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Sometimes you can’t make a shift. Maybe you’re away for the weekend, on holiday, or out for a longer stretch, and asking someone to simply absorb that much on-call is a big ask. Swapping shifts lets you trade your shift (or part of it) for one of theirs, so the time evens out and nobody’s just doing you a favor. Nobody changes places in the rotation, and everyone goes back to their normal schedule for every shift after the swap. If you only need a couple of hours off, you can send a cover request instead and let someone pick it up. There are two ways to swap: create a swap directly when you already know who you want to trade with, or offer a swap through a cover request when you don’t.

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Swap shifts directly

Use a direct swap when you’ve already agreed a trade with someone and just want to record it quickly. Both overrides are created in one go.
  1. Head to your schedules and click Create override → Swap shifts.
  2. Select the shift you want to give up. You can drag down a shift to swap only part of it (e.g. just the Thursday and Friday of your week).
  3. Choose the person you want to swap with, then select the shift of theirs you’ll take on in return.
  4. Save to create both overrides.
By default we snap your return shift to the same duration, so you’re offering a like-for-like trade. You can also make an uneven swap, for example taking on Flo’s Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in exchange for just your Thursday.
Press Cmd + K anywhere in the dashboard and choose Swap to jump straight into creating a swap.

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Swap shifts through a cover request

If you don’t know who to swap with, or you’d rather offer people a choice, use a cover request. Cover requests now include a calendar view and the option to offer a swap in return.

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Offer a swap when requesting cover

When you create a cover request, you can offer to take on one or more of the recipients’ shifts in return:
  1. Create a cover request for an upcoming shift and choose who to ask.
  2. Select Offer a swap and pick the shifts you’d be happy to take in return (e.g. Flo’s shift, or either of Bea’s shifts).
  3. Send the request.
Everyone you asked can still cover you outright. Anyone whose offered shift you selected also gets the option to simply accept the swap, taking your shift and handing you theirs in one step.

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Respond to a cover request with a swap

If someone sends you a cover request without offering a swap, you can still respond with one, saying “I’ll take this if you take my shift instead”:
  1. Open the cover request and choose to respond.
  2. Select Swap shifts and pick one of your own shifts to hand over in return.
  3. Send your response. If they accept, we create the matching override on the other side of the swap automatically.

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FAQs

No. A swap is a one-off trade for the shifts you pick. Both people keep their normal place in the rotation, so every shift after the swap is unaffected.
No. We snap to an equal-duration swap by default, but you can make an uneven swap, for example trading three of your days for one of someone else’s.
A cover request asks someone to take your shift. A swap trades two shifts so both people give up one and take one. You can combine the two by offering a swap as part of a cover request, or by responding to a cover request with a swap.