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Accepting or declining a shift
Some shifts ask for an answer before you are booked in. Find them under Needs your response, then slide to accept or slide to decline.
Last updated · 2 August 2026
Most shifts just turn up on your roster: the office publishes them and you work them. On some shifts, though, your provider asks you to confirm first. Until you answer, the shift is not really yours, and you cannot clock in or start travel on it.
Your provider sets this shift by shift, so you may only ever see it now and then, or you may see it on everything they roster you for.
Where a shift waiting on you shows up
A shift that needs an answer is hard to miss. It appears in four places at once:
- On the Home tab, a Needs your response section sits above Up next, with an amber card per shift showing who it is with, the day and the time, and a Respond link. Tap the card to open the shift.
- Those shifts are held out of Up next until you answer, so that list reads “Respond to the shifts above to lock in your roster.” rather than pretending your roster is settled.
- The Shifts tab carries a red number counting how many are still waiting on you.
- The shift card itself reads Awaiting your response in amber, which outranks every other status on the card.
If a shift waiting on you is all you have, the card at the top of Home reads Waiting on your answer, with, for example, “2 shifts are waiting for your response.”
Answer the shift
Open the shift
Tap the shift from Needs your response on Home, or from the Shifts tab. It opens in the same sliding panel as any other shift, so you can read the time, the location, the participant and the support before you decide.
Read the prompt
In place of the usual clock controls there is a prompt headed with your provider’s name, for example Bright Days Care needs your answer, and the line “Accept to lock this shift in. You can’t clock in or start travel until you do.”
Slide to accept, or slide to decline
Under the prompt are two slide controls: a green Slide to accept and a red Slide to decline. Drag whichever one you mean all the way across. Accepting takes effect straight away and the shift turns into an ordinary shift, with its clock controls back.
Declining asks you to confirm first, so a stray swipe cannot turn work down for you. The dialog is headed Decline this shift? and says your provider “will be notified. They may offer it to you again.” Tap Decline to go through with it, or dismiss the dialog to think about it.
What each answer does
| Your answer | What happens |
|---|---|
| Accept | You are booked on the shift. It moves into your roster as normal, the reminders stop, and you can clock in when the time comes. |
| Decline | The shift comes off your roster and the office is told immediately. It goes back to them to fill, and they can adjust it and offer it to you again, or give it to someone else. Your answer is kept on the record either way. |
Declining is a real answer, not a refusal to be argued with
The office would rather know now than find out when nobody turns up. If you decline something you could have worked with a small change, say a later start, ring the office as well: they can amend the shift and ask you again.
Until you answer, you will be reminded
If you leave a shift unanswered, the app nudges you: a notification headed Shift awaiting your response, with the shift reference and its time, for example “SH-2026-0089, Your Tomorrow 10:00 AM–2:00 PM shift is still waiting on you. Tap to accept or decline.”
The reminders are paced, not constant. You get one a day after you were first asked, then again at three days, one day and two hours before the shift starts, and never two within twelve hours of each other. They stop the moment you answer.
The very first notification, when the shift is published to you, reads New shift to confirm with “Tomorrow, 10:00 AM–2:00 PM. Tap to accept or decline.” A shift that does not need confirming says “You’ve got a new shift” instead, so you can tell the two apart at a glance.
What you cannot do until you accept
While a shift is waiting on your answer, everything that would record work on it is switched off. That is deliberate: the office has not booked you yet, so there is nothing to record.
- Slide to clock in and Slide to clock out are replaced by the accept and decline sliders.
- Travel, breaks and sleepover active support are hidden.
- Shift tasks and the report-an-incident button are hidden.
- On a group shift you can still read the run, but Pick up greys out until you accept.
The location, times and support all stay readable, because you need them to decide.
Answering works offline
Accepting and declining behave like clocking in and out: the screen updates straight away and your answer is queued on your device, then sent as soon as you have signal. You do not have to find reception to answer a shift.
If your answer will not go through
Now and then the office changes a shift while you are deciding. If that happens you will see Couldn’t accept this shift or Couldn’t decline this shift, with the reason underneath. Reopen the shift to see where it is up to. If it has gone from your roster altogether, the office has withdrawn or reassigned it, and there is nothing left for you to answer.
Once you have accepted, the shift behaves like any other. The next guide, Clock in and out, picks up from there.