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    Set up shift trading

    To enable your employees to initiate and respond to requests to exchange shifts within a single unit, configure shift trading. Unit supervisors or schedule administrators must approve the exchange for it to take effect.

    Prerequisites

    Shift trading sends email notifications to participating employees, to alert them to stages in the trade transaction. While employees can also see these as pending shifts from their My Schedule page in mySparkrock, configuring email notifications ensures that the employees are alerted to active trades in a timely manner.

    The following tasks must be performed before configuring shift trading:

    • Email services must be configured for the company. For more information, see Set Up Email.

    • All participating employees must have a valid email address in the Company Email field of the HR Employee record, which is found on the General FastTab.

    General settings

    You configure shift trade settings for Sparkrock 365 on the Schedule Setup page. You can set up the email template, and optionally set a unit level default for shift trading and a trading period window for new schedule units.

    The shift trade email template

    On the Schedule Email Setup FastTab, ensure that a Shift Trade Template has been loaded. When email messages for a trade transaction are generated, this customizable template is populated with the details of both shifts that are involved in the trade transaction. Sparkrock provides a sample template to get you started.

    To download the template, select the following link:

    Shift Trade Template.

    Configure schedule unit defaults

    If you are setting up scheduling for the first time, and want to enable shift trading on a company basis, configure settings on the Schedule Setup page,on the Schedule Unit Defaults FastTab.

    Note

    Note:
    These settings are defaults for new units. Previously created schedule units are not affected.

    To configure schedule unit defaults

    1. Choose Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature., enter schedule setup, and then choose the related link.

      The Schedule Setup page opens.

    2. To automatically enable shift trading within new units when they are created, turn on Allow Shift Trades.

    3. In Open Trading Period (Days), set the maximum number of days in the future that shift trades can be made.

      Sparkrock recommends limiting the time frame for shift trades to a maximum of approximately two pay cycles.

      To set or change these values for an individual unit, change the like-named settings on the Schedule Unit card.

    Employee settings

    For normal operation of shift trading, no other settings must be configured. However, you can choose to prevent shift trades.

    Prevent shift trades

    By default, if a unit allows shift trades, all employees in the unit can initiate shift trade requests. If required, individual employees can be prevented from initiating shift trade requests. For example, a unit may include a mix of regular and casual employees, and you may want to prevent the casual employees from trading. As this setting is meant for exceptional use, it is not possible to set this setting as a default at the company or unit level. The setting must be set per employee.

    To prevent shift trades

    1. Choose Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature., enter schedule units, and then choose the related link.

      The Schedule Units page opens.

    2. Select the schedule unit that includes the employee for which you want to prevent shift trades, and then on the action bar, choose Related > Employees.

      The Schedule Unit Employees page opens.

    3. Select the employee for which you want to prevent shift trades, and then on the action bar, choose Manage > Edit.

      The Schedule Unit Employee Card page opens.

    4. On the Controls FastTab, to block an employee from participating in shift trades within the unit, turn on Prevent Trade Requests.

      Turning on Prevent Trade Requests does not interrupt or cancel any active trades involving this employee. A schedule administrator can cancel any such trades individually.

    Feedback

    To send feedback about this page, select the following link:

    feedback-product-docs@sparkrock.com

    All Rights Reserved | Sparkrock © 2025