Vacant Shift Claiming reduces the time it takes to find an available staff member for a shift by offering the shift to all eligible employees.
You can use vacant shift claiming as part of your usual rostering process to fill multiple shifts, or use it to find a replacement for a single shift.
What's covered in this guide?
How it works
A manager publishes a vacant shift
Employees who meet the requirements are notified of the available shift on the mobile app
Depending on your settings for manager approval, either first employee to 'claim' the vacant shift will be automatically allocated into the shift on the roster or, the manager can select from the list of employees who have offered to work the vacant shift.
To determine who meets the requirements for a vacant shift, Tanda considers the location and team an employee can work in, and clashes with existing published shifts or approved leave requests for those employees.
Turn on vacant shift claiming
Vacant shift claiming is an optional feature. To turn vacant shift claiming on, navigate to Settings > All Settings > Roster Settings and enable vacant shift claiming.
Once a vacant shift is published, staff can start claiming them on a first in, best dressed basis - the first employee to claim the shift will have it automatically added to their roster.
Require manager approvals for vacant shift claims
An additional setting can require managers to select the best option to cover a vacant shift.
Manager approval is optional and by default is turned off. To turn on manager approval:
Navigate to Settings > All Settings > Rosters > Vacant shift claiming
Enable Vacant shift claiming requires manager approval
Click Update Settings
Once enabled, make sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update Settings
Publish a vacant shift for claiming
To publish vacant shifts as part of your normal roster publishing process, follow the steps below:
Create a vacant shift on the roster. Ensure the shift has a team, start time and finish time allocated
Once you're ready to publish your roster, go to Review and Publish
Check the box for Publish All Shifts and the box for Publish Vacant Shifts (Shift Claiming)
Review your Claimable shifts prior to publishing to confirm these are the vacant shifts you would like to publish to staff
Click Publish
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Once a vacant shift has been successfully published and can be claimed, the shift will show with a blue dot in the top right corner.
📝 Important to note: vacant shifts will only be claimable with a blue dot if they are in the future. If an employee covers a vacant shift without claiming it, we recommend assigning them the shift manually and republishing through the roster for record keeping.
Publish only vacant shifts
Follow the below steps if you only want to publish vacant shifts rather than all shifts:
Find a vacant shift on the roster
Click the three dots in the top right corner of the vacant shift
Click Publish
Select Publish all shifts and Publish vacant shifts.
Vacant shifts can also be created and published through the Team Roster on the mobile app. Follow the normal steps of creating a new shift on the app, then select Vacant for the Employee field.
Publish multiple vacant shifts after the roster has already been published
To publish more than one vacant shift after the roster has already been published, follow the normal roster publish process, ensuring Publish All Shifts and Publish Vacant Shifts are selected when publishing.
If you prefer to not send already published shifts to your staff again, you can click deselect all from the staff receiving rosters list while publishing as shown below while publishing the vacant shifts:
Claim and assign vacant shifts
Employees claim vacant shifts on their mobile app. Employees will be notified of an available vacant shift via a push notification on their mobile phone.
Claim a vacant shift
With the Require manager approvals for vacant shift claims setting disabled, vacant shifts are assigned on a first in, best dressed basis - whoever claims the shift first will have it automatically added to their roster.
Vacant shifts can only be claimed on the mobile app. To do so:
Open the Shifts page on the Tanda app
Switch to the Pick up shifts tab on the Shifts page
Find a shift you'd like to claim by expanding dates and changing filters
Click the Claim Shift button and confirm that you'd like to claim the shift
Once complete, the shift will automatically be added to your roster.
Offer to cover a vacant shift
With the Require manager approvals for vacant shift claims setting enabled, a manager must select an applicant to cover the vacant shift.
You can only offer to cover a vacant shift on the mobile app. To do so:
Open the Shifts page on the Tanda app
Switch to the Pick up shifts tab on the Shifts page
Find a shift you'd like to offer to cover by expanding dates and changing filters
Click the Offer to Cover button on the relevant shift and confirm your offer when prompted
Staff will be notified via push notification if their offer to cover has been accepted, and the shift will be automatically added to their roster.
Approve an offer to cover a vacant shift as a manager
After activating manager approvals, managers can approve offers to cover a vacant shift on both the mobile app and the desktop version.
To approve a vacant shift claim on the app as a manager:
Open the mobile app and navigate to the Overview page
Switch to the Pending Tasks tab
Click the Manage replacements & claims button
Switch to the Vacant Shift Claims tab and click the relevant shift
Click the Approve Cover button next to the employee covering the shift
To do it on desktop, simply head to the Rosters for that period > Click on Tools > Shift Claiming:
Upon reaching that section, you will find the vacant shift offers available for claiming. Click on "Select Replacement" and choose one of the employees who have submitted an offer to claim the shift.
Secondary teams
When staff in a specific team aren't available to fill a vacant shift, open up the vacant shift to more employees with Secondary teams. Enable this feature through Settings > All Settings > Roster Settings > Secondary Teams.
Note: Vacant Shift Claiming Must be enabled to see this option
Assign staff to secondary teams
Once the feature is enabled, navigate to an employee's profile and assign any secondary teams.
Important to note: any teams that the employee already works in or manages cannot be added as secondary teams.
Once finalised, click the Update Employee Details button to save the changes.
Offer vacant shifts to secondary teams
To offer vacant shifts to secondary teams, click the Review and Publish button on the roster and tick both the Publish Vacant Shifts (Shift Claiming) checkbox and Publish Vacant Shifts to Secondary Team Members checkbox.
FAQs and troubleshooting
How can I identify if a 'Vacant Shift' has been broadcasted successfully?
'Vacant Shifts' which have been broadcasted but not yet claimed, will have a blue indicator on the shift card:
Once claimed, the indicator will change colour to green and be assigned to the employee.
Can an employee claim a shift on the web-app (desktop) version?
No, 'Vacant Shifts' can only be claimed on the mobile app.
How close to the start time of a shift can a 'Vacant Shift' be published?
The start time of a 'Vacant Shift' must be more than 1 hour away to be published.
Can employees claim shifts in team/s they're not in?
No, employees can only claim shifts in teams that they are in, or if it's a secondary team for the employee.
Is a manager required to approve a claimed vacant shift?
Claiming 'Vacant Shifts' do not require manager approval, 'Vacant Shifts' can be claimed first come, first served.
To require manager approval for vacant shifts, see the Require Manager Approvals for Vacant Shift Claims.