ITTA offers a Microsoft Shifts catalogue with the Microsoft Shifts – Get Started course. It covers field team planning in Microsoft Teams (schedule creation, availability management, shift swap, leave requests), digital time clock, communication with team members, Teams integration, mobile experience for FrontLine Workers. Audience: field team managers, planning officers, HR teams, FrontLine Managers in Microsoft 365 environment. Sessions delivered in Geneva, Lausanne and interactive virtual classroom.
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Shifts in Microsoft Teams is a schedule management tool that helps you create, update, and manage schedules for your team.
Microsoft Shifts is the team scheduling application integrated into Microsoft Teams, designed to manage FrontLine Worker schedules: sales, production, hospital, hotel, logistics, security, reception, service personnel. Unlike project management tools (Planner, Project) that structure tasks, Shifts manages presence slots: who works when, which positions are covered, which openings remain to fill, which absences are declared. Initially launched as StaffHub then merged into Teams under the name Shifts in 2019, it has matured significantly since and now integrates with the digital time clock (clock-in/clock-out), leave requests, shift swaps and direct communication with collaborators.
Shifts fits in the Microsoft FrontLine strategy, aiming to equip collaborators without a fixed office workstation (mobile, field, in-store, workshop, service personnel). The application is accessible on Teams desktop for managers, and on Teams mobile for collaborators themselves, who consult their schedule, declare their availability, swap a slot with a colleague, or clock their hours.
Choosing Shifts as a scheduling tool depends on the usage context. Shifts is well suited to small to medium-sized field teams (typically 5 to a few hundred people), with rotation by slots (morning, afternoon, night) and positions to cover. For more complex needs (large-scale planning, advanced optimisation, multi-site, strong legal constraints), a specialised WFM (Workforce Management) remains more suitable. For purely task-based needs (who does what), Planner or Project are more relevant. For appointment calendars (clients, patients), Bookings is the native tool. Shifts has a specific place: position coverage by slots for FrontLine Workers.
The Microsoft Shifts – Get Started course is designed for field team managers and planning officers wanting to take Shifts in hand within Teams. The programme covers Shifts team creation and configuration (linking to a Teams team, schedule parameters, time zone), weekly schedule creation (slots, position groups, member assignment), leave and absence management (collaborator requests, manager validation), slot exchanges and proposals between collaborators (shift swap, offer), digital time clock (clock-in/clock-out from Teams mobile, geofencing), team communication (announcements, direct messages), collaborator-side experience on Teams mobile (schedule consultation, absence request, clock-in), export and reporting (Excel export for payroll). It is a short, field-oriented course designed to enable rapid production rollout.
Shifts is closely linked to Microsoft Teams, which is the host platform. The Microsoft Teams publisher regroups Teams training (collaboration, meetings, channels, application integration) which is the necessary base for using Shifts well. The Microsoft 365 publisher covers the complete Microsoft 365 environment where Shifts integrates. For field manager profiles needing to organise tasks in addition to scheduling, the Microsoft Planner publisher is complementary. The workflows and automation sub-domain regroups Power Automate automations that can trigger actions from Shifts events (alert if no coverage, validation notification).
Weekly scheduling of servers, cooks, salespeople, receptionists. Mobile visibility for collaborators, absence validation, digital clock-in. Reduction of SMS and calls for schedule changes, significant time savings for managers.
Scheduling of caregivers, reception agents, ambulance drivers, stretcher bearers. Management of swaps between caregivers, absence validation, actual hour clock-in for payroll.
Warehouse teams, stock keepers, forklift operators, production teams. Position coverage by teams (morning, afternoon, night), rotation management.
Security teams, guard agents, cleaning teams, technical agents. Multi-site scheduling, geolocated clock-in.
Several trends shape Shifts in 2026. Digital time clock integration has become widespread, with geofencing and confirmation photo for high-requirement contexts. The connector with third-party WFM solutions (UKG, Kronos, ADP) allows keeping an enterprise WFM and exposing the schedule to collaborators via Shifts in Teams. Copilot in Shifts allows suggesting a schedule based on rules (availability, constraints, slot fairness). The FrontLine Worker experience in Teams enriches (Walkie-Talkie, Tasks, Approvals, Praise) to offer field collaborators a more complete communication and coordination tool. Governance and compliance (GDPR, Swiss labour law) remain an important topic: geolocation, clock-in data, archiving.
What team size is Shifts suited to?
Shifts suits teams of 5 to several hundred collaborators with a slot-based logic. Beyond that (large industrial sites, large-scale multi-store retail), a specialised WFM solution is often more suitable. Shifts can then be plugged downstream to expose the schedule to collaborators.
Is a special licence required for Shifts?
Shifts is included in most Microsoft 365 licences containing Teams. For FrontLine Workers, Microsoft offers specific licences (F1, F3) at reduced rate, designed for this usage profile. Our trainer takes stock according to your context.
Is the digital time clock mandatory?
No, the digital time clock (clock-in/clock-out) is an option of Shifts, which can be activated or not according to needs. Many organisations use Shifts only for scheduling, and keep a physical clock or third-party payroll solution. The Shifts clock is useful when seeking to group scheduling and hours in the same tool.
What is the ideal profile to follow this course?
Field team manager, planning officer, FrontLine manager, operational HR manager, site manager, team leader. Prior Teams knowledge is advised but not essential.
Our Microsoft Shifts – Get Started sessions are scheduled in Geneva, Lausanne and interactive virtual classroom with a live trainer. The format is short (typically half-day to one day), very practice-oriented with creation of a demo schedule in Teams and manager exercises. For organisations deploying Shifts at scale (store chains, hospitals, multi-site warehouses), we offer in-house sessions that also cover collaborator-side change management, Teams mobile experience and governance best practices. Material modalities communicated by the education team in advance.
ITTA offers a broad Microsoft 365 catalogue covering FrontLine tools (Shifts, Teams mobile, Tasks, Walkie-Talkie, Approvals) in addition to classic office productivity tools. This continuity is valuable for organisations deploying Microsoft 365 on mixed populations (office and field), with different needs. Our Teams and Shifts trainers are professionals active on Microsoft 365 FrontLine deployment projects in French-speaking Switzerland, able to illustrate best practices with concrete cases (retail, hospital, logistics, security). Sessions in Geneva, Lausanne and interactive virtual classroom, in-house and inter-company.
Monday to Friday
8:30 AM to 6:00 PM
Tel. 058 307 73 00
ITTA
Route des jeunes 35
1227 Carouge, Suisse
Monday to Friday, from 8:30 am to 06:00 pm.
