Open Shifts Automatic Assignment Enhancements

When workforce managers assign open shifts from the workforce schedule, it now includes workers assigned to departments that are marked as float pools so remaining uncovered shifts can be filled.

Here are some key highlights:

• Home (department-assigned) workers are always prioritized when assigning shifts; float workers are used only to cover the remaining open shifts.
• Only workers assigned to departments explicitly marked as float and included in the schedule generation profile are considered as float workers; float across staffing departments is not included.
• Assignments for float workers respect each worker’s work pattern, full-time equivalent (FTE), job role/profile, approved absences, public holidays, existing schedule, and scheduling rules.
• Unavailability preferences (rest days/partial rest) are treated as soft constraints and avoided when possible, but may be overridden if no other options exist.
• Shift deviation allowance is not applied when assigning open shifts to either home or float workers.

Practical use case scenarios:

• Hospital units: Fill last-minute gaps in a surgical ward after assigning core staff by drawing from a hospital float pool of cross-trained nurses to ensure mandated coverage while respecting their patterns and availability .
• Retail stores: During peak shopping days, assign uncovered evening shifts to float associates from a regional float department when a store’s own team can’t fully cover .
• Manufacturing plants: When a production line adds an extra shift, the system first fills with home operators, then assigns remaining roles to trained float staff to avoid downtime.

Automatically fill remaining open shifts by prioritizing home workers and then intelligently assigning eligible float workers, improving coverage reliability and reducing manual scheduling effort.

Steps to enable and configure

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Key resources

For more information about workforce schedules generations, see these What's New features:

• Release 24B: Generate Workforce Schedule Introduction and Validate Workforce Schedule Introduction
• Release 24C: Generate and Validate Workforce Schedule Enhancement
• Release 24D: Generate Workforce Schedule Enhancement
• Release 25A: Generate and Validate Workforce Schedule Enhancements
• Release 25B: Generate Workforce Schedule Enhancements
• Release 25C: Generate and Validate Workforce Schedule Enhancements
• Release 25D: Generate and Validate Workforce Schedule Enhancements
• Release 26A: Open Shifts Automatic Assignment Introduction

For more information about float management, see this What's New features: Release 25A: Float Management Enhancements

Access requirements

This privilege gives access to automatic assignment of open shifts: