Moving from another system - Deputy, 7shifts, a spreadsheet, even a photo of the printed sheet on the wall? You don't retype it. Open the Schedule on the week you want the shifts to land in, choose Import (next to Templates on a desktop, in the "..." menu on a phone), and drop the file. A screenshot or photo (JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF), a PDF, a CSV or an Excel .xlsx export all work. Dates in the file are moved onto the week you're viewing.
Roster reads the file and shows you every shift it found in a review table - worker, day, start, end, role, area. Nothing is created and nothing is sent until you confirm. Fix anything the reading got wrong, drop rows you don't want, then Create draft shifts. They land as drafts; your team is only notified when you publish, like any other roster.
Do I need to set up my team first?
No - either order works, but names behave differently:
- A name that matches someone already on your Team (exact name, or a first name no one else shares) assigns the shift straight to them. No invite, no duplicate.
- A name that doesn't match anyone gets an invite step: add their mobile or email and the invite goes out when the shifts are created, with the shifts waiting against their name for when they accept. Choose Add contacts later and they're added as pending invites holding their shifts, ready for a mobile or email from the Team page. Tap the X on a name to leave their shifts unfilled instead.
- Rows marked open, unfilled, unassigned or vacant in the source import as unfilled shifts.
So if your staff are already set up, the import simply files shifts onto them.
Do I need to create areas and roles first?
Areas, no. The import matches area names from your file against your areas, ignoring case - a section called "Kitchen" files into your Kitchen area. Any it doesn't recognise are created for you, and the review step lists them before you confirm. Pick "-" on a row to leave it without an area.
Roles, yes. Roles aren't created by the import: a role name that doesn't match one of yours imports with no role. Create your roles first, or confirm the role on each row at review.
Importing one section at a time
Long roster? Import in pieces - one screenshot per section or per week. Each import is its own review, and shifts you've already created are unaffected by the next batch.
Importing your team's contact details
The schedule import reads names and shifts, not phone numbers. To bring in contact details, use Invite, then Multiple on the Team page: drop a screenshot, PDF, CSV or spreadsheet of your staff list and Roster extracts names, mobiles, emails and roles for review before any invite goes out. Xero users can Import from Xero instead, which also brings pay rates across.