WFM UK: Scheduling: Shift Pooling - Internal and External

Overview

Shift Pooling allows customers to easily publish open shifts to all employees who are looking for work on a flexible, short-term basis. This can help organisations fulfil their labour demands and allow their employees a greater range of options for shifts that they take. Shifts can be made available internally (for employees at the organisation) or externally (for contractors, agency staff, etc). This article provides guidance on both types.

Internal Shift Pooling

Configuration and Settings

The setting Use Internal Shift pooling needs to be enabled at Organisation and Department level.

• From the Scheduling homepage, go to Settings > Organisations
• Select Edit against the required Organisation
• Tick the box against Use Shift-Pooling Internal and then Save

• Then go to Settings > My Schedule Settings > Organisation Settings
• Enable the setting Can use Internal Shift-Pooling and then Save
• Then do the same for Location Settings

• Create and publish open shifts as normal
• Then, from the Schedule page, select the Location(s) where the open shift will be published on the My Schedule app, with the possible options:
  • My Location - the current Location where the open shift is created
  • My Brand - all the Locations listed in the Brand where the publisher has access
  • My Region - all the Locations listed in the Region where the publisher has access
  • My Brand and My Region - all the Locations in 'My Brand' and in 'My Region' that the publisher has access to
  • My Company - all the Locations in the organisation
• To have the open shift be visible in the My Schedule app for all hourly paid employees, regardless of their job roles, enable the setting, Available to all employees
  • If this setting is not enabled, the open shift will be visible only to employees who have a valid assignment for the shift's job role

It is not necessary to select the Department for the shift, as the system will look at the existing assignments for employees in that job role at that location. Based on those assignments, the department that the open shift should belong to is identified and automatically set. If there is more than one department, it will default to the first department that has assignments for that job role. 

• When all settings are applied, select Publish

The shift will then be made available as specified to employees using the My Schedule app. See below.

My Schedule – Employee Open Shifts Journey

The following steps are for an employee using the My Schedule app.

• Go to Open Shifts and use the Filters button

This filter allows the hourly-paid employees to find an open shift that they would like to work.

• To allow access to the device's location (geolocation), enable Current Location
  or
• Select a Location from the drop-down
• Choose a Distance Range - a radius around the selected Location in miles
• Select a Job Role(s) and a Date
• Start Time After is not a mandatory field
• Then select Apply

A list of open shifts that match the search criteria will be returned by the API.

• Select the shift to offer to work

For more information on using the My Schedule app, please see this short video.

My Schedule – Scheduling Manager Journey

The following steps are for managers using the My Schedule app.

Managers will be able to see the list of employees who have offered to work available shifts.

• Use the Assign button to give shift(s) to the required employee(s)

'External' Employees

If an employee is marked as 'External' (see Fig.6) it means they have no active employment in the shift's Location. When assign is selected for an 'External' employee, a pop-up window will appear, where an employment is created.

• The Job Title will be automatically loaded - select a different one if needed from the drop-down
• Manually enter the Hourly PayRate - if outside the payment range for the job title, an error message will be displayed
• The Start Date will be always the start date of the shift, and the End Date will mark the end of the employment - the employee will be able to work additional 'pooled' shifts for its duration

If the Hourly PayRate has a max or min value only (which is taken from the Job Title in the HR module - Linked Rates of Pay), it will display just that number and not a range.

If the setting ( Settings > Organisations > Keep same rate for same job title in all locations) is enabled the assignment will be created with the same pay rate as the one for the main assignment for the same job title.

When the assignment request is sent, the manager will see confirmation onscreen.

When the shift is successfully assigned to an employee, they will receive a notification in their Fourth app and so will their manager.

External Shift Pooling

The Scheduling solution allows the publication of contractor shifts to integrated Flexible worker providers (Work Providers, Agencies), allowing them to fulfil those contractor shifts. This section explains how this works in the system, and the settings required to enable it.

Organisation Setting

The following setting will need to be applied by a system administrator.

• From the Scheduling homepage, go to Settings > Organisations
• Select Edit against the required Organisation
• Tick the box against Use Shift-Pooling External and then Save

Fig.8 - Use Shift-Pooling External Organisation Setting

Once enabled, contractor shifts can be published outside of the organisation. 

Scheduling Page

• To create a contractor shift, go to the Scheduling tab
• Select the contractor shift row

A pop-up will open (see Fig.9)

• Fill out all fields, and the publish button will become active

Please note that only shifts created for one employee can be published in the external shift pooling.

When creating a contractor shift, users must select the department where the shift will be assigned. < Effective Wednesday 29th October 2025.

Fig.9 - Publish contractor shift ('Department' field highlighted)

If the shift is created without being published (where it has only been saved), the shift icon will show a crossed-out eye (see Fig.10).

Fig.10 - Unpublished contractor shift

Once published, the shift's status becomes 'pending'.

A notification is sent to the integrated flexible worker provider to advise that the shift is available for fulfilment.

Fig.11 - Published shift with status "pending

The shift icon for the published shift is then no longer crossed out (see Fig.12). 

Fig.12- Published shift icon

When a worker requests to work the shift, the integrated flexible worker provider sends a message to Scheduling, containing the worker's name and worker ID. 

The status of the shift is changed to 'fulfilled'.

Fig.13 - Published shift with worker name and worker ID

The fulfilled shift icon becomes a solid 'fulfilled' eye (see Fig.14).

Fig.14 - Shift icon for fulfilled shift

When the shift is worked, a new message is sent to Scheduling containing the actual worked hours. The status of the shift then becomes 'actual' (see Fig.15).

Fig.15 - Contractor shift with status 'Actual'

If the worker cannot work the shift, the shift can be cancelled on the integrated flexible worker provider side. When this happens, the shift status in Scheduling will return to 'pending'.

Deleting Contractor Shifts

The contractor shifts with a status of 'Pending' or 'Fulfilled' can be deleted one-by-one or in bulk.

• To delete a contractor shift, open it and use the Delete button

Fig.16 - Deleting a contractor shift

• To do a bulk delete of contractor shifts, select the bin icon next to the contractor's row (see Fig.17)

Contractor shifts with the status 'Actual' cannot be deleted as they have already been worked.

A warning message will explain that the agency will be notified of the deletion - Fig.17.

For more information on bulk deletion of contractor shifts, please see here.

Fig.17 - Bulk delete option, warning message

A reconciliation report is available to summarise all the information about the shift part of the external shift pooling.

Users will need the user-level permission View Reconciliation Report to view the report.

Fig.18 - Reconciliation report