AI Shift Scheduling offers three ways to get help from AI on the Team Schedule — draft a new week, improve the schedule you already have, or change a single shift in plain words.
Every suggestion lands as a draft and nothing reaches your team until you publish it.
Permissions: You need Create, edit, and delete shifts to use these features on unpublished shifts, and Edit and delete published shifts to use them on published shifts too.
See the FAQs below for the full breakdown.
AI Shift Scheduling is turned on per business by NetGym. Contact your CSM or reach out to Support to ask about enabling it for your business.
How to choose the right AI scheduling feature
All three tools work from the same information — your team's availability, approved time off, recent shifts, and the class schedule — but each fits a different moment.
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Use it to | Draft a new week of shifts from scratch | Improve the shifts already on the schedule | Change one shift in plain words |
Where | The wand button in the Team Schedule toolbar, which opens AI editor mode | Optimize Schedule on the AI editor mode banner | The wand at the top right of a shift |
Covers | One week, which can repeat weekly or every few weeks | 1 to 4 weeks from a start date | One shift, or that shift and its later repeats |
What it changes | Creates new shifts | Who works a shift, and start/end times if you allow it | Who works the shift and its times |
Lands as | AI drafts, visible only in AI editor mode | Draft changes | A draft change |
Rules each AI Scheduling feature follows
Never broken
Only people on the shift’s team who work at that location are scheduled
Nobody scheduled outside their availability or during approved time off
Nobody double-booked
No shift during a class that person teaches
Always included
Coverage reliability — From the last 12 weeks of cover requests at that location: someone who keeps asking for cover on the same recurring shift should usually stop holding it, and whoever keeps picking it up is the natural owner. A pattern counts once it has happened twice.
Every class staffed — A shift covers each class, starting 15 minutes before it.
Compliance limits (if enabled) — Days in a row, and daily and weekly hours.
Fair hours — Spreads hours across staff and avoids situations where someone closes one night and opens the next morning.
You can override any of these default rules by adding your override sentence within the open text field.
How to build a new week of shifts with AI
The AI schedule builder creates a full week of shifts for the locations and teams you choose. It works from who's on each team at each location, their weekly availability, approved time off, the last four weeks of shifts, and the class schedule.
Click the wand in the Team Schedule toolbar to enter AI editor mode. If the week has no shifts yet, the builder opens automatically.
Pick the week, locations, and teams, then describe the usual shifts in a sentence — for example, "two front desk shifts on weekdays, 5am to 8pm."
Add anything else the AI should know, like "Athena only works Sundays."
Review the draft week on the preview grid and ask for changes in the chat beside it.
Save it as one week, or set it to repeat weekly or every few weeks — until an end date, or with no end.
Saved shifts are AI drafts — shown with a dashed, hatched look on the calendar, and visible only in AI editor mode. From there you can publish them, turn them into regular drafts with Save as Draft, or discard them.
How to improve a schedule you've already built
Optimize Schedule looks at the shifts already on the calendar for 1 to 4 weeks from a start date, and proposes the fewest changes that fix problems or meet your request.
It can hand a shift to someone else, leave a shift open when nobody suitable is free, and move start and end times if you allow it.
Click the wand in the Team Schedule toolbar to enter AI editor mode → Optimize Schedule.
Pick the week, start date, and number of weeks you want to optimize (1-4 weeks).
Select options: count approved time off, allow time changes, and update entire shift series.
Add additional instructions — left blank, Optimize Schedule works from the rules it always applies and keeps hours fair. Anything you type takes priority.
Click Optimize schedule and review: every change shows who had the shift, who gets it, why, plus a short note per location and warnings for anything the rules still flag. Ask for adjustments in the chat.
Click Save changes as drafts. Changes become ordinary draft changes on the schedule and go out when you publish.
Optimize Schedule never adds or deletes shifts, and never moves one to a different day, team, or location. It only changes who works a shift and, if you allow it, its start and end times.
How to edit a single shift with AI
Click a shift, then the wand at the top right of its details, and type what should change — like "find someone else to cover this" or "start 30 minutes later." Tap a suggestion for common requests instead of typing.
Repeating shifts: choose This shift or This & following shifts first. With the second, the AI picks someone who can work the entire series.
Type a follow-up to adjust the answer, then click Apply as draft. Press esc to close the box without applying.
Works on the regular schedule and in AI editor mode.
You cannot use this feature on past shifts or shifts with an open cover request.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exact permissions do I need?
What exact permissions do I need?
Within your business, AI Shift Scheduling follows your existing shift permissions:
Your shift permissions | Builder | Optimize | Quick edit |
Without Create, edit, and delete shifts | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden |
Create, edit, and delete shifts only | Yes | Yes, on unpublished shifts only — published ones stay as they are, and the form will say so | Yes, on unpublished shifts — the wand doesn't appear on published ones |
Both Create, edit, and delete shifts and Edit and delete published shifts | Yes | Yes, all shifts | Yes, all shifts |
Publishing an AI suggestion still needs the Publish shifts permission, same as any other schedule change.
Will my team be notified before I publish an AI suggestion?
Will my team be notified before I publish an AI suggestion?
No. Every AI suggestion is saved as a draft first. Your team sees it only once you publish, the same as a change you made by hand.
What happens to a shift that already has an open cover request?
What happens to a shift that already has an open cover request?
None of the three features touches it. A shift with an open cover request is left alone until that request is resolved.
Will Optimize Schedule ever move a shift to a different day, team, or location?
Will Optimize Schedule ever move a shift to a different day, team, or location?
No. Optimize Schedule can only change who works a shift and, if you allow it, its start and end times. It never adds, deletes, or relocates shifts.
Can I keep editing and publishing my regular schedule while AI drafts are waiting for review?
Can I keep editing and publishing my regular schedule while AI drafts are waiting for review?
Yes. Shifts from the AI schedule builder show up only in AI editor mode, so editing or publishing the regular schedule doesn't touch them. Discarding an AI draft also stops a repeating AI schedule from carrying on.