Managing Shift Bids in Roster Manager

Shift bidding lets employees express interest in working available shifts, and gives managers a simple way to review and allocate those bids while maintaining fairness and visibility. This article explains what shift bids are, how they work in Roster Manager, and how you can use them to fill rosters more efficiently.

This feature is available from 12-Mar-2026 as part of the WFM 6.0.71 release 

📌 What is Shift Bidding?

Shift bidding allows employees to register their interest in unassigned published shifts that match their profile (e.g., location, role and qualifications). Employees can also bid to exchange an existing shift for another if permitted by your configuration.

Managers can then review submitted bids and either offer or assign the shift to employees from within Roster Manager.

Offer
The shift is proposed to a single bidder and they must confirm or decline the offer before it becomes a confirmed shift.

Assign
The shift is immediately allocated to the bidder, bypassing confirmation — saving time where appropriate.

🎯 Why Use Shift Bids?

Shift bidding helps you:

• Fill unassigned shifts faster by prioritising employees who have already expressed interest.

• Improve fairness and visibility by showing managers who wants to work each shift.

• Respond to workforce needs dynamically, with the ability to offer or assign shifts directly.

These capabilities reduce manual effort and increase engagement by giving employees more control over the shifts they work.

🔍 How Shift Bids Appear in Roster Manager

In the Roster Manager view, there's 2 important elements to consider when locating shifts with bids.

1. Bid Indicator icon
   Shifts with active bids display a bid icon — making them easier to spot in your roster list. However this icon must be enabled first via the Shift Detail Settings menu in the upper right corner:
   

2. Filters to Focus on Bids
   You can filter your roster view, using the "Status" filter option, to show:

   • Shifts with active bids

   • Shifts with no bids
     
     Use filters to quickly focus on shifts that need attention.

    

🛠 Actioning Bids from Roster Manager

Here’s how to work with bids for an unassigned shift using the Fill Shift Workflow:

1. Select an unassigned shift within Roster Manager, where the Active Bids icon is shown.

2. Open the Fill Shift panel, and select the Assign tab.
   Offering a shift to an employee who already bid on that shift is not allowed, since that employee has already confirmed their interest in the shift.

3. Review the list of employees. You will find that employees with Bids and Offers show first, sorted based on the earliest bid/offer. Other employees are listed afterwards. 

4. The new column Bid/Offer Time helps you see when bids and offers were made so you can make a decision not only on best eligibility but also on fairness according to the first to express interest.
   > this is a configurable column in the Fill Shift screen.

5. Select the desired employee and then click Assign:

   If your organization allows it, you may have the option to ask for confirmation as part of the assignment process. If not, the shift will be assigned as normal.
   
   

6. Once you proceed, the bids on the shift will become inactive and no longer visible.

📊 Best Practices

• Encourage employees to bid early on shifts they want — this gives you more options during rostering.

• Customize your Roster views — Enable bid icons and Bid/Offer Time columns as required.

• Use filters to narrow down shifts by date, location, role, or bid status.