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How to plan repeating shifts

How to create recurring shift patterns — weekly or custom cycle repeating shifts.

Written by Merilin Peetris
Updated today

When employees work regular patterns, you can create repeating shifts instead of adding each shift manually. Begin supports weekly and custom cycle patterns. This article explains how to set them up.

How to create a repeating shift

  1. Open Scheduler and create or edit a shift (double-click a date or right-click → Add).

  2. In the event modal, toggle Repeating shifts on.

  3. Choose a frequency: Weekly or Cycle.

  4. Configure the pattern (see below).

  5. Set the Until date — how far into the future to generate shifts. Defaults to the end of the current month.

  6. Click Save changes.

Weekly pattern

Select one or more days of the week when the shift repeats. For example, selecting Monday through Friday creates a standard weekday shift pattern. The shift is created on every selected weekday until the end date.

Cycle pattern

Define a custom rotation with work days on (max 7) and days off (max 7). For example:

  • 2 on / 2 off — work 2 days, skip 2 days, repeat

  • 4 on / 3 off — work 4 days, skip 3 days, repeat

  • 5 on / 2 off — standard work week pattern

This is useful for shift workers with rotating schedules that don't follow a standard weekly pattern.

Assigning to multiple employees

When creating repeating shifts, you can apply the same pattern to multiple people at once:

  1. By employee — open the employee selection and choose one or more employees. The repeating shift is created for all selected employees.

  2. By department — select a department from the dropdown. All employees in that department will receive the repeating shift.

Editing a repeating shift series

When you edit or delete a shift that is part of a repeating series, you will be asked how to apply the change:

  • Only this shift — change just the selected occurrence

  • This and future shifts — update the selected shift and all future occurrences

  • All shifts in the series — update every occurrence in the series

Note: Only unpublished shifts in the series will be updated. Published (confirmed) shifts are not affected by series edits.

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