How Do I Publish Rosters to the Employee Portal?

Publishing sends the planned shifts in a pay run's roster to the online employee portal, where employees can see them. If you allow it, employees can also send you changes to their availability. You can publish from the desktop app or the online (web/mobile) app.

Before You Start

• Activate the employee's online portal. See How Can I Setup the Online Employee Portal?
• Under Employees >> Details >> Online Portal, tick Allow Employee to View Their Published Roster? so the employee can see their shifts. Tick Allow Employee to Edit Their Availability? as well if the employee should be able to change their availability. In the online app these options read Allow employee to view their published roster? and Allow employee to edit their availability?
• To set these for several employees at once, use Tools >> Multiple Employee Portal Settings (desktop) or Tools >> Portal Settings (online). Both have a Rosters section.

Publishing in the Desktop App

1. Open Rosters and move to the pay run you want to publish.
2. On the Rostered Shifts tab, click Publish Roster.
3. Click Yes to publish the planned shifts for the pay run's dates. A message confirms how many shifts were published.

Planned shifts that have not been published yet are marked (Draft). The Publish Roster button is greyed out unless you have edit access to Rosters. If the shifts cannot be sent to the portal straight away, they are marked as published and sent at the next portal sync.

Publishing in the Online App

1. Open Rosters to reach the Roster Planner and move to the pay run you want to publish.
2. Click Publish Roster.
3. In the Publish Roster window, click Publish.

Planned shifts show a Draft badge until they are published, then a Published badge. After publishing, any employees who cannot see the roster because the roster option is not ticked are listed under Not visible to. The Publish Roster button is not shown when the company is not linked to the employee portal.

What Gets Published

• Only planned shifts are published: shifts you entered and shifts generated from a repeat. Leave and shifts imported from the timeclock are not published.
• Employees with the roster option ticked are emailed about new or changed shifts.
• Changes you make after publishing reach employees the next time you publish or the portal syncs.

What the Employee Sees

In the employee portal, the employee opens Rosters, which has three tabs:

• My Shifts - published shifts by week, with the day, date, start and finish, break, shift and department. New and changed shifts are marked New or Updated, and the employee can click Acknowledge on each shift.
• My Availability - the employee's current availability and unavailability. With the availability option ticked, they can click Change my availability or Add unavailability. Without it, the tab says their employer manages their availability.
• Requests - the availability changes and unavailability they have submitted, with each request's status and your comment. A pending request can be cancelled with Cancel.

Approval and Notice Period

In the online app, the Availability Requests page has an Employee Availability Settings card with Availability changes need approval (ticked by default) and Notice period (days) (14 by default, up to 90). The portal will not accept an availability change or unavailability that starts sooner than the notice period allows. These settings are only available in the online app.

Reviewing Availability Requests

• In the desktop app: On the Rosters screen, open the Availability tab. It shows each employee's availability, unavailability and leave for the pay run, and highlights rostered shifts that conflict. Requests appear under Availability requests waiting for approval: select one, click Approve or Decline, and add an optional comment for the employee.
• In the online app: On the Roster Planner, click Timeclock/Portal Sync, then Availability Requests (or click Review requests on the Availability tab). Type an optional comment, then click Approve or Decline. The Conflicts column shows when a request clashes with rostered shifts.