How Do I Set Up and Manage Rostered Shifts in the Online App?

The online (web/mobile) app includes a Roster Planner that lets you create shift types, assign employees to them, schedule a roster for each pay run, and have those shifts pre-fill your pays automatically.

For the equivalent desktop workflow, see How Do I Set Up Rostered Shifts in Lightning Payroll Desktop?

Step 1 ÔÇö Define Company Shift Types

Before rostering any employee, create your base shift types under Company >> Shifts. This screen lists every shift defined for the company. The times and pay items set here are defaults only ÔÇö they can be overridden at the employee level or adjusted on individual rostered shifts later.

The main purpose of this area is to assign employees to a shared shift type. Once a shift is saved, employees can be linked to it so the shift appears in their individual roster settings.

Step 2 ÔÇö Configure Employee Shift Settings

After the company-level shift types are defined, set each employee's shift preferences under Employees >> Shifts. The Shift Settings screen lists every company shift that the employee has been assigned to.

To adjust how a shift behaves for a specific employee, select it to open the Edit Employee Shift screen. From here you can configure:

• Pay Rates ÔÇö each attached pay rate is paid once for each hour the shift is worked.
• Allowances ÔÇö each attached allowance is paid once each time the shift is worked.
• Repeats ÔÇö set regular days for the shift to be rostered automatically, so the roster is pre-filled each pay run without manual entry.

Note: to remove a shift from an employee's Shift Settings screen, remove the employee from the shift under Company >> Shifts.

Step 3 ÔÇö View and Edit the Roster Planner

Open Rosters from the main navigation to reach the Roster Planner. The planner shows all rostered shifts for the current pay run in a visual grid. Use Last Pay Run and Next Pay Run to move between periods.

Key actions available from the Roster Planner toolbar:

• Edit Shifts ÔÇö opens the Add or Edit Shifts screen where you can create, modify, or remove individual rostered shifts for this pay run. Use the Date Filter, Employee Filter, Sort By, and Sort Direction controls to narrow what is displayed.
• Reload Repeats ÔÇö regenerates any auto-repeating shifts from employee settings. Use this if you have accidentally edited or deleted repeating shifts and want to restore the default roster.
• Import/Manage Shifts ÔÇö import shift data from a CSV or other source.
• Timeclock/Portal Sync ÔÇö review and download timeclocked or timesheet shifts reported by employees.
• Import/Manage Leave Requests ÔÇö review and apply pending leave requests to the roster.
• Export CSV ÔÇö download the current roster as a CSV file.
• Print ÔÇö opens the print and email wizard to generate roster PDF reports.

Configuring Display Settings

Select Options from the Roster Planner toolbar to open Roster Display Settings. Here you can set the default zoom level, time range, and days shown on the roster view. Restricting the display to your usual operating days and hours removes unnecessary columns from the grid.

Roster Shifts and Pays

Once rostered shifts exist for a pay run, Lightning Payroll uses them to pre-fill that run's pay information automatically. Where no rostered shift is present, pays fall back to the employee's default pay settings.

If you want to use the roster for scheduling purposes only ÔÇö without it affecting generated pays ÔÇö go to the employee's pay settings and enable Ignore roster shifts when generating pays.

Printing and Emailing Rosters

To send rosters to employees, use Print from the Roster Planner toolbar. Choose a date range and the employees to include, then select either Print rosters or Email rosters. The email option lets you send individual roster reports to each employee or a combined report to everyone.