<p>This is the <strong>how-it-works</strong> page for shift scheduling in Pebb — not a “best app” trophy and not a competitor money page. If you need the buying checklist, start with <a href="/blog/employee-scheduling-software">employee scheduling software</a>. If you want the honest head-to-head, use <a href="/blog/best-shift-scheduling-app-small-teams">best shift scheduling app for small teams</a>. Here we walk the product: where the roster lives, assigned vs open shifts, drafts and templates, publish + notify, availability, mobile vs web, permissions, and the limits we will not paper over.</p><p><strong>Pebb</strong> is an all-in-one employee app (Connecteam-class ops + communications + collaboration). Shifts sit next to org-wide chat and GPS clock-in inside <strong>unlimited Spaces</strong>. <a href="https://pebb.io/pricing">Basic is $2.50 per user per month</a>; <strong>Premium is $4</strong>. There is <strong>no free plan</strong>. Trial is the full product, <strong>no credit card</strong>. GPS on clock-in is a <strong>stamp ± optional near-branch</strong> — not live breadcrumbs. No payroll, LMS, or ATS.</p><p><a href="https://app.pebb.io/auth/sign-up">Start full trial — no card</a> · <a href="https://pebb.io/pricing">Pebb pricing</a></p><p><strong>Product walkthrough:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfrGR1x_Sk">Watch the Pebb product review on YouTube</a> (embed this video in Framer near this spot).</p><p>Product UI walkthrough (screenshots match help): <a href="https://help.pebb.io/en/articles/15156823-shift-scheduling-in-pebb-a-complete-guide-to-managing-employee-shifts">Shift Scheduling in Pebb — complete guide</a>.</p><!-- keep for Framer upload: shifts__00__Screenshot+2026-05-17+at+13_35_36.png --><p><em>UI: shifts__00__Screenshot+2026-05-17+at+13_35_36.png</em> — Week view of Assigned Shifts in a Space — members, hours, Time Off blocks, Create Shift and Publish</p><h2>Shifts live in Spaces</h2><p>Every shift schedule belongs to a <strong>Space</strong>. A Space is a room with a member list — a branch, job site, floor, department, or managers-only pod. Turn <strong>Shift Schedule</strong> on for that Space; only members of that Space sit on that roster.</p><p>That is why multi-site ops stop drowning New York in Boston’s night crew. One Space per site or crew is the usual pattern. An Everyone Space can still carry company-wide tools when you want them. Spaces are <strong>unlimited</strong> on Basic and Premium — rooms, not billed hubs. Full model: <a href="/blog/what-are-pebb-spaces">What are Pebb Spaces?</a>.</p><p>Chat stays <strong>org-wide</strong> outside Spaces on purpose. Coverage talk can still start from a Space or branch context, but you are not buying a Messaging+ SKU to argue about Saturday. Time Off (Premium) is org-wide too, so leave is not trapped inside one store’s room while the scheduler plans another.</p><h2>Assigned vs open shifts</h2><p>Pebb supports two ways to put work on the calendar.</p><p><strong>Assigned shifts</strong> — you already know who should work. Pick one or more Space members, set title, note, start/end, optional unpaid break, role, place/address, decline policy, and whether swap requests are allowed (with an optional cutoff hours before start). You can mark the assignment as already accepted when the schedule is final once published.</p><p><strong>Open shifts</strong> — you need coverage and want people to claim slots. Set how many slots are available. Optionally require admin approval before a claim sticks (useful for chef, site lead, or anything skill-gated). Employees see remaining slots and tap <strong>Claim Shift</strong>.</p><p>Open shifts are how you kill the 11-person WhatsApp “who can cover Friday?” spiral without naming someone who already said no. Assigned shifts are how you lock the closer and the site lead when the week is not a volunteer board.</p><!-- keep for Framer upload: shifts__11__Screenshot+2026-05-17+at+13_42_16.png --><p><em>UI: shifts__11__Screenshot+2026-05-17+at+13_42_16.png</em> — Open Shift Details — slots available, note, Claim Shift for Space members</p><p>Day, week, and month views exist for managers. Group by <strong>Space Members</strong>, <strong>Shift Roles</strong>, or <strong>Hours of day</strong> when you care about people, coverage by job type, or peak windows. A summary bar tracks shifts, hours, slots, roles, members, and optional labor cost / sales for the visible range.</p><h2>Drafts, templates, publish + notify</h2><p>Build privately. <strong>Save as Draft</strong> while you still check availability. Drafts do not blast the floor. When the week is ready, <strong>Publish</strong> — the button shows how many drafts will go live for the date range you pick.</p><p>On publish you choose notify behavior:</p><ul><li>Notify <strong>assigned</strong> members only</li><li>Notify <strong>all Space members</strong> (useful when open shifts need eyes)</li><li><strong>Don’t notify</strong> (publish quiet; notify later)</li></ul><p>After publish, <strong>Notify</strong> can still ping assigned people, the whole Space, or only <strong>pending responses</strong> — the people who have not accepted or declined yet.</p><p><strong>Templates</strong> save a day, week, month, or custom range so you are not rebuilding Monday from zero. Load a template onto a start date, tweak the exceptions, publish. Save a single shift pattern as a template when the same morning block repeats. Duplicate and edit a shift when only the date or role changes.</p><p>That draft → template → publish → notify loop is the difference between a spreadsheet that emails a PDF and a roster the phone actually shows the morning of.</p><!-- keep for Framer upload: shifts__09__Screenshot+2026-05-17+at+13_38_38.png --><p><em>UI: shifts__09__Screenshot+2026-05-17+at+13_38_38.png</em> — Publish Draft Shifts — date range, notify assigned / all Space / don’t notify</p><h2>Availability + time off visibility</h2><p>Employees use <strong>My Availability</strong> to add unavailable windows and to request time off from the same surface managers already plan on. Unavailable blocks and Time Off can show on the schedule (for example a full-day medical leave note on a member row) so you do not assign into a known gap.</p><p>Time Off itself is a <strong>Premium</strong> org-wide feature. Shifts and availability tooling on the schedule still matter on Basic; the leave system of record for PTO lives on Premium so leave does not fragment by store. Sibling punch story: <a href="/blog/employee-clock-in-app">employee clock-in app</a>. Escaping the spreadsheet specifically: <a href="/blog/excel-shift-schedule-alternative">Excel shift schedule alternative</a>. UK/IE/AU wording: <a href="/blog/staff-rota-app">staff rota app</a>.</p><h2>Mobile + web</h2><p>Managers typically build, template, and publish on <strong>web</strong> — week grid, role grouping, reports, sales entries, notify. Employees live on <strong>mobile</strong>: see their shifts, accept or decline when policy allows, claim open shifts, update availability, and open the same Space tools they need that day.</p><p>The schedule is not a separate “roster app” login. It sits in the same Pebb login as org-wide chat and (on Basic) GPS clock-in and timesheets. That is the product bet: one seat meter for talk, roster, and punch.</p><h2>Permissions</h2><p>Inside Space settings, turn <strong>Shift Scheduling</strong> on or off for that room. You can use default permissions or customize:</p><ul><li><strong>Create shifts</strong> — Everyone / Admins &amp; Managers / Admins Only</li><li><strong>Modify shifts</strong> — usually tighter than create</li><li><strong>View everyone’s shifts</strong> — full team board vs own shifts only</li></ul><p>Most 11–80 teams let admins and managers create and modify, and let everyone see the Space roster so coverage is visible without a side channel. Lock modify to Admins Only when a published week must stay stable.</p><h2>Honest limits</h2><p>Read these before you migrate:</p><ul><li><strong>No free plan.</strong> Budget Basic ($2.50) or Premium ($4) seats. Evaluate with the <strong>full trial, no card</strong>.</li><li><strong>No payroll, LMS, or ATS.</strong> Export timesheets toward payroll; keep hiring and training systems of record elsewhere.</li><li><strong>GPS is a stamp ± near-branch</strong>, not live breadcrumbs or a tracking map.</li><li><strong>Not the deepest award / Fair Workweek / POS auto-schedule engine.</strong> If that depth is why you bought a specialist scheduler, keep that requirement on the table.</li><li><strong>Offline is not full.</strong> Dead-zone crews may need a tool that caches a full shift offline.</li><li><strong>Sales and labor cost on the schedule</strong> are planning aids, not a finance suite.</li></ul><p>Pebb is Connecteam-class all-in-one on purpose — not a pivot into a standalone WFM suite. If that match is wrong for your desk, the trial will show it in a week.</p><p><strong>Product walkthrough:</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfrGR1x_Sk">Watch the Pebb product review on YouTube</a> (embed this video in Framer near this spot).</p><h2>FAQ</h2><h3>Where do shifts live?</h3><p>Inside a Space. Enable Shift Schedule on that Space; only Space members are on that roster. <a href="/blog/what-are-pebb-spaces">What are Pebb Spaces?</a></p><h3>Assigned vs open — which should we use?</h3><p>Assigned when you know the names. Open when you need slots claimed (optionally with admin approval). Most weeks use both.</p><h3>Can we draft before the floor sees the week?</h3><p>Yes. Save as draft, then publish a date range with assigned / all Space / don’t-notify options.</p><h3>Do templates copy every week forever?</h3><p>Templates save a pattern you load onto a start date. You still review, edit exceptions, and publish.</p><h3>Is chat locked inside the schedule Space?</h3><p>No. Team chat is org-wide. Coverage can reference a Space without a separate messaging hub.</p><h3>Basic or Premium for scheduling?</h3><p>Shifts, clock-in, timesheets, directory, unlimited Spaces, and org-wide chat are on <strong>Basic ($2.50)</strong>. <strong>Premium ($4)</strong> adds calls, news feed, Time Off, tasks, forms, wiki, analytics, SSO. Trial includes everything.</p><h3>Is there a free plan?</h3><p>No. Full trial, no credit card. Then <a href="https://pebb.io/pricing">pricing</a>.</p><h3>Where is the step-by-step UI guide?</h3><p><a href="https://help.pebb.io/en/articles/15156823-shift-scheduling-in-pebb-a-complete-guide-to-managing-employee-shifts">Shift Scheduling in Pebb — complete guide</a> in the help center.</p><h2>Publish the week people actually open</h2><p>Shift scheduling in Pebb is Spaces + assigned/open + draft/template/publish/notify — in the same app as chat and clock-in, billed per person. No free plan. Full trial, no card. <strong>Basic $2.50 / Premium $4.</strong></p><p><a href="https://app.pebb.io/auth/sign-up">Start full trial — no card</a> · <a href="https://pebb.io/pricing">See Pebb pricing</a></p><p>Sibling reads: <a href="/blog/best-shift-scheduling-app-small-teams">best shift scheduling app for small teams</a> · <a href="/blog/staff-rota-app">staff rota app</a> · <a href="/blog/excel-shift-schedule-alternative">Excel shift schedule alternative</a> · <a href="/blog/what-are-pebb-spaces">What are Pebb Spaces?</a> · <a href="/blog/employee-clock-in-app">employee clock-in app</a> · <a href="/blog/employee-scheduling-software">employee scheduling software</a> · <a href="https://help.pebb.io/en/articles/15156823-shift-scheduling-in-pebb-a-complete-guide-to-managing-employee-shifts">Help: Shift Scheduling in Pebb</a></p>