Microsoft Teams Shifts: Set Up and Publish a Staff Schedule

Microsoft Teams Shifts is a staff scheduling and time-tracking app. A team owner creates the schedule on desktop or web, sets the location and time zone, adds groups and people, assigns shifts, then selects Share with team to publish the changes.

The original version of this article claimed unsupported AI scheduling and absence prediction. Those claims have been removed.

Before you create a schedule

You need:

• access to Microsoft Teams;
• the Shifts app allowed by your administrator;
• an existing team;
• team-owner permission for that team; and
• an agreed time zone, work pattern and manager process.

Microsoft says each team gets one schedule in Shifts. Desktop and web are the practical clients for schedule creation. Workers can use desktop, web or mobile for the capabilities their manager enables.

If New schedule is unavailable, confirm that you are an owner of the selected team before changing policy or recreating the team.

Create the schedule

1. Open Shifts in Teams desktop or web. If it is not pinned, select View more apps and find it.
2. Open Choose or create a schedule, then select New schedule.
3. Select Create beside the team.
4. Set the team location’s time zone and closest city, then confirm.
5. Add schedule groups such as Warehouse, Front Desk or Nursing.
6. Add existing team members to the correct groups.
7. Open the Settings tab and choose the capabilities your team should use.

Take the time-zone decision seriously. It controls how the rota is displayed and is much easier to get right before workers depend on it.

Add assigned and open shifts

To assign a shift, find the worker’s row and the date, then select More options > Add shift or double-click the empty slot. Enter the details and save.

To publish a vacancy rather than assign it, use the group’s Open shifts row and add an open shift. Workers can request it only when open shifts and requests are enabled for that schedule.

Shifts also supports requests to swap or offer shifts and request time off, subject to the schedule settings. Define who approves requests and what happens when a manager is unavailable.

Publish changes

Saving a shift is not the same as publishing it.

1. Select Share with team.
2. Check the date range.
3. Choose whether affected workers and open-shift groups should receive notifications.
4. Select Share.

Repeat this after later changes. Until shared, edits are not visible to workers.

Time clock and location detection

A manager can enable time clock in Shifts settings. Workers can then clock in and out and record breaks. Microsoft documents timesheet editing and confirmation on mobile, while managers can export time reports.

Location detection is optional. When enabled, the report records whether a mobile clock event happened within the configured area. It is not continuous employee tracking, but it is still worker-location data.

Before enabling it, involve the appropriate HR, privacy and legal owners, explain the purpose to workers, restrict report access and define retention. Microsoft’s product documentation does not prove that a particular deployment meets employment or privacy obligations.

Roll out Shifts safely

Pilot one real schedule before replacing the old rota process. Check:

• owners and backup managers;
• time zones and overnight shifts;
• worker access on mobile;
• open-shift and time-off approvals;
• notification behaviour;
• payroll or workforce-management handoff; and
• correction and dispute handling.

Keep the existing process available until managers and workers can reproduce the full cycle.

Keep Teams scheduling governable

For help with Shifts ownership, policy and the SharePoint and Teams foundations around it, join the SharePoint & Teams Admins Space.

Sources

• Schedule staff shifts
• Get started in Shifts
• Configure settings for your team’s schedule in Shifts
• Clock in and out with Shifts
• Use roles to define frontline managers and workers in Shifts