Build schedules first, share them after

When you add or change a shift, nobody outside the office sees it yet. A caregiver sees a shift in their portal, and can confirm it and clock in to it, only once it is shared with them. Clients work the same way.

This is on purpose. Scheduling is rarely right the first time. You move shifts, try a caregiver, swap them for another, fill an open shift, notice an overlap. If every change went straight to caregivers' phones, they would see shifts appear, move and vanish, and would start to distrust the schedule. Keeping the work in the office until it is ready means they only see the finished version.

A weekly rhythm

1. Build. Recurring schedules already put most of next week on the calendar. Add one-off shifts, cancel what is not needed, and adjust times.
2. Fill. Use suggestions and job offers to find caregivers for open shifts. Offering a caregiver a shift in a message does not share it; they only get it once you place them on it and share.
3. Check. Look at the schedule board's totals and the red flags for missing skills, overlaps or hours over an authorization, and fix what needs fixing.
4. Share. On the schedule board, select the week's shifts and use Share, Share with the employee (and with the client, if your clients use it). Everyone gets the finished week at once.
5. Collect confirmations. Caregivers confirm in the portal, or you confirm on their behalf when they tell you by phone. The Not confirmed and Not shared dashboards and the board's Waiting on filter show who is still outstanding.

Shared and confirmed are separate

Sharing is about who can see a shift. Confirming records that someone has agreed to it. CareComplete keeps them apart because real life does:

• A caregiver may agree to a shift by phone before you share it, so you can confirm on their behalf without sharing.
• Taking sharing away, for example while you rework a day, does not throw away a confirmation already given.
• A client may never use the portal at all, so their side may be confirmed but never shared.

Neither one holds anything else up. A shift can be worked, approved, finalised, paid and billed whether or not it was confirmed. Confirmation is a record for the office, not a gate.

What resets them

A confirmation is an agreement to a particular shift, so it is withdrawn when the shift it agreed to changes in a way that matters: new times or a new client before it starts, a different caregiver, or a cancellation. Changes that do not affect the person, such as codes, rates or notes, leave it in place.

When you swap the caregiver or the client, sharing for that side is turned off too. A new caregiver does not see a shift until you choose to share it with them, and a confirmation by the previous caregiver does not carry over to them.

For the steps, see Confirming and sharing schedules.