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A shift conflict policy flags anyone who’s on call in two or more places at the same time, so they can arrange cover before one of those pages goes unanswered. It looks ahead over the next 60 days across every schedule the policy covers, and raises a conflict for each window where someone is double-booked. The policy is evaluated at the lowest level of granularity, so it can catch conflicts across different schedules, different rotations of the same schedule, or concurrent shifts of the same rotation.
Shift conflict policies are a policy type, available on Pro and Enterprise plans.

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Creating a shift conflict policy

Create a shift conflict policy from Settings → Policies, starting from the Detect overlapping shifts template. As with other policies, you choose when reminders are sent, and outstanding conflicts appear in the policy’s Outstanding tab, on team Tasks pages, and in policy reports.

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Choosing which schedules to cover

A conflict is found across every schedule the policy covers, so choose the set of schedules where one person shouldn’t be on call for two at once. Select schedules directly, or add conditions that match on their catalog attributes, including the teams that own each schedule.

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Who gets notified

A shift conflict is assigned to the person who’s double-booked, since they’re the one who needs to arrange cover. You can’t change the assignee. We send one message covering all of that person’s conflicts. It links to their shifts across the affected schedules, so they can see exactly where the overlap is and ask for cover or create an override.

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When reminders are sent

A shift conflict is a window of time in the future, so you can anchor each reminder to one of two moments:
  • When the conflict is identified: remind immediately, or a set number of days after the conflict is first detected. Good for letting someone know as soon as a conflict appears, even if it’s weeks away.
  • When the conflict starts: remind a set number of days before the conflict starts, when it starts, or a set number of days after.
Schedules change, so a conflict can grow or shrink after it’s found. When a conflict grows, such as a third schedule overlapping or the window getting longer, we update it and let the person know it’s changed (straight away only if the policy uses Remind immediately). A conflict that shrinks updates quietly, and one that’s fully resolved, such as by an override, closes on its own.

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Surfacing and dismissing conflicts

Shift conflicts show up in four places:
  • On the policy, in the Outstanding tab of the policy’s side panel.
  • On the schedule, where conflicts are highlighted on the timeline and calendar, and listed in a banner you can cycle through. This works on a single schedule and when viewing several schedules together.
  • In ‘My tasks’, where users can see all of their outstanding conflicts across every schedule the policy covers.
  • On the team’s page, in the Tasks tab, where the team sees all conflicts across every schedule they own.
We recommend resolving conflicts from the multiple-schedules page, since it shows the shifts in context. Sometimes a conflict is intentional, such as someone knowingly covering two quiet rotations. You can dismiss a shift conflict with a reason from either place. Dismissing requires the Manage policy findings permission and doesn’t change any schedule or override. A dismissed conflict stays dismissed while it stays the same or shrinks. If it grows, we flag the new overlap as a fresh conflict.

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Warnings before you create a conflict

When a shift conflict policy covers a schedule, we warn before a change would put someone on call in two places at once:
  • Overrides: creating, editing, or deleting an override shows any conflicts it would create, including for whoever the rotation puts back on the shift when an override is deleted.
  • Cover requests: anyone asked to cover a shift sees a warning if accepting would double-book them. They can review the conflict and accept anyway from the dashboard or mobile app. In Slack and Microsoft Teams, Respond in app takes them there.
  • Shift swaps: when swapping shifts, we show where you’re already on call while you pick shifts to offer, leave out suggested swaps that would double-book you, and flag any swap offer that would create a conflict before you accept it.