A salon manager planning the week's roster on a tablet at a calm reception

Shifts & Leaves: Plan the roster, not the chaos.

Plan every shift, break, and day off in one place, and your booking link respects it automatically. Nobody gets booked when they are off, and you stop running the roster out of a group chat.

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At a glance

Idle handles staff shifts, breaks, and leave in one place. Blocked time is automatically removed from the booking link, so no one is booked when they are off, and a demand-aware optimiser drafts a roster from your booking history. You plan the week once, your whole team sees the same schedule, and the online booking page only ever offers hours your staff are actually working.

A manager planning staff shifts and leave on a tablet at reception

Plan shifts and leave in one place.

Build each person's week with recurring shifts and built-in breaks, then log full or half-day leave whenever it comes up. Staff can request leave for you to approve in one tap, and every change feeds the calendar and the booking link straight away, so the schedule everyone works from is always the real one.

Recurring shifts with breaks

Set a shift once with its hours and breaks, then repeat it weekly on the same days until you change it.

Leave requests and approval

Staff request full or half-day leave from their dashboard, and you approve or decline without leaving the calendar.

A client booking online and seeing only the staff who are working

Time off blocks the booking link, on its own.

The moment a shift ends or leave is approved, those hours disappear from your online booking page for that staff member. No one is ever offered a slot with someone who is on leave or off shift, so you never have to cancel a booking and apologise after the fact.

Only real hours are bookable

Clients see exactly the hours each staff member is working, and nothing else, every time.

Breaks stay protected

Lunch and breaks sit inside the shift, so no client lands on top of them.

The roster shouldn't live in a group chat.

Planned in a thread

Shifts get agreed in a chat nobody can read back, so someone always shows up on the wrong day or not at all.

Booked while on leave

A client gets booked with someone who is off, and you are the one calling to cancel and rebook.

Tallied in Excel

Hours and commission get added up by hand at month end, which is slow and easy to get wrong.

A manager reviewing an AI-drafted staff roster on a tablet

Let the AI draft the roster for you.

The AI shift optimiser builds a roster from your booking history, expected demand, logged leave, and each person's hour limits, and shows you why each shift was suggested. You review the plan, adjust anything you want, and apply it, so the heavy lifting of planning the week is done before you start.

Drafted from real demand

Idle reads your booking history and expected demand, then proposes who works when across the week.

Respects every limit

Logged leave and each person's hour limits are built in, so the draft is one you can actually run.

Shows its reasoning

Every suggested shift comes with why it was chosen, so you can trust the plan before you apply it.

Everything in your shifts and leave

Plan the week, protect time off, and pay on what was actually done, with deeper customisation whenever you want it.

In your plan

Shifts and leave with built-in breaks
Leave requests and one-tap approval
Auto-block in the booking link
AI shift optimiser
Roles and permissions
Staff with no login
Commission engine
Clock-in and clock-out
Leave and MC balances

Make it yours

This is how Idle works: there is no rigid template. You tell us what you need, and we scope it, build it, and set it up for you, so beyond your plan we can tailor almost anything, including:

Public-holiday and time-off-in-lieu tracking
Per-staff service and upsell breakdown
Anything else you can describe

The business impact

What changes	The old way	The Idle way
The roster	Planned in a group chat nobody can read back	One plan that feeds the calendar and booking link
Leave clashes	Clients booked with staff who are off	Auto-blocked in the booking link the moment leave is logged
Building the roster	Planned by hand, person by person	AI-drafted from demand, then yours to adjust
Hours and commission	Tallied in Excel at month end	Tracked as you go with clock-in and the commission engine

Shifts & leaves FAQ

Does leave block online bookings automatically?

Yes. The moment you log a day off, a half day, or approved leave, that staff member is removed from the online booking link for those hours. No client can ever land on someone who is not working, so you never have to cancel and apologise after the fact.

Can staff request leave themselves?

Yes. Staff submit leave requests from their own dashboard and you approve or decline in one tap. Approved leave feeds the calendar and the booking link straight away, so the schedule everyone sees is always the real one.

Can I plan recurring shifts and breaks?

Yes. Set a shift once with its start, end and breaks, then repeat it weekly on the same days. It holds until you change it, so there is no re-entering the same roster every week. Full and half-day leave is handled the same way.

Does Idle suggest a roster for me?

Yes. The AI shift optimiser drafts a roster from your booking history, expected demand, logged leave, and each person's hour limits, and shows why each shift was suggested. You review, adjust, and apply, so the work of building the week is done for you.