{"id":853,"date":"2025-11-05T22:52:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T22:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/when2work.com\/help\/?page_id=853"},"modified":"2026-06-18T00:12:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:12:03","slug":"breakroom","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/when2work.com\/help\/breakroom\/","title":{"rendered":"The Breakroom: Your Latest WhenToWork News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take five to hide and see what\u2019s happening in WhenToWork.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Is Your Scheduling Getting Easier Each Week?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Building a schedule from scratch every week is exhausting work. And yet, a lot of managers do exactly that, re-checking the same availability constraints, reassigning the same positions, and recreating the same weekly patterns each time.<\/p>\n

If you are in the boat of feeling exhausted, let’s dive into some WhenToWork features that could take some tasks off your plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Easy Button: Schedule Smarter, Schedule Faster <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We are all about working smarter, not longer when it comes to scheduling. If your daily scheduling tasks keep growing, no matter how many things you check off your list, here are four things to start doing that will make your scheduling life a little easier.<\/p>\n

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  1. Let Staff Tell You What They Can’t Do (And Have It Stick)
    \n<\/strong>Every team has staff with availability constraints that don’t really change week to week. A student who can never work Monday mornings. A part-timer who’s unavailable every Friday evening. A volunteer who only comes in weekends. If you know this and your setup doesn’t, you’re manually accounting for it every single time you build a schedule.<\/p>\n

    WhenToWork lets you record repeating “cannot work” times directly on an employee’s profile. Once it’s set, that constraint is carried forward automatically. AutoFill respects it. And when you’re assigning manually, you’ll see it flagged before you make the mistake. It sounds simple because it is. But the time it saves compounds fast.<\/p>\n

    See how to set recurring unavailability<\/a><\/p>\n

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  2. Tell AutoFill Which Position Each Person Prefers
    \n<\/strong>A lot of teams have staff who are qualified to work multiple positions. Yet, some are clearly better at, or prefer, one position over the others. Without position preferences, AutoFill doesn’t know the difference. It just fills gaps.<\/p>\n

    Position preferences let you rank how strongly each staff member should be assigned to each of their eligible positions. AutoFill uses those preferences when building the schedule automatically, so you get a closer match to how you’d actually assign things by hand. It’s not a rigid rule, just an informed suggestion built into the system. For teams with a lot of cross-trained staff, it reduces the reassignment work after AutoFill runs.<\/p>\n

    Learn how position preferences work<\/a><\/p>\n

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  3. Stop Rebuilding the Same Schedule From Scratch
    \n<\/strong>If your schedule follows a consistent pattern, even a loose one, templates are the most straightforward time-saver in WhenToWork. You build the shift structure once, save it as a template, and import it as your starting point the next time you open a new week. You can still make adjustments for coverage gaps, time off, and trades, but you’re editing, not rebuilding.<\/p>\n

    While most know that WhenToWork supports weekly templates, most don’t take advantage of using day templates or holiday templates. Week templates are useful for teams with consistent multi-day patterns. Day templates work well for operations that repeat the same shift structure on specific days but vary by day of the week. Either way, the idea is the same: do the structural work once, and spend your scheduling time on the exceptions rather than the foundation.<\/p>\n

    How to create a day template<\/a><\/p>\n

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  4. When Your Scheduling Rules Create Constant Manual Checks
    \n<\/strong>WhenToWork is built to make straightforward scheduling fast. Most teams find that “cannot work” constraints, position preferences, and templates cover the bulk of what they need to manage. But some businesses have evolved past that point, with multi-location complexity, certifications tied to specific positions, or scheduling rules that need to enforce themselves automatically.<\/p>\n

    If you’re regularly working around constraints that WhenToWork requires manual checks to catch, that’s a signal worth paying attention to. Humanity Schedule and Aladtec are built for teams that need scheduling rules to do more of the enforcement work automatically, with role-based conflict detection, advanced manager controls, and solutions designed for schedules that constantly change.<\/p>\n

    The good news? You can switch scheduling solutions with zero cost today or tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Learn about your migration options<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    What’s Coming: Approvals and Requests Routing to Managers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Right now, when a staff member submits a time-off request or posts a trade, notifications go to all managers. That’s manageable for smaller teams, but as you add managers and structure, the overlap creates clutter, and things can fall through when multiple people assume someone else handled it.<\/p>\n

    The next phase of WhenToWork’s teams feature changes this. Once available, trade requests, time-off requests, and shift change notifications will route only to the manager assigned to that employee’s team. The right person gets notified. Everyone else’s inbox stays clear. It’s a meaningful change for any account where manager overlap is causing missed or duplicated responses.<\/p>\n

    Keep an eye out for the rollout announcement this summer.<\/p>\n

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    Need Help or Have a Question?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    Our support team is here 24\/7.\u00a0Email us at\u00a0<\/span>support@when2work.com<\/span><\/b><\/a>, call\u00a0<\/span>1-325-223-9300<\/span><\/b>, chat with us<\/a>, <\/span><\/span>or browse through the help center<\/span>\u00a0for step-by-step guides.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Edition V \u00b7 June 17, 2026<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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    How to Improve Team Communication and Reduce Schedule Confusion<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    If every message goes to everyone, eventually people stop paying attention. When staff receive updates that don\u2019t apply to them, they skim. Or ignore. And that\u2019s when important changes get missed.<\/p>\n

    This month, we\u2019re sharing simple ways to cut the noise, improve schedule awareness, and make sure the right people see the right updates.<\/p>\n

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    The Easy Button: Better Team Communication, Made Simple<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Strong communication\u00a0is not about sending more messages. It is about sending better ones.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    In this month\u2019s quick\u00a0guide,\u00a0you\u2019ll\u00a0learn how to:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n