Set up and manage Gusto Time Scheduling

With Gusto’s Time Scheduling feature, admins and managers with the required permissions can create and publish work schedules. You can organize workers by group (role, department, location, etc.), or have everybody on one work schedule. 

If your company has time off requests enabled, approved and pending time off requests will be visible on the schedule to prevent scheduling an employee when they're off.

Scheduling is available on Plus, Premium, or Time & Attendance Plus Simple add-on plans—upgrade your plan at any time.

 

Set up Gusto Time Scheduling

In order to set up Scheduling, you first need to enable Time tracking—it does not need to be fully set up, just enabled.

Part 1: Enable Time tracking

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Settings section on the left-hand side.
  3. Select the Customization tab.
  4. Click edit next to Time tracking.
  5. Toggle to Enabled.
  6. Click Save.

Part 2: Set up Time scheduling

Only admins with the required permissions can create a schedule group. Managers can create and assign shifts once the scheduling group has been created—review the Access and permissions for Time scheduling dropdown for more information.

  1. Click Time & Attendance and select Scheduling.
  2. Click Setup scheduling
  3. Name the scheduling group—each group must have a unique name.
  4. Confirm what weekday you want the scheduling calendar view to begin with.
    • This does not change the payroll workweek. 
  5. Set the schedule’s default time zone.
    • This will apply to the schedule calendar view and creating new shifts.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. Add workers to the group by searching by name or job title.
    • Workers can belong to multiple groups, and can only see the shifts for the groups they’re assigned to. 
    • Hourly contractors can be added to schedule groups—to stay compliant, make sure scheduled work for contractors is aligned with their contract terms.
    • These worker types cannot be added to a schedule:
      • International contractors
      • Team members with a hire date in the future
      • Dismissed team members
  8. Click Finish and view schedule.
Create the schedule and add shifts

Get started by adding shifts for workers or creating more groups as needed. Publish the schedule when you’re ready. 

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click Start scheduling work.
  3. In a group’s schedule or individual shift cells, click on the + to add a shift. 
    • Fill in the required information. 
  4. Click Publish to post the shift assignment immediately. 
  5. Click Save as draft to go back to the schedule view and add more shifts.
    • This options allows to you view a potential schedule as a whole before publishing shifts. 
    • Click Publish drafts at the top of the main scheduling page to publish all drafts at once.
Add, edit, duplicate, or remove a shift

If you make a change to a shift that's coming up within the next day, we'll immediately send the employee an email notification. 

For changes to shifts that are further out than the end of the following day, regardless of the number of changes, employees will receive a single email saying that changes have been made.

Add a shift
  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown and select +Add shift, or click the + on the individual shift cells you'd like to add the shift to.
  5. Choose who you'd like to assign the shift to. 
    • These worker types cannot be added to a schedule:
      • International contractors
      • Team members with a hire date in the future
      • Dismissed team members
  6. Select the start date and time of the shift. 
  7. Select the end date and time of the shift. 
  8. Add other shift details (like a job title or projects, if applicable).
  9. Add shift notes—these can be viewed by other admins, the employee's manager, and the employee.
  10. Click Save as draft to save for later, or Publish to post the shift assignment immediately.
Edit a shift

Published and unpublished shifts can be edited by following the steps below.

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Select the individual shift cells you’d like to edit the shift. You can modify:
    • Who the shift is assigned to
    • The start date, end date, and time of the shift
    • Other shift details (like job title, or projects, if applicable)
    • Add shift notes—these can be viewed by other admins, the employee's manager, and the employee.
  5. Click Publish to post the modified shift assignment immediately. 
Duplicate a shift

You can duplicate both assigned and unassigned shifts.

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown and select Duplicate shifts.
  5. Select the date range of shifts you'd like to duplicate.
  6. Select the start date for the duplicated shifts.
  7. Choose if you want the duplicated shifts to include worker assignments.
    • Selecting No will make all duplicate shifts unassigned.
  8. Click Duplicate shifts.
Remove a shift
You can remove both assigned and unassigned shifts.

Remove a single shift

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click the shift you'd like to remove.
  5. Select Delete shift.

Remove all shifts

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown and select Delete all shifts in this view.
Publish drafts (shifts)

You can publish individual shifts, or all draft shifts in the schedule view. Only assigned shifts can be published. 

When you publish shifts, the workers assigned to those shifts will receive an email and an in-app notification, and they can view their assigned shifts on the website and in Gusto Wallet mobile app.

Publish individual shifts 

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown and select +Add shift, or select the + on the individual shift cells you’d like to add the shift to.
  5. Enter details for the shift.
  6. Click Publish to post the shift assignment immediately. 

Publish all shifts 

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown and select +Add shift, or select the + on the individual shift cells you’d like to add the shift to.
  5. Click Publish drafts.
Add more scheduling groups
  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. In the group dropdown, click +Add another group
  4. Name the scheduling group—each group must have a unique name.
  5. Set the schedule’s default time zone
    • This will apply to the schedule calendar view and creating new shifts.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. Add workers to the group by searching by name or job title.
    • Workers can belong to multiple groups, and can only see the shifts for the groups they’re assigned to.
    • These worker types cannot be added to a schedule:
      • International contractors
      • Team members with a hire date in the future
      • Dismissed team members 
  8. Click Finish and view schedule.
Edit a scheduling group name, start day of the calendar view, or default time zone
  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click Settings in the top-right corner.
  5. Make the necessary changes.
  6. Click Save.
Add or remove workers from a scheduling group

Only admins with the required permissions can add or remove workers from a schedule group. 

Employees (hourly or salaried), and hourly domestic contractors can be added or removed from a schedule group.

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select a group.
  4. Click People in the top-right corner.
    • To add a worker: Click into the search bar and select their name.
      • Only workers selected below will appear on this group’s schedule, and scheduled shifts can be created for them. 
      • When you add someone, you can add shifts for them for the current date and up to 6 previous days.
      • These worker types cannot be added to a schedule:
        • International contractors
        • Team members with a hire date in the future
        • Dismissed team members
    • To remove a worker: Click the x next to their name.
      • When you remove someone, you can still add shifts for them for the current day (until midnight) and previous days.
      • Any shifts for the worker you removed that have any overlap with time after midnight of the current day will be unassigned so you can assign them to someone else.
  5. Click Save.
Edit manager access to a scheduling group

People managers can have access to managing direct reports’ schedules within a schedule group—managers must be added to the scheduling groups they'll be managing. 

More information about what actions managers can take can be found in the Access and permissions for Time scheduling dropdown.

Give people managers access to schedule groups

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Make sure the manager is added to the scheduling groups they'll be managing.
  3. Click Settings and toggle to the Permissions tab.
  4. Click the People Manager tile.
  5. Under “Time & Attendance”, click Edit.
    • To give access to managers to view direct report schedules, select View only
    • To give access to managers to manage schedules, select Edit Access
  6. Click Save.
Remove/archive a schedule group

Admins can remove or archive schedule groups at any time. Once a schedule group has been removed, admins, managers, and workers will no longer be able to access the schedule or shifts within the removed schedule group.

Other existing schedule groups will remain accessible by admins and assigned managers and workers. 

Remove or archive a schedule group

  1. Sign in to Gusto.
  2. Click the Time & Attendance section and select Scheduling.
  3. Select the group you'd like to remove or archive.
  4. Click Settings in the top-right corner.
  5. Click Remove group at the bottom.
  6. In the popup, confirm you'd like to remove the group.
Access and permissions FAQs

Full access or limited access admins (with time tracking and time off access) can create a schedule group and edit/manage schedules (such as adding/removing employees). A people manager with edit access can manage (add or edit) shifts of their direct employees.

Once the full access or limited access admin has created the scheduling group, the people manager can manage the schedule (by editing and adding shifts) going forward.

What actions the user can take Full access admin

Limited access admin

(Time tracking & PTO)

People manager

(Scheduling - edit access)

People manager 

(Scheduling - view access) 

Create schedule group Yes Yes No  No
Add or remove workers from a Schedule Group Yes Yes No  No
Create or edit shifts in scheduling Yes Yes Yes—direct reports only No
Publish shifts Yes Yes Yes—direct reports only No
View shifts Yes Yes Yes—direct reports only Yes
View "Approved" and "Pending" time off requests on schedules Yes Yes Yes—approved PTO only Yes—approved PTO only
Remove/archive schedule groups Yes Yes No No