When you are ready to schedule a period of time, these are the steps that will get you to a completed schedule:

Schedules are workspaces where you plan shifts for a period of time. You can create a new schedule by clicking the [+] button on the left panel of your team's calendar.

You will now see this pop up tab in which you have to select your scheduling period, select one or more templates to use, give our schedule a name (optional) and a request deadline (optional). Once you have completed this information click on "Create". Please bear in mind that at the bottom there is a checkbox called "Prevent duplicated shifts".

This will create an unpublished schedule filled with empty shifts based on the template that your team uses. Note: changing your template after creating a schedule will not affect that schedule in any way.

While it is unpublished, the schedule and all its shifts are not visible on the "Team Calendar" or any associated views and team members cannot see or deal with the shifts.

Requests (vacation, require off, etc.) only influence the scheduling process if they are approved before filling out a schedule. Before filling out the schedule, you should ensure that your members have indicated what dates they can or cannot work with the appropriate requests and that you have approved or denied all relevant requests.

Even though the team template was used to create the empty shifts in the schedule, you may add, edit, delete or move shifts in the schedule. This is often required for special days such as holidays where the template may not accurately reflect the necessary shifts.

The schedule can now be filled out by assigning members to shifts. This can be done manually by either:

If you are using the Mesh Autoscheduler, click autoschedule and let our system figure out the best arrangement of members in shifts. The pop-up will indicate how long the autoscheduler will need to fill out the schedule and you will be notified when it completes. Note: If this is your first time autoscheduling a schedule, a Mesh AI concierge will review your settings before enabling the autoscheduler feature to ensure that you get the best experience.

This step is optional. If you intend your members to choose their own shifts, do not fill out the schedule. Simply move on to step 6 and publish your schedule. Your members will be able to pick up empty published shifts themselves. Be sure they already know the rules of the game. First come, first served? Any min or max quotas? Share those via a meshage before they see the empty shifts.

See this article for when you publish the shifts unassigned or empty.

After filling out your schedule or the autoschedule completes, it is always a good idea to look through the schedule.

Once you are satisfied with your schedule, you can publish it by pressing the publish button. When published, all the shifts in the schedule become visible to all team members on their personal calendars and the team calendar. They can interact with the shifts and use the deal system or Mesh bazaar to trade or change them.