1What it is

Tavora treats shifts with total freedom: a shift is a day, a label (“Reception”, “Guard duty”), a time — it can cross midnight, like 10pm–6am, or have no time at all for all-day shifts — and how many people you need (from 1 to 8).

Whoever gets assigned receives a private notice, finds their shifts in the organization's calendar, and the reminders arrive on their own. The personal space agenda doesn't show them: it stays separate from organizations.

2Where and for whom

In private: organization home → 🔁 Shifts (next to 🗓 Calendar).
In the connected groups: /shifts (today and tomorrow) and /shiftsweek (the whole week, read-only). If the group belongs to a department, it only shows that department's shifts; once there is at least one department, both commands are off in a group that isn't in any department until you assign it to one.

The board is open to the staff, to whoever has the “Manage Shifts” permission (same powers as the staff on shifts, across all areas), to department managers, to whoever holds a department job with “manage shifts”, and to anyone belonging to a department that uses shifts. In organizations without departments there is a single board and every member opens it, to take the gaps with “🙋 I'll take it” and cover open swaps; the management commands stay with whoever manages shifts.

3The board

Week: a table with one row per day. On the left the day, which you tap to open it and whose colour tells you its status; on the right the shifts, with their time and who covers them.
Month: the calendar grid; you switch between the two views with “📆 Week” and “🗓 Month”.
Uncovered slots are marked 📭 — on the board, on the day buttons and on the shift's own card.
The day colours speak for themselves: red = day with gaps to fill (it wins over “today” too), green = day covered, blue = today.

📊 Summary adds it all up: how many shifts each person has done, month by month. And 📋 Copy last week rebuilds the week with the people already in it — then you fix what needs fixing.

4Creating and assigning

Creating

With time slots (the reusable stamps): “Morning 6–2”, “Night 10pm–6am”. You create them once and then generate a shift with one tap. Up to 12 slots per organization.
By writing one line: “Night 22-6”, “Guard duty x2”, “Opening 8:30-13”. Above 8 people (“x9”, “x12”) the bot answers “from 1 to 8 people per shift” instead of lowering the number. An accepted line disappears from the chat and the new shift's card opens; a wrong line stays in the chat and the error shows up in the bot's message. A time slot has no spots: if you write one with “x2”, that part is ignored.
✏️ Edit (from the shift's card, for whoever manages it): a panel with one button per field — 🏷 Name, 🕒 Time (or “☀️ All day”), 👥 Spots (1·2·3·4 or “⚙️ Custom”, up to 8), 📅 Day (moves the shift together with its people) and 📝 Notes (“🗑 Remove notes” clears them). Only the field you tap changes. If the spots drop below the people already assigned, the panel warns you, and whoever is on the shift gets a private notice when the name, time or day changes.

Assigning

The “Who's on shift?” picker for a department shift only offers that department's members; a General area shift offers the whole organization. Inside there's 🔍 Search by @username or ID.
🙋 I'll take it: members can fill the gaps themselves — and it's switched on or off area by area: the General area and each department decide for themselves.
Shift swaps: you offer the swap to a specific person (who accepts or declines from their private chat) or open the shift to everyone (“I'll cover it”). Only on your own shifts.
Notices in the group: when someone asks for an “👐 Open to anyone” swap, or when a shift starting within 24 hours still has uncovered spots, the bot posts a short message in the group of the shift's area (“Open swap…” or “Uncovered shift…”) with the 📂 Open the shift button. One message per shift, no private messages.

5A board per department

With departments switched on, each department has its own shifts, plus a General area for the staff. On the board, 🗂 Change area moves you from one department to another; with a single department the selector is skipped.

Department shifts are assigned only to that department's members: if the department is empty the bot tells you and points you where to add them (Management → Departments → the department → 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Members).

6Shifts AI

From the board, managers find 🤖 Shifts AI: an assistant that works on the shifts as you talk to it normally. It can list shifts and gaps, create shifts (“create Night 22-6 for Saturday”), edit a shift (name, time, spots, day or notes, without deleting and recreating it), assign and remove people (with the private notice), copy last week, list the time slots and pull the monthly summary per person. Only the staff (founder, admins and whoever has “Manage Shifts”) can create time slots with the AI, just as from the ⚙️ Time slots menu.

Who can use it: managers only — staff, “Manage Shifts” (all areas) and department managers (their own only). Ordinary members don't see it.
Actions are immediate and the outcome is always the tools' real one; deleting a shift with people in it and removing a person from a shift need your confirmation, given in a later message of yours: the AI can't confirm on its own.
Department shifts go only to that department's members, exactly as in the manual picker.
Limit: 30 requests a day per organization.

7Reminders and limits

Automatic reminders: they arrive in private with the 📂 Open the shift and 🔁 Ask for a swap buttons, like the assignment notice. By default 24 hours and 1 hour before the shift (for all-day shifts the count starts at 9 in the morning), but everyone chooses their own: from the board, ⏰ Reminders → “Default”, 1 day before, 1 hour before, both, “None” or “⚙️ Custom” (from 1 to 48 hours before). The shifts staff also find 🏢 Default for everyone there, which applies to whoever hasn't chosen.

Honest limits: from 1 to 8 people per shift. By design there is no declared availability in advance, no count of hours worked and no manager approval on swaps.