can define separate requirements for groups such as:

These settings are department-specific and are taken into account during scheduling.

Important:
Total shift requirements may be relaxed by 1 staff member if needed.

For example, if the total requirement is 10, the algorithm may create a valid schedule with 9 staff members for that shift, as long as all other hard constraints are still satisfied.

However, group requirements are not relaxed.

If a group requirement is defined as minimum 2 or exact 2, assigning only 1 staff member from that group does not satisfy the requirement.

In other words:

For detailed information, refer to the Shift Requirements article.