Before you start
You need scheduling permissions for the community. If you can't open a shift or don't see the pencil icon after clicking one, ask an admin to update your role — see How to Manage User Permissions.
You can edit a shift whether it's a draft (only visible to schedulers) or published (visible to staff in the Veras app). Editing a published shift updates what staff see; editing a draft does not notify anyone until you publish.
Editing one shift only changes that single shift. To change many shifts at once, use How to Use the Multi-Select.
Picking a Shift:
1. Go to the Schedule tab.
2. Find the shift you want to edit and click on it. When the window appears, select the pencil icon to open the edit options.
Editing Options
Shift status
Toggle between Draft and Published. Draft shifts are visible only to schedulers. Publishing a shift here makes it visible to the assigned staff member immediately and triggers their notification, the same as publishing through the main Publish flow. To pull a published shift back into draft, see How to Un-Publish Shifts.
Position
Change the position (job role) the shift is scheduled for. Updating the position may also limit who can be assigned, because each staff member is tied to specific positions.
Assigned Worker
Reassign the shift to a different staff member, or remove the current worker to convert the shift into an open shift. To remove the worker without picking a replacement, choose Unassign — the shift stays on the schedule and becomes available for someone to pick up. For the open-shift workflow that follows, see How to Fill an Open Shift and How to Share Open Shifts.
Shift Template
Pick a different Shift template (a saved start/end time pairing — for example, "Day 7a–3p") or enter a custom timeframe. If you enter a custom timeframe, a Count towards shift template field appears — use it to pick which existing template this custom shift should count toward in your budgets. The custom timeframe applies to this shift only and isn't saved as a new reusable template. For setting up the saved templates themselves, see How to Add and Edit Shift Templates.
Date
Move the shift to a different calendar day. The start and end times stay the same — only the date changes. If the new date conflicts with another shift on the same worker, Veras flags it before saving
Areas
Add one or more Areas (the unit, station, or section of the facility the shift covers), or remove an area that no longer applies. A shift can have multiple areas if the worker is covering more than one. For setting up areas in the first place, see How to Set Up and Use Areas.
Shift Incentives
Add a dollar amount in the Shift incentives ($) field to flag the shift as paying extra — useful for hard-to-fill shifts you're trying to advertise. Incentives appear with the shift wherever it's shared and are tracked in Analytics so you can see what you've spent on premium pay over time.
Notes
Enter free-text details or instructions for the shift. You can also choose from notes you've used before to keep wording consistent across the schedule. Notes are visible to the assigned staff member when they open the shift in the Veras app, so use this field for anything the worker needs to know — assignment details, handoff context, things to bring.
In training
Turn on In training if this is a training shift. If activated, you will have the following options:
Exclude from budget - Turn this on if you want them to be excluded from the budget.
Count towards PPD - Turn this on if you want them to count toward your PPD
Save Your Changes
After making your desired changes, don't forget to click the Save button!
Shift History - How to see changes made to a shift
Inside the edit window, the History section shows a running record of changes to the shift — what was changed, who changed it, and when. Use this when there's a question about why a shift looks different from earlier, or to confirm that an edit you made was actually saved.
Common Questions
Q: Do staff get notified when I edit a published shift?
A: No, we do not notify staff members of changes to a published shift.
Q: How is editing a shift different from deleting it and adding a new one?
A: Editing keeps the same shift record, preserves its history, and only notifies staff once with an "updated" message. Deleting and re-adding creates a new shift with no history and can confuse staff who already had the old shift in their app. Edit whenever possible. See How to Delete Shifts for cases when deletion is the right move.
Q: Can I edit several shifts at once?
A: Not from the single-shift edit panel — that only changes the shift you opened. For changes across many shifts, use the multi-select tool from the Schedule page. See How to Use the Multi-Select.
Q: I need to take a worker off a shift but I don't have a replacement yet. What do I do?
A: Open the shift, click the pencil icon, and use Unassign in the Assigned worker field. The shift stays on the schedule as an open shift you can fill or share later. Full open-shift workflow: How to Fill an Open Shift.
Q: If I enter a custom shift time, does it create a new shift template?
A: No. The custom timeframe applies only to that single shift — your existing template list doesn't change. The Count towards shift template field that appears lets you pick which existing template this custom shift should count toward in your budgets, but it doesn't save the timeframe as a reusable template. To create a new reusable template, see How to Add and Edit Shift Templates.