Looking to schedule our days in Shifts...

Hi @Thomas Picauly, 

Good day, I hope you are doing well. 

Thank you for outlining your concern regarding intraday management so clearly. Microsoft Shifts can display breaks within the schedule, but this is managed manually rather than through automated intraday scheduling like the add in you mentioned. Microsoft documents that managers can add unpaid break time and also use Shifts activities to place breaks or other activities within a shift. 

If your goal is to have breaks visible in the schedule, you can use the following approach in Shifts: 

1. Open Shifts in Teams and go to the team schedule. 
2. In the row for the employee and under the relevant date, select More options > Add shift, or open an existing shift to edit it.  

3. Enter the shift start and end time.  
4. Add the Unpaid break time if you want the break duration reflected as part of the shift.  

5. In Shifts activities, add items such as lunch breaks or other scheduled activities during the shift 

6. Select Save draft or Share once the shift details are complete. 

If you also want employees to record the break they actually take during the day, you can enable Time clock. Microsoft documents that workers can clock in, start a break, end a break, and clock out in Shifts.  

For detailed steps, I recommend you refer to this document: Configure settings for your team's schedule in Shifts - Microsoft Support 

In summary, Shifts can support break visibility in the schedule, but it does not currently provide automated break planning or automated intraday scheduling in the same way as a dedicated workforce management add in. It is best used for creating the schedule first, then manually adding breaks and activities into each shift. 

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow the steps above and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can continue working together to resolve the issue.  

Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have any questions or need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out so I can continue to support you. If you found the response useful, please consider marking it as accepted, as this may help other community members who are looking for similar guidance.  

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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Shifts in Microsoft Teams can be used for both high-level shift scheduling and more detailed intraday planning, including breaks and activities, but with some limits compared to a dedicated workforce management tool.

Key capabilities relevant to intraday scheduling:

1. Schedule and shift structure
   • Shifts is a schedule management and time‑tracking tool where days are shown across the top, team members on the left, and assigned shifts in the calendar.
   • Shifts can be used as a standalone app or integrated with an external workforce management (WFM) system if more advanced intraday logic is needed.
2. Breaks inside a shift
   When creating or editing a shift, the following can be configured:
   • Unpaid break time: Add unpaid breaks directly to the shift so they are part of the schedule.
   • Shifts activities: Use this area to define daily activities or additional breaks during the shift. For example, a lunch break or specific tasks can be added as activities with their own times. These activities appear within the shift block and give a more detailed view of what happens during the day.
   Steps (per shift):
   1. In the schedule, go to the row for the person.
   2. Under the desired date, select More options > Add shift, or double‑click an empty shift.
   3. Set start/end times and add Unpaid break time as needed.
   4. In Shifts activities, add activities such as “Break”, “Lunch”, or specific tasks at the appropriate times.
   5. Save or Share the shift.
3. Organizing by groups and tags
   • Use Groups in the schedule to organize people by job type or location, which can help visualize coverage and breaks across roles.
   • Optionally enable shift-based tags so that people currently on shift (for a given group) can be quickly contacted; this supports real‑time coordination but does not itself auto‑optimize intraday schedules.
4. Limitations vs. full intraday/WFM tools
   • Shifts supports manual definition of breaks and activities but does not provide advanced intraday optimization (e.g., automatic break placement based on demand or service levels).
   • For more complex scenarios, Shifts can be connected to an external WFM system (such as via the Reflexis connector or a custom integration) to enforce business rules and keep data in sync.

In practice, Shifts can handle visualizing everyone’s breaks and tasks by using unpaid breaks and activities within each shift. For sophisticated intraday management (automatic break rules, forecasting, etc.), integrating Shifts with a WFM system is the Microsoft-style approach.

References:

• What is Shifts?
• Add shifts to the schedule in Shifts
• Shifts for your frontline organization
• Create a team schedule in Shifts
• Schedule staff shifts