How to Use ShiftPing
Last updated: December 29, 2025
This guide explains the full ShiftPing flow: how categories are built, how team members are invited, how requests are sent, how selections work, what each status means, and who gets notified.
Roles and permissions
- Team Admin: Full access. Can manage team settings, users, categories, and requests. Can promote/demote roles and remove other Team Admins (except the last active Team Admin).
- Team Manager: Can manage requests, invites, and team members. Can edit and remove Team Members, and can edit internal notes for anyone on the team, but cannot edit or remove Team Admins, and cannot remove other Team Managers.
- Team Member: Can view and respond to requests. Can manage their own profile, but cannot manage team settings or other users.
Create and manage categories
Categories are your team qualifications (department, role, skill, location). They are hierarchical: top level categories contain sub-categories, and only leaf categories are assignable to members.
- Go to Team > Categories to add or edit categories.
- Tap a category to open its sub-categories and continue building the tree.
- Use the member count to see how many team members are assigned to each category.
- Assign team members by opening a category and selecting users in the picker.
- If you add the first sub-category under an existing category, existing assignments move into that first sub-category.
Invite team members
Single invite
- Go to Team Members > + to add a new member.
- Enter the email, role, and optional categories for the new team member. (Only Team Admins can assign the Team Admin role.)
- The user receives an email to set a password and finish onboarding.
Mass invite link
- Generate a shareable invite link in Team Members > + (Mass Invite tab).
- Recipients open the link, verify their email with a code, and complete onboarding.
- Mass invite signups require Team Admin or Team Manager approval and appear under Pending Invites.
- Approve or decline each request to activate the account.
Create a shift request
- Go to Requests > +.
- Add a clear message and choose a response deadline, or mark it as Urgent (ASAP).
- Select categories to auto-match recipients, then review the recipient list before sending.
- Each recipient costs one credit. Large requests prompt a confirmation.
Category filters and quick select
When creating a request, category filters control who is auto-matched. Filters are grouped by top-level category and only leaf categories are selectable.
No filter applied for that category.
Include users who have this category. If there are no Must Have selections in that group, the user must match at least one Can Have in that group.
Users must have this category to be included in the request.
Users with this category are excluded.
If you select a Must Have in a top-level group, any Can Have in that same group becomes redundant and appears grey (). Use the info icon inside the category picker for symbol help, and the Clear button to remove visible selections.
- Tap a leaf category to cycle through modes.
- Tap a parent category indicator to apply the next mode to all sub-categories in that branch.
Selecting recipients manually
After category matching, the user selector splits team members into three groups:
- Quick-Selected: Matched by your category criteria. These start selected and can be toggled off.
- Selected: Users you manually add even if they did not match the criteria.
- Not Selected: Everyone else you can add manually.
Tap a user card or the check icon to include or exclude them. The confirm button shows the total count of active recipients.
Request statuses and meanings
Request is live. Team members can view and respond. Status stays open until you complete it or it reaches the response deadline.
Response deadline passed (non-urgent requests) or a manager moved it to selection. You now choose who fills the shift.
The request is closed. Selections are locked and notifications are sent to available responders.
In the request status view, responses are grouped as Available, Unavailable, Seen, and Awaiting Response. Seen means the user opened the request but has not responded yet.
Selecting a user for a request
- Open the request and go to the status screen.
- Users who responded Available appear at the top. Tap a user card or the Select button to toggle selection.
- Selected users move into a dedicated Selected section.
- You can select multiple users if needed, then mark the request Completed to finalize.
- Once Completed, selection is locked and cannot be changed.
Notifications and who receives them
- New request: Sent to all selected recipients (excluding the creator).
- Urgent response: If a request is marked Urgent and someone responds Available, the creator receives a notification immediately.
- Deadline expired: For non-urgent requests, the creator is notified that the request is now Awaiting Selection, along with the count of available responses.
- Request completed: Users who responded Available get a result notification. Selected users get a confirmation; not selected users are told the shift was filled.
Tips, limits, and gotchas
- Response deadlines must be at least 5 minutes in the future.
- Urgent (ASAP) requests do not auto-expire and stay open until you update the status.
- Each recipient costs one credit. Requests over 100 recipients require confirmation. Over 400 recipients are blocked.
- Only active team members can be selected and notified.
- If you complete a request without selecting anyone, you will be asked to confirm.