Getting started · Shiftly

There is no sign-up form on this page. That is deliberate.

Shiftly’s matching primitives are shipped, but the shift-roster board and the K-12 sub-coverage skin sitting on top of them are early access. Rather than put up a form that pretends an account provisions today, this page describes exactly what happens when you reach out, and stops.

Four things you can do — stop after any of them

None of these require a card, a contract, or a live account.

Tell us the shape of the problem

A sentence to [email protected] is enough: how many shifts, how often one falls through, whether K-12 substitute coverage is the whole ask or one piece of a bigger roster.

Get a straight walkthrough

What is reused and shipped (availability, eligibility, the credential-gate, self-healing reassignment), and what is early access (the board itself, the K-12 skin) — named plainly, not blurred.

Pilot on one building or one shift type

A single building’s substitute coverage, or one shift type for one team, is the whole first pilot. Small on purpose: the point is a real callout getting covered, not a rollout plan.

Widen only when the first pilot is boring

"Boring" is the goal — a callout gets a ranked replacement proposed and nobody notices. Widening to more buildings or more shift types happens after that, never before.

Two tracks — pick the one that matches your problem

Workforce shift roster, or K-12 substitute coverage.

Hourly workforce shift roster

Post open shifts, match them to eligible and credentialed staff inside their own availability windows, cover a callout with a ranked replacement proposal.

K-12 substitute coverage

The identical mechanism specialized for a teacher absence: a building assignment, a substitute-credential requirement, matched against a district’s pool of eligible substitutes.

Prepare one adult coverage dossier before the walkthrough

Begin with one recurring shift type rather than the entire organisation. Write down the role, location, complete time window, normal frequency and the condition that makes the assignment valid. Then create three fictional adult candidates. Give one a compatible window, one a window that ends too early and one a credential record whose scope or date does not cover the shift. The purpose is to prepare a decision that can expose both an eligible proposal and understandable exclusions without importing a personnel file.

Add the current operating path beside that synthetic case. Identify who notices the gap, who describes the requirement, who searches for a replacement, who asks the adult candidate and who records the accepted assignment. Those may be the same manager in a small team or several roles in a larger organisation. The walkthrough should preserve that authority map. A ranked suggestion cannot silently become acceptance merely because one person performs several steps today.

List the evidence each step should produce. The open requirement needs its role, location and window. Candidate review needs a reason for inclusion or exclusion. A proposal needs the candidate and the unchanged shift facts. A response needs the adult's answer and time. The final roster needs the accepted assignment or a clearly unresolved state. If an expected artifact has no place to appear, that absence is part of the evaluation rather than something to solve with explanatory narration.

Rehearse the ordinary failure before discussing expansion

Run the prepared case in four passes. First, review the compatible candidate and confirm that eligibility is still only a proposal. Second, review the short availability window and verify that the reason points to the whole shift rather than a generic failure. Third, review the expired or out-of-scope credential record and verify that the comparison does not claim the issuing authority authenticated it. Fourth, remove every eligible option and keep the shift visibly uncovered. An empty result is an expected state a manager must be able to act on.

Then change exactly one input at a time. Correct the availability window without altering the credential. Correct the supplied credential date without widening the building or role. Record which refusal changes and which remains. That narrow rehearsal reveals whether operators can explain causality. If several requirements are edited together, a successful proposal may look reassuring while nobody knows which correction mattered.

Include a callout after an assignment has already been accepted. The original assignment should remain understandable, the newly open requirement should preserve the same role and window, and a replacement should begin as a proposal. Ask what happens if the proposed adult declines or never answers. The safe answer keeps the roster unresolved and returns control to the manager; it does not manufacture confirmation to make the board look complete.

Set entry, stop and exit conditions for the first operating slice

An entry condition states what must be ready before evaluation: the one shift definition, synthetic candidates, the adult decision owners, and access to whichever early-access surface can actually be demonstrated. A stop condition names what prevents continuation, such as a required operator permission that is absent, an integration the product does not yet provide or a refusal that cannot be explained from the supplied facts. Writing these conditions before the session protects the team from converting enthusiasm into an operational promise.

An exit condition is equally concrete. The manager can restate why each fictional candidate was included or excluded; the responsible person can distinguish a proposal from an accepted assignment; an uncovered result stays visible; and the team can name the current procedure that remains in place. Success is comprehension of a bounded coverage decision, not the number of screens visited or names ranked.

Plan a rollback even for a small evaluation. Keep the existing callout list and responsibility chain available. Decide who ends the exercise, how synthetic records are removed and where observations are documented. No production roster should depend on an early-access walkthrough. Widening to another location, role or manager should require a fresh review of the new rule and authority boundary rather than inheriting approval from the first example.

Name the person who will write the evaluation note and the evidence they will retain. The note should distinguish prepared inputs, observed proposals, adult responses and unresolved refusals. It should record which current procedure stayed authoritative throughout the exercise. That handoff lets a colleague review the result without seeing private personnel material or mistaking a demonstration for an accepted operational assignment.

Bring a small roster with a real decision in it

Choose a recurring coverage problem you can describe without sending personnel records. A useful example has one location, a shift window, a required role and the condition that usually makes replacement difficult. Say whether your present process loses time finding people, checking requirements or discovering that a suggestion was never accepted. These are different failures. A long list of requested features can hide the one decision that actually delays the morning.

Use neutral labels such as Person A and Person B. Describe that a credential is current or expires before the proposed date; leave out credential documents, personal contact details and the reason someone is absent. The first conversation needs the rule and its consequence. It does not need the underlying staff file. If the example involves substitute coverage, describe a building requirement and an adult candidate pool, with no class list or details about children.

Agree what would count as a useful result

A small evaluation should answer three questions. Can the shift be described clearly enough for another manager to read it? Can the team explain why a candidate is eligible or excluded? Can everyone distinguish a proposed replacement from confirmed coverage? Agree those checks before discussing more sites. Otherwise a polished board can look successful while the same unresolved decision still travels through email and phone calls behind it.

Include an intentionally difficult case. Give one candidate the wrong window and another a credential record that does not cover the date, then discuss the uncovered outcome. An evaluation in which every candidate qualifies never shows whether the refusal is understandable. This is a proposed walkthrough to arrange with us, not a test running in this marketing page. The shift-roster board remains early access, and a conversation does not create an account or promise access on a particular date.

Leave with a bounded next step

Before any pilot, ask which screen can actually be shown, which records an operator would supply, who can approve an assignment and how a failed attempt will be reviewed. Put the answers beside your example. If the necessary surface is still being built, the next step may be a follow-up when that surface can be demonstrated. A requirement can be a good fit for the direction of the product without being ready for a rollout this month.

Keep the current coverage procedure available during an evaluation. Do not replace an operational contact list because a marketing conversation went well. Widen only after the people responsible for the first shift can explain both the accepted result and the unresolved cases. Planned pricing on the home page is context for that discussion, not an invoice. Contacting us, reviewing a scenario or reserving early access does not authorize a charge, sign a contract or provision a live roster.

No card, no charge, no contract signed on a web page.

Reserving early access does not create a payment, does not store a card, and does not commit you to anything. It starts a conversation, on your timeline.