A week Puppy built, on the screen a manager reviews it on. Sample team; everything else is the product.
Availability was only half the information.
Someone can be available Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and feel completely differently about working each one.
- “Monday — exactly what I want.”
- “Tuesday — works fine.”
- “Wednesday — I can do it if needed.”
- “I need Friday off.”
- “I'd like to get closer to 30 hours.”
- “I can stay later if you're short.”
Those are three different scheduling inputs. A simple availability system sees all three as available. A manager does not — which is why the rest of it ends up in texts, conversations, notes, favours and memory. Puppy gives that information somewhere useful to go.
Available doesn't mean preferred.
Knowing someone can work Tuesday does not tell you whether Tuesday is the day they want. Puppy keeps the two apart, because they are different instructions.
Unavailable
I can't work this.
Available
I can work this.
Preferred
Of the things I can work, I'd rather work this.
Coverage
What the business needs, hour by hour.
How Puppy works
Tell Puppy what has to be true.
Start with the hard requirements: operating hours, roles, locations, staffing. If your business runs fixed shifts, create fixed shifts. If what you actually know is “I need four people here between 11 and 2”, use a cover window and say it directly. You describe the operation; Puppy gets something more useful than a pile of empty boxes.
Let employees say more than yes or no.
Availability sets the boundary. Preference helps Puppy choose inside it. Your team can give both, plus the hours they are looking for, where they are flexible, when they need time off, and a limited number of Super Picks for the times that genuinely matter. “I cannot work Friday” and “I can work Friday, but Wednesday is much better” are not the same instruction, and Puppy keeps them separate.
Then Puppy builds the week between them.
Not one empty shift at a time — the whole week together: coverage, availability, preferences, target hours, roles, time off and the limits you have set. Out comes a complete draft. Move someone, change an assignment, override a decision, rebuild, or publish it exactly as Puppy built it. Nothing goes out until you say so.
From $12 a month billed yearly, or $19 monthly. Your whole team included.
Next week isn't a blank slate.
Your business did not forget how it operates because Monday arrived. Opening hours are still opening hours. Roles still exist. Most people still want roughly what they wanted last week.
For employees
Same as last week? Your usual preferences are already there. Keep them, or make changes. If nothing changed, they are done.
For managers
Your regular staffing needs, team, roles, and scheduling setup stay in place too. Adjust the exceptions, approve time off, review what has changed, and build the next schedule.
So Puppy keeps what repeats. Change what changed, and build again — a weekly scheduler should not suffer weekly amnesia.
Some preferences matter more than others.
Sometimes an employee does not merely prefer a time. It genuinely matters to them. A Super Pick gives them a limited way to tell Puppy that.
Regular preference
“I’d like this.”
Super Pick
“This one really matters.”
Because Super Picks are limited, they carry more information than simply marking everything important. And managers do not have to personally decipher which of five competing requests is the most meaningful.
Sometimes there isn't a perfect schedule.
That is normal. Two people may want the same shift. Someone may want more hours than you have. Software does not make those trade-offs disappear, and Puppy does not pretend otherwise — it shows you how the week landed.
Coverage
Are you staffed where you need to be?
Preference fulfillment
How often did employees get the times they requested?
Desired hours
Who's getting substantially more or fewer hours than they'd like?
Super Picks
Were the requests employees cared most about fulfilled?
Distribution
How are hours and assignments being spread across the team?
History
Is something unusual this week, or is it becoming a pattern?
Puppy does not declare what is fair — there is no universal definition of a fair schedule. Better information going in, better visibility coming out. You still decide what good looks like.
Published means done.
Once you approve the schedule, employees can see exactly when they are working — and add their shifts straight to Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook instead of copying each one across by hand.
Scheduling software got very good at recording the answer.
Puppy is built around the decision that comes before it. You probably do not need software to show you how to put Sarah on Tuesday; the work is deciding whether Sarah should be on Tuesday in the first place. Puppy is deliberately narrow — it is not an HR platform with scheduling attached, and it is not trying to run your whole company. It is trying to make the schedule better.
You should not need a calculator to buy scheduling software.
No per-employee pricing. No mandatory sales call. No surprise because three more people joined the team. The product works better when the whole team takes part, so hiring somebody should not become another purchasing decision. Pick the plan that matches the shape of your business.
Trial
Everything, for 30 days. No card.
3 locations · your whole team included
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One location that wants a better way to build the week.
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The complete Puppy Shifts toolkit.
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Start with Full PuppyQuestions people ask first
What does Puppy Shifts do?
Puppy helps hourly managers build schedules using both the staffing requirements of the business and the preferences of the people working there. Managers tell Puppy when coverage is needed, how many employees are required, and which scheduling rules apply. Employees tell Puppy when they can work, when they would prefer to work, and how many hours they would like. Puppy works through both sides and builds a schedule for the manager to review.
Isn't that what scheduling software already does?
Parts of it, yes — Puppy did not invent calendars, availability or automated scheduling. The difference is what Puppy treats as first-class scheduling information. Preference stays distinct from availability. A business can describe staffing as coverage rather than only as predefined shifts. Recurring information persists from week to week. Puppy is designed around the decision that produces the schedule, not only the calendar that displays it.
What's the difference between availability and preference?
Unavailable: I cannot work this. Available: I can work this. Preferred: of the things I can work, I would rather work this. Those are three different pieces of information, and Puppy treats them that way — availability is a hard rule, preference is what it weighs when a real choice exists.
Does Puppy use AI?
Puppy uses software to solve the scheduling problem you give it. We would rather explain what the system considers than put “AI” in front of every feature. The useful part is straightforward: give Puppy the business requirements and the employee information, and it produces a schedule for you to review.
What are target hours?
Roughly how much somebody would like to work. A person looking for 35 hours and a person looking for 12 do not want the same scheduling outcome, even when both are technically available for the same shifts. Puppy treats a stated number as a ceiling rather than a hope, unless they tick the box saying they can go over it.
Do I have to say how many people each shift needs?
You choose. Puppy can work from cover windows — how many people you want on at once between two times, with Puppy deciding which mix of shifts delivers it — or from a headcount per shift per day, the way most schedulers do it. Windows are fairer when long and short shifts overlap, because per-shift ranking makes somebody who wants one eight-hour day spend two picks and compete twice. Per shift is simpler to explain. One is in use at a time and switching keeps both sets of settings.
What if a shift nobody wants still has to be covered?
Put extra pay on it, for that day only — either a one-off amount for taking the shift, or a percentage on top of each person’s own rate. Puppy shows the offer on the shift when your team picks, so it changes what people ask for rather than what the schedule forces on them, and it follows the shift through to payroll, so the cost you were shown is the cost you pay.
Can employees invent their own hours?
No, in either model. You define the shifts your business runs; employees say which of them they would like and when they can work. Cover windows change how you state what you need, not who decides what a shift is.
You already have most of the information needed to build next week.
It is in texts, conversations, notes and memory, and every week somebody has to turn all of it into one schedule. Puppy gives it somewhere useful to go.
From $12 a month billed yearly, or $19 monthly. Your whole team included.