Why isn't an employee showing as available?

Okay, you've planned the perfect schedule and are ready to assign a shift to a particular employee... But they aren't showing in the list of available employees. What's gone wrong?

They have a conflicting shift

Okay, first thing to check; do they already have a shift set up for those times? Yes, employees can have multiple shifts assigned to them for the same day, but only if they don't overlap. You might be able to do two jobs at once but the rest of us mere mortals find it easier to finish one shift before starting the next one.

Can't see any shifts for the employee? It's worth checking that they don't have one assigned on a different schedule.

They aren't assigned to the schedule location
If you're on the Very Shiftie plan and have multiple locations set up then when you add new employees you'll be asked to select the locations that the employee works at. Each of your schedules will also be tied to a location, so if an employee isn't assigned to the schedule location they won't be suggested for shifts on that schedule. After all, there's no sense in suggesting employees in London for shifts in Edinburgh, is there?

If you've just added a new location and need to assign employees to it you can either edit them one by one or bulk update them.

They've got leave booked

We won't list employees for a shift if they have leave (whether annual or something else) booked for the date in question. You can check what leave an employee has booked by finding them on the schedule, and if necessary you can make changes to this - although you might want to warn them first!

They've marked themselves as unavailable

Even if an employee isn't entitled to leave they may still be unavailable occasionally, and if they've logged this we won't list them for shifts during that time to avoid any confusion. You can view an employee's unavailability on the schedule and make changes as necessary, as with leave.

They don't work on that day

Possibly the most irritating reason for an employee not being available; you've forgotten that they don't actually work on that day. Yes, it sounds like an obvious one, but when you're managing a whole team an individual employee's working pattern probably isn't at the forefront of your mind. We get it. 

Luckily, you can check whether this is the cause by viewing the employee's profile. We'll only show employees as being available for shifts on days when you've told us that they work, so if they could be scheduled for any day you'll probably want to create a 7-day week work pattern to assign to them and remind them to only book leave for days that they want to come out of their leave allowance.