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Shifts Overview

Sona Data Team
  • Updated

Shifts Overview

Note: Screenshots in this article use data from our internal demo organisation. Any organisation IDs or user IDs visible in the screenshots reference our demo dataset, not your or any other customer's data.

🎯 Overview

Find every shift across your organisation in one place, with trend analysis and rest-time compliance checks.

This report:

  • Lists every shift with its location, timing, employee assignment, allocation status and fulfilment status
  • Summarises total shifts or total hours over the selected period, broken down by a dimension you choose
  • Flags shifts where the gap from the previous shift falls below your minimum rest threshold

Use this dashboard to:

  • Review which shifts have been worked, by whom, and how the rota is shaping up
  • Track shift or hours volume across locations, job titles, contract types and weekly trends
  • Spot rest-time compliance issues before they become a working-time problem

➕ Benefits

  • One place to view both planned and actual shift activity, including agency, absence and sleep-in cover
  • A flexible KPI toggle so you can switch between shift counts and hours without rebuilding the view
  • A dedicated gap-analysis tab that surfaces back-to-back shifts breaching your minimum rest hours

🗂️ Dashboard Tabs

Tab What it shows Best for
Overview & Trends A full shift list plus summary KPIs, dimensional breakdowns, and a 12-month weekly trend Reviewing volume, trends, and the underlying shift records
Shift Gap Analysis Every shift compared to the previous shift for the same employee, with a rest-hours compliance flag Identifying back-to-back shifts that breach your minimum rest threshold

Overview & Trends

This tab is your headline view of shift activity over the selected period, with a Latest Data Sync indicator at the top so you know how fresh the data is.

  • Total Shifts / Hours (Excluding Breaks) — a single KPI showing either total shifts or total hours (breaks excluded) for the current filter selection. The KPI toggle controls which measure displays.
  • Total Shifts / Hours (Excluding Breaks) By Dynamic Parameter — a bar chart of the same KPI broken down by the dimension you select (e.g. Location, Job Title, Contract Type).
  • Weekly Shifts / Hours (Excluding Breaks) In The Last 12 Months — a rolling 12-month area chart showing weekly volume, so you can spot seasonality and longer-term shifts in workload. This card always covers the trailing 12 months and is not narrowed by the Date Filter.
  • All Shifts — a detailed row-per-shift table with Location, Parent Location, Grandparent Location, Shift start date / time, Shift end date / time, Shift length in hours, Break duration in hours, Shift type, Shift description, First name, Last name, Employee ID, Allocation status, Fulfilment status, Skills, Attributes, Is unplanned, Unplanned attendance review status, Unplanned attendance note, Is absence, Filled at and Inserted at.

Shift Gap Analysis

This tab compares each shift to the same employee's previous shift to surface rest-period breaches, with a Latest Data Sync indicator at the top.

  • Minimum Rest Hours Compliance — every shift listed with the previous shift's end time, the gap between the two, and a compliance flag against the Minimum Rest Hours threshold. Columns include Employee ID, First name, Last name, Location, Shift start date / time, Shift end date / time, Shift length in hours, Break duration in hours, Shift type, Is unplanned and Is absence, alongside the previous-shift comparison columns. Unclaimed shifts are excluded so the gap calculation reflects shifts an employee was actually assigned to.

🎛️ Filters

Standard Filters

  • Location / Parent Location / Grandparent Location — filter by organisational hierarchy
  • Job Title — filter by employee role
  • Contract Type — filter by employment contract
  • Full Name / Employee ID — find a specific employee
  • Status — employee status (Active, Leaver, Left, Starting Soon, Deactivated). Defaults to Active and Leaver.

Report-Specific Filters

Filter Default What it does
Shift Type -- Narrow to one or more shift types
Allocation Status -- Filter by how the shift was allocated to the employee
Fulfilment Status -- Filter by whether the shift is unclaimed, assigned, claimed, etc.
Include Absence Shifts? Include absence Choose whether to include, exclude, or show only absence shifts
Include Agency Shifts? Include agency Choose whether to include, exclude, or show only agency-worked shifts
Include Sleep Ins? Include sleep ins Choose whether to include, exclude, or show only sleep-in shifts
Include Unplanned Shifts Include unplanned shifts Choose whether to include, exclude, or show only unplanned attendance
Include Open Shifts? Include open shifts Choose whether to include, exclude, or show only unfilled (open) shifts
Include Shifts with Breaks? All shifts Restrict to shifts with breaks, shifts with no breaks, or all shifts
Has supported people assigned? -- Limit to shifts with or without supported people assigned
Minimum Rest Hours 11 The rest-hours threshold used by the Shift Gap Analysis tab

Dynamic Parameters

The dashboard has two structural switchers that change what the summary cards on the Overview & Trends tab compute and how they're broken down.

KPI's: Shift or Hours — toggles the Total Shifts / Hours KPI, the bar breakdown, and the 12-month weekly trend between counting shifts and summing hours (breaks excluded). Defaults to Hours.

Dynamic Parameter — picks the dimension that the Total Shifts / Hours By Dynamic Parameter bar chart breaks down by (e.g. Location, Parent Location, Grandparent Location, Contract Type, Job Title). Defaults to Location.

📅 Date Filtering

The Date Filter narrows shifts to those starting in the selected window. Defaults to the current month. The 12-month weekly trend card always covers the trailing 12 months regardless of this filter, so seasonal context stays available.

❗️ Important Definitions

  • Minimum Rest Hours compliance — for each shift, we look back to the same employee's most recently scheduled shift and calculate the gap between that shift's end and the new shift's start. If the gap is less than the Minimum Rest Hours value (default 11), the shift is flagged as non-compliant. Unclaimed shifts are excluded so the comparison reflects shifts an employee was actually committed to.
  • Hours (excluding breaks) — wherever the dashboard reports "hours", the figure is the shift length minus any recorded break duration. This is the worked-time view of hours, not the gross rostered length.

❓ Common Questions

Why does the 12-month trend chart still show data outside my selected date range?

The weekly trend is intentionally fixed to the trailing 12 months so you can see seasonality and longer-term direction. The KPI tile and the dynamic-parameter bar chart respect the Date Filter; the trend chart sits alongside them as a stable comparison.

Why are some shifts missing from the Shift Gap Analysis tab?

Unclaimed shifts are excluded from the gap calculation. The tab measures rest gaps between shifts an employee was actually assigned to, so open shifts that nobody picked up don't appear as either the current or the previous shift in the comparison.

🗓️ Data Coverage

  • Data freshness: Refreshes every 30 minutes via the automated data pipeline. Check the Latest Data Sync indicator on the dashboard for the exact timestamp.

⬇️ Downloading Data

  • To download the current view as a PDF, click the download button in the top-right corner of the dashboard.
  • To download an individual chart or table as CSV or Excel, click the download button in the top-right corner of that chart.

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