Read our scheduling guide for more information on the scheduling process
What is a Shift Plan?
A shift plan is a reusable template that you can use to plan your team's fixed or rotating shift patterns, as well as round robins.
Plans allow you to schedule your team in different ways throughout the year, for example, to extend your opening hours or add temporary staff to your team during peaks.
For newly onboarded teams, we recommend that you create a Shift Plan that mirrors your team's current ways of working, or pre-planned shifts.
Step 1: Create a new Shift Plan
Open Surfboard and navigate to the Shift Plans tab
Click New Plan in the top-right corner of the page
Enter a name. We recommend combining the name of the team or agents you're scheduling, and the period this plan will be used for (e.g. Tier 1 Q1 2024, or US team Black Friday)
Select the agents this Shift Plan is for. We recommend creating one Shift Plan per team, to make them easier to maintain.
Click Save
A new homepage will be made for your Plan. Click Shift patterns to start planning your shifts
Step 2: Add the shifts your team work
What is a shift?
To start scheduling, you need to create the shifts that your team work on. A shift contains a name, start and end time and timezone. For example:
Early: 7am - 3pm (London, UK)
Mid: 9am - 5pm (London, UK)
Late: 12pm - 8pm (London, UK)
Daily US: 8:30am - 5:15pm (New York, USA)
How to create a shift:
In the left-hand toolbar, click Create new shift
Enter a name for this shift.
Select the start and end time of the shift
Select the timezone that this shift should be scheduled in. When applied to the schedule, Surfboard will automatically convert the time to the correct timezone for you, so you don't need to do the maths.
Click Save
Recreate these steps as needed. You can create as many shifts as you need.
Step 3: Create shift patterns per agent
What is a shift pattern?
A shift pattern is a structured arrangement of working days and rest days for agents over a set timeframe.
Shift patterns can be 1 week long, e.g. Weekdays 9am - 5pm, or they can rotate across multiple weeks, e.g. Week 1 Early, Week 2, Late.
Shift patterns can be used to cater to agent's individual needs or preferences. For example, Amy only works 7am - 1:30pm on Wednesdays as she has child care.
You can read more about popular industry shift patterns on our blog.
How to create a shift pattern:
In the left-hand toolbar, select the shift you want to schedule
Click into a day in the shift pattern builder
This now defines that this agent will work this shift, on those days of the week. e.g. Jack works the early shift, every Monday.
Tips:
You can give a shift from any timezone to a surfer in any timezone - so you can schedule however makes sense to you.
You can add up to three shifts per surfer, per day - meaning you can easily plan split shifts to accommodate flexible working.
To delete a shift, hover over the shift. A bin icon will show on the shift, click it and the shift will be removed.
How to create a multiple week rotation
By default, the pattern will be set to 1 week.
You can add a blank week by clicking the 'add week' button to the right of the latest week
To duplicate a week, click the 'duplicate week' button at the top-right corner of each week container.
The number of weeks in a pattern determines how long the rotation will be, so if there are 6 weeks, each agent's shift pattern will rotate every 6 weeks when applied to the schedule.
If your agent's work on different-length rotations, you'll need to create additional patterns. To do that click 'create new pattern' at the top-right of the page.
When you create a new pattern you'll be asked which surfers you would like to add to this pattern. When you move surfers to a new pattern, their shifts will be removed.
If you delete a pattern, all the surfers will be moved to the last created pattern and their shifts will be removed.
How to group agents
You can group agents with the same shift pattern by clicking on them and holding down shift on your keyboard. Then, click on the ellipsis icon (...) and select group surfers. All surfers in a group will work the same shifts.
Click on a group at any time to see who's in in, remove surfers or delete the group. If you delete the group, surfers shifts will be removed.
Step 4: (Optional) Assign additional shifts via a Round Robin
What is a Round Robin?
Round robin scheduling is a method of fairly distributing shifts between agents in a sequential order. They are commonly used to schedule unpopular shifts such as evenings or weekends.
Round Robins are not required, and are an optional tool available to you.
How to create a Round Robin:
Click Add round robin from the toolbar
Give your Round Robin a name, e.g. Weekend rotation
Select the agents you want to include in this Round Robin.
Next, you need to build the schedule for the Round Robin:
Select the day of the week the shift should be scheduled on, e.g. Saturday
Select the shift that should be scheduled, e.g. Early 7am - 3pm (London, UK)
Select the number of agents who should be scheduled on that shift at the same time, e.g. 2 agents.
(Optional) If you want to give agents a day off work in return for working this Round Robin shift (e.g. because it's on a weekend), then flip the Give time off in lieu toggle.
Select the day of the week the agent should be given time off in lieu
Select if it should be scheduled on the same week as their Round Robin shift, or the following week
You can choose to add more shifts to this Round Robin schedule as needed by clicking Add another shift
When you have finished adding all of the shifts, click Next
(Optional) you can choose to enter additional rules, e.g. If agent's work the Friday late shift then they should also work the Saturday late shift.
Finally, you'll be shown a preview of your Round Robin rotation. Click Shuffle to shuffle the order.
Click Save
Tips:
If you have an existing round robin order you would like to continue in Surfboard, you can tick the surfers in the order you want them to be scheduled when adding them to the round robin.
Step 5: Apply the Shift Plan to the schedule
Now, you need to apply the Shift Plan to the schedule.
How to apply a shift plan from the Shift Pattern Builder:
When you click Save you will be prompted to apply the Shift Plan to the schedule.
Select the period you want to apply it for. Most teams prefer to share their shift schedules at least 4 weeks ahead of time, to allow agents to plan their persona lives around their shifts.
Click Apply
How to apply a shift plan from the schedule:
When
Navigate to Schedule > Week
Click the Tools button and select Apply shift plan
Select the Shift Plan you want to apply and the period you want to apply it for. Most teams prefer to share their shift schedules at least 4 weeks ahead of time, to allow agents to plan their persona lives around their shifts.
Click Apply
Once applied:
Planned shift patterns will be added to the schedule. If shift patterns are >1 week long, then they will be rotated.
Round robin shifts will be assigned to agents, cycling through them to fairly distribute shifts.
Any conflicts where a shift clashes with synced time off will be flagged, so you can find cover.
You will see feedback on your scheduled staffing vs forecasted required staffing in the coverage bar.
Tips:
If there is an issue with the Shift Plan, or you made a mistake, you can remove it from the schedule by using clear shifts tool. Click the Tools button and select Clear shifts.
You can also manually edit the schedule at any time by clicking on shifts or by clicking into empty space.
Step 6: Publish the schedule
Your schedules should now be complete and you are ready to share the schedule with the team.
To share the schedule with your agents, you need to publish it. This publishes the version of the schedule at that point in time to agent's Surfboard accounts.
You can publish schedules multiple times to share the latest changes with your team, including shifts with or without activities.
FAQs
Will the schedule automatically update when I update a Shift Plan?
No, to update the schedule you need to reapply the Shift Plan.
Should I use a Shift Pattern or a Round Robin to rotate shifts?
Round Robins are generally only recommended for basic use-cases such as an additional weekend or evening shift. To fairly distribute multiple shifts at scale, we recommend creating a Shift Pattern.
I've applied my Shift Plan and there's a mistake, what do I do?
If there is an issue with the Shift Plan, or you made a mistake, you can remove it from the schedule by using clear shifts tool. Click the Tools button and select Clear shifts.
Can I edit shifts from the schedule?
You can also manually edit the schedule at any time by clicking on shifts or by clicking into empty space. This will not affect or update the Shift Plan though.
How do I account for time off?
Once applied to the schedule, any conflicts where a shift clashes with synced time off will be flagged, so you can find cover.