# Staff Scheduling, skills & PTO

Plan the working week, manage leave and give staff a clear view of their schedule.

Reviewed: 2026-10-15
Source: https://facilitysight.io/product-reference#staff-scheduling

Staff Scheduling works independently of people counting. Organize staff, part-time colleagues and volunteers by group and branch, including people without a login. Reuse regular working hours and one-, two- or four-week rotations, generate shifts from those patterns, or copy an authored day or week before making adjustments.

Plan desks, other duties and breaks across the day and week. Set the people each desk needs for each time window and see the exact uncovered intervals. Record qualifications by desk and branch; suggested coverage presents qualified colleagues and separately labelled experience-based candidates with availability and workload context. A manager reviews and saves the assignment.

Keep normal working hours separate from availability, including dated extra availability. Review contracted hours, scheduled totals and desk-hour targets. Configured employment-hour and break limits advise the planner; overlapping assignments and assignments outside a shift have separate checks. Ordinary availability edits do not remove existing assignments.

Prepare changes in a draft and publish the schedule staff will see. Undo recent edits or discard unpublished changes. Staff can see their published schedule, request leave, review PTO balances and history, and edit availability where enabled. Import people and shifts with a preview, print published schedules or subscribe to a read-only personal calendar feed.

Staffing reports show scheduled hours by person, assignment point, employment type and group, alongside desk-hour targets, distribution and coverage. Scheduled intervals describe the plan; they do not establish staff attendance or time actually worked.

## Buyer questions

<a id="buyer-q-skills-coverage"></a>
### How do skills help fill a coverage gap?

Record current qualifications for each desk and branch, then review suggested colleagues with their availability and workload. Qualified and experience-based suggestions are distinguished. A manager reviews and saves the assignment; a missing qualification record does not prove someone lacks the skill.

Details: [Staff Scheduling, skills & PTO](https://facilitysight.io/product-reference#staff-scheduling)

<a id="buyer-q-pto-balance"></a>
### Does a pending PTO request reduce the balance?

No. Pending requests do not reserve hours. Approval records the leave debit, and eligible withdrawal records a refund. Policies, opening balances, accrual or grants, adjustments and leave movements explain the account balance.

Details: [Staff Scheduling, skills & PTO](https://facilitysight.io/product-reference#staff-scheduling)

<a id="buyer-q-schedule-attendance"></a>
### Is scheduled coverage the same as time worked?

No. Coverage compares scheduled assignments with the requirement set by the manager. Time entries record clock-ins and clock-outs for worked-time comparison and correction review. A roster does not prove presence at a desk.

Details: [Staff Scheduling, skills & PTO](https://facilitysight.io/product-reference#staff-scheduling)

## Leave requests, PTO policies and balances

Manage full- and partial-day time off with requests, approvals, rejection, withdrawal and history. Configure fixed-cycle accrual, a percentage of annual entitlement or an upfront annual grant. Carryover can retain none, a capped amount or all unused hours, with effective-dated policies.

Set opening balances and explicit adjustments, and follow accrual, grants, approved leave, eligible refunds and forfeiture in the account history and reconciliation report. Pending requests do not reserve hours; approval records the debit. Percentage accrual uses annual entitlement, not measured worked hours.

Approved time off can affect the schedule and reveal coverage to replace. Withdrawing that leave does not restore removed assignments. Managers review the affected plan.

## Time clock tracking and schedule drafts

Time clock tracking covers clock-ins and clock-outs on a phone or desktop, subject to organization settings, or at a shared PIN kiosk. Managers review missed punches and employee correction requests with reasons and change history. Compare recorded time worked with scheduled hours; a missing clock-out does not invent a departure time.

Smarter schedule drafts place people into unpublished assignments using reusable patterns, familiar assignments and fair distribution of desk time. Keep manual placements and unfilled slots visible, review changes and undo a run when needed. Managers can adjust the draft themselves or inspect and confirm proposed changes from Ask FacilitySight before applying them. Publication remains a manager action; visitor traffic does not set staffing requirements.

Background duties such as Phone or Shelving can accompany a primary Reference desk assignment, adding responsibility and coverage context without double-counting scheduled hours.

## Further reading

- [Explore Staff Scheduling](https://facilitysight.io/insights/staffing)
- [Staff scheduling for libraries](https://facilitysight.io/libraries/staff-scheduling)
- [Library scheduling guide](https://facilitysight.io/resources/library-staff-scheduling-guide)
- [Join the software pilot waiting list](https://facilitysight.io/next-pilot)