Free Excel Shift Schedule Template + Rest Checks | Fresh QR

Free Excel Shift Schedule Template – and an Honest Look at When Excel Stops Working

Download a ready-made monthly shift roster that adds up hours, catches too little rest between shifts and shows where you are short-staffed. Then see when a spreadsheet is no longer enough for scheduling.

Download the template (.xlsx) Excel vs app

✓ No sign-up, no email · ✓ No macros · ✓ Excel 2010 or newer

Updated 26 October 2026

How do you make a shift schedule in Excel? Put employees in rows and the days of the month in columns, then type a shift code in each cell – for example M, A or N. A shift table gives every code its times and hours, COUNTIF counts how many people work each shift, and one formula compares the end of one shift with the start of the next so nobody gets too little rest.

What the Excel shift schedule template looks like

The first two weeks of the "Example" sheet: a small restaurant with a morning and an afternoon shift. Colours, totals and red warnings all come from formulas.

Employee 1
Tue		 2
Wed		 3
Thu		 4
Fri		 5
Sat		 6
Sun		 7
Mon		 8
Tue		 9
Wed		 10
Thu		 11
Fri		 12
Sat		 13
Sun		 14
Mon		 Hours Short rest
Jane O M M M M M O O M M M M M O 75.0 -
Peter O O A A A A A O O A M A A A 75.0 1
Lucy M O O M M M M M O O M M M M 75.0 -
Mark A A O O A A A A A O O A A A 75.0 -
Eve M M M O O M M M M M O O M M 75.0 -
Tom A A A A O O A A A A A O O A 75.0 -
Coverage M 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 min. 2
Coverage A 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 1 2 2 3 min. 2
Peter works the afternoon on Sep 10 and the morning shift on Sep 11 – only 8 hours apart, so the cell turns red. The afternoon is one person short that day too.

What the template does

Shift codes with times and colours

Define your shifts (morning, afternoon, night, day) and absences once on the Settings sheet. In the roster you only pick a code from the drop-down.

Rest-between-shifts check

A cell turns red when the gap between the end of one shift and the start of the next is under 11 hours (the EU Working Time Directive minimum). Change the limit to match your rules.

Coverage for every shift

Below the roster you see how many people work each shift every day. Below the minimum you set, the number turns red.

Hours and target per person

On the right: scheduled hours, the monthly target from contract hours and your public holidays, the difference, number of shifts and weekend or holiday work.

Night shifts across midnight

A 22:00–06:00 shift is counted correctly – in the hours and in the rest check into the next day.

The whole month on one screen

Up to 15 people and 31 days in one grid, weekends and holidays shaded. Ready to print landscape on one page.

Download the free template

One file, no macros and no email address required. It includes instructions, shift and holiday settings, a blank monthly roster and a filled-in restaurant example.

Excel shift schedule template file (.xlsx)
excel-shift-schedule-template.xlsx
Excel .xlsx · 4 sheets · no macros · 41 kB
Download the template (.xlsx)

Use and adapt the template freely. Need to track hours actually worked too? Get our Excel timesheet template.

Plan a month in 20 minutes

  1. 1

    Set the month and shifts

    On the Settings sheet, enter the year, month and contract hours. Edit the shift times and the minimum staff for each shift, and add your public holidays.

  2. 2

    Add your people

    Type the names in column A of the Shift schedule sheet. There is room for 15 people.

  3. 3

    Fill in the shifts

    Pick a shift code for each day. For a repeating week, copy seven cells and paste them further along.

  4. 4

    Fix the red cells

    Check short rest, coverage and hours against the target. Then print the roster or save it as PDF and share it with your team in good time.

How much time an Excel rota really costs

The first roster is quick. The time goes on what follows: requests, swaps, sick calls, a new version and sending it round again. The breakdown below is for a 10-person restaurant team on shifts.

  • Collect requests and time off (messages, paper, calls) 2–4 min / person
  • Build the roster and check coverage and hours 3–5 min / person
  • Rework it after swaps, sick days and plan changes 3–6 min / person
  • Send the new version and answer "when am I on?" 2–3 min / person
  • Total per month – 2 to 3 hours for 10 people 10–18 min / person

What does scheduling in Excel cost you?

Scheduling in Excel costs you per year

€750

30 h a year, just on the rota

Try Fresh QR free for 30 days

An estimate, not a measurement. With Fresh QR, employees see the schedule on their phone, send requests and swaps through the app, and the published schedule becomes the plan for attendance. Shift planning is an optional module on top of attendance; you see its current price in the app.

The most common Excel shift schedule mistakes

A spreadsheet roster looks finished even when it is wrong. These are the mistakes we see most often – and how to handle them.

Mistake What happens in Excel How the template / Fresh QR handles it
Too little rest An afternoon shift until 22:00 next to a morning shift from 06:00. Nobody notices in the grid until someone complains. The template turns that cell red. Fresh QR does not check this yet – here the template is ahead of us.
A coverage gap Someone is on vacation and the morning shift is suddenly down to one person. You find out at 6 a.m. The template counts people on every shift. Fresh QR shows the number of gaps per day based on your coverage requirements.
An old version of the rota Half the team has a photo of yesterday's version and turns up for the wrong shift. The template cannot fix this. In Fresh QR there is one published schedule and everyone sees it in the app.
Swaps by phone Colleagues trade shifts between themselves, you do not know, and the rota no longer matches attendance. In Fresh QR an employee offers a shift to a colleague in the same position, who takes it – the schedule updates itself.
Hours off target One person ends up 20 hours over, another under. It shows up at payroll. The template compares scheduled hours with the target. Fresh QR shows planned hours per employee for the week.
Plan and reality in two files The rota is one spreadsheet, attendance another. Someone works out overtime against the plan by hand. In Fresh QR the published schedule is the plan for attendance, and the day detail shows the plan next to the actual scans.

Excel shift schedule vs Fresh QR

A well-built Excel template compared with shift planning in Fresh QR, where every employee sees the schedule in the free app.

Excel (this template) Fresh QR
Where staff see the rota Paper on the wall, a PDF or a photo in the group chat In the Fresh QR app on their phone – this week and next
Changes after publishing A new file version, sent round again Editing creates a draft; staff see it once you publish
Requests and swaps Messages and calls, you retype them "Want to work / prefer not to" requests and shift swaps right in the app
Coverage COUNTIF in the template Coverage requirements and the number of gaps per day
Rest between shifts The template checks it Not checked yet
Leave and sick days Typed into cells by hand Approved and pending absences appear in the grid
Plan vs attendance Two separate spreadsheets Published shifts are the plan for attendance and overtime
View The whole month on one sheet Week view, planned on a computer
Cost €0 for software; you pay in time and energy Optional module on top of attendance, price shown in the app

Pros and cons, honestly

Shift planning in Fresh QR is a young module, and a few things Excel still does better. Here are both sides.

Excel

  • Pro: It is free and you see the whole month on one screen.
  • Pro: Our template checks rest between shifts – Fresh QR does not do that yet.
  • Pro: Total freedom: your own codes, colours and columns.
  • Con: Every change means a new version sent round again. Someone always looks at the old one.
  • Con: Requests and swaps arrive by phone and you retype them.
  • Con: The rota never connects to attendance – overtime against the plan is worked out by hand.
  • Con: One person has the file on their computer. When they are off sick, nobody can update it.

Fresh QR

  • Pro: Every employee sees their shifts on their phone; nobody works from an old version.
  • Pro: Requests and shift swaps happen in the app, and the schedule updates itself.
  • Pro: The published schedule is the plan for attendance, overtime and breaks.
  • Pro: Coverage, leave and pending requests are visible right in the grid.
  • Con: No automatic scheduling – you place every shift, with copy-week as the shortcut.
  • Con: It does not check rest between shifts or weekly maximums.
  • Con: No notification on publish; staff see the schedule when they open the app.
  • Con: Planning happens in a week view on a computer, and it is a paid module on top of attendance.

When you should simply stay with Excel

If you have a small team with fixed shifts that rarely change, and the rota hangs on the wall, Excel with this template is enough. An app pays off when you rework the schedule every week, people swap shifts among themselves, or you need the plan and attendance to match without comparing them by hand.

Build your own rota with AI: a sample prompt

Rotating shifts, 12-hour shifts or split shifts? Copy this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot in Excel and edit the square brackets. It tells the AI to put formulas in the cells, so changing a shift updates the hours and checks by itself.

Create an .xlsx file for a monthly employee shift schedule (rota).

Details:
- Country: [United Kingdom]
- Number of employees: [12]
- Shifts: [M morning 06:00–14:00, A afternoon 14:00–22:00, N night 22:00–06:00], each with a 30-minute break
- Minimum staff: [M 3, A 3, N 1]
- Absences: O (day off), V (vacation, 8 h), S (sick, 0 h)
- Contract: [8] hours per day

Sheets:
1. "Settings": year, month, contract hours, minimum rest between shifts of [11] hours, a shift table (code, name, start, end, break, hours, minimum staff) and a list of public holidays for [England] in the chosen year. Create named ranges.
2. "Rota": rows = employees, columns = days 1 to 31. Each cell has a drop-down of shift codes. Header with the date and weekday; weekends and public holidays highlighted.
3. On the right for each person: scheduled hours (SUMPRODUCT and COUNTIF against the shift table), target hours, difference, number of shifts, weekend shifts and the number of shifts with too little rest. [Add a weekly total and flag weeks over 48 hours.]
4. Below the rota: coverage of each shift for every day, highlighting days below the minimum.

Rules:
- Rest = start of the shift on day d+1 minus the end of the shift on day d; a night shift ends on the next day. If rest is below the minimum, colour the cell red.
- Shift hours = end − start − break; shifts across midnight must be calculated correctly (MOD).
- Colour cells by shift code with conditional formatting.

Technical requirements:
- Formulas everywhere, not calculated values. No macros.
- Don't use XLOOKUP, FILTER or LET, so the file works in older Excel versions.
- Put helper calculations in hidden columns.
- Finally, add a "How to use" sheet.

Before building the file, summarise your plan in 5 bullet points and ask me if anything is unclear.

How to get a rota you can actually use

Excel shift schedule FAQ

Put employees in rows and the days of the month in columns. Define your shifts with times on a separate sheet and pick their codes in the cells with data validation (a drop-down). Hours come from SUMPRODUCT(COUNTIF(row,codes)*hours) and coverage from COUNTIF(column,"M"). Our template has all of this ready.
For each day, work out the gap between the start of today's shift and the end of yesterday's: (1 + start_today − end_yesterday) × 24. If yesterday's shift crossed midnight, add one day to its end. Highlight anything under your minimum (11 hours under the EU Working Time Directive) with conditional formatting. The template does this in hidden columns.
It depends on where you are. In the EU, national laws set notice periods. In the US, predictive-scheduling laws in places such as Oregon, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle require schedules to be posted in advance – typically 14 days – with premium pay for late changes in some cases. Check the rules that apply to you.
We tested it in Microsoft Excel. It uses common functions (COUNTIF, SUMPRODUCT, INDEX, MATCH), so it should open elsewhere, but conditional formatting and hidden columns may behave differently. Check it against the Example sheet first.
Not yet. The Fresh QR planner shows coverage, absences and planned hours, but it does not check rest time or weekly maximums. If that matters most to you, the Excel template already does it. More on what the planner does and doesn't do is on the shift planning software page.
From Excel you print it for the wall or save it as PDF and send it – and repeat that after every change. In Fresh QR every employee sees their shifts for this week and next in the app, and the latest published version is always there.
Yes. Download the weekly schedule as a landscape A4 PDF or as Excel – see the guide on building and publishing a schedule. You can keep using Excel for printing or your records.

See also shift planning linked to attendance, our free Excel timesheet template and the restaurant time clock.

Excel to start, an app to grow

Keep the template for as long as it works for you. When you start reworking the rota every week, try Fresh QR: the schedule on every employee's phone, shift swaps in the app and a plan that matches attendance from day one.

Try Fresh QR free for 30 days Download the template (.xlsx)

The template and this page are not legal advice. Working-time rules differ by country; sources cited as of October 2026. Microsoft Excel is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation; Fresh QR is not affiliated with Microsoft.