thread Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift” in Staff & Payroll

Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

LasVegasSouth — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 06:21:06 GMT

I recently transferred over to Square Teams and added the Square Shifts as well.

On one of the articles - it states that teams are able to trade shifts and submit a request for a cover shift through the schedule option on the application.

However, the cover shifts feature isn’t available on my teams app.
Is this a glitch or do I need to change something via team’s dashboard?

I went through all the articles and went through the dashboard to find how my team can use the cover shifts feature and couldn’t find any answers to this.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

TheRealChipA — Sun, 05 May 2024 11:25:35 GMT

Hi @LasVegasSouth. If you can please post a link to the help document you found that said that “cover shift” was available in Square Team, it would be helpful. The moderators need to see this and get it changed ASAP. This is because there is currently no “cover shift” functionality in the Team app.

I’d suggest that you submit a feature request for this, but I know for certain that it has already been submitted. I did so during the beta phase a few years ago, and it is still pending. Right now, you only have a couple of options.

Have your team members use the Team app to communicate (the employee who needs covered can send a message to all other employees including you.). Then when they find someone you’ll see that and you can manually make the change.
If you must have “shift cover” functionality and #1 above doesn’t work for you, there are apps in the Square App Marketplace that will give you this.

For me, since my employees almost never need to have shifts covered, the group messaging option works just fine. That’s why I haven’t pushed this and don’t plan to. I have a workaround that works.

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

LasVegasSouth — Sun, 05 May 2024 23:33:07 GMT

Thank you @TheRealChipA ,
I’ve attached some photos of the information I found on the Square Articles Pages - so there is Shift Cover Request based on the plans subscriptions. But yet, I don’t see this option in Square Teams App and this feature on Crew was very beneficial for my team.
Since Square bought Crew, Crew will no longer be available hence the transition over to Square.

Trade Shifts and Shift CoversRequest Shift Cover

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

TheRealChipA — Mon, 06 May 2024 11:27:30 GMT

@LasVegasSouth Well, what do you know about that!? I think you’ve found a new but unannounced upcoming feature that we’ve all been wanting for a while! I was able to find the help document URL that you provided screen shots of (thank you!). I’m going to tag a few Square moderators and have them follow up with the product team to see what’s up. Interestingly, while the employer help document now mentions “shift covers” the employee help document does not. That makes me think you have caught them in the middle of rolling this out and it is not yet completed. But, the moderators will get to the bottom of this for us.

@_Violet @JJ_ @MayaP @RobynR It seems that the help document I link to above (found by @LasVegasSouth) mentions an exciting feature that is not yet available on our accounts. It is definitely not on mine, either. Can you check with the product team and see what is going on? Is the help document right and we’ll see this feature soon? (Please say yes!)

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

LasVegasSouth — Wed, 08 May 2024 06:01:11 GMT

In addition, I contacted support and I received an email from the support team, who confirms that the shift cover should be available if you have shift plus. However, this feature is still not on my app, even though I am subscribed to Shift Plus.

I’ll upload a photo of this @TheRealChipA

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

Jerry_ — Wed, 08 May 2024 20:30:43 GMT

‌👋‌ @LasVegasSouth Jerry from Square here! Yes - you/Shifts Plus users will have access to our shift covers capability which is currently limited in availability due to testing. We anticipate to enable Shift Covers for you (and Square sellers migrated from Crew) starting tomorrow and anticipate opening feature availability more broadly to all sellers in the coming week.

I'll circle back with you tomorrow morning to confirm once our team has turned on the Shift Covers capability and to check-in to see if you're able to access/have any issues with it. Thanks!

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

Jerry_ — Fri, 10 May 2024 15:25:14 GMT

@LasVegasSouth wanted to circle back on this thread to keep you updated. I spoke with the team yesterday and unfortunately we had to hold off on the release. New ETA for is mid-next week for Crew migrated sellers to start using Shift Covers functionality. I'll keep you updated once the feature is live. Thanks!

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

Jerry_ — Thu, 16 May 2024 15:57:43 GMT

@LasVegasSouth good news, Shift Covers is live as of yesterday for a portion of Square sellers (including most Crew migrated customers)! To ensure Shift Covers is enabled for your team, go to square dashboard > shifts > settings > schedule > and turn on shift trades & covers.

Let me know if you and your team have any issues or feedback on the feature. Thanks!

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

cuppajoe — Sat, 18 May 2024 01:56:47 GMT

I am very interested in this feature for my team, but it doesn't look like it is available to me. I can still only see request trade. When will I have access to the shift covers feature?

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

MayaP — Tue, 21 May 2024 12:49:09 GMT

Good Morning @cuppajoe,

I am happy to look into this! To clarify you went through these steps below and still do not see cover shifts?

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

Jerry_ — Fri, 24 May 2024 16:30:29 GMT

@cuppajoe shift covers is currently limited in availability! We just expanded additional access to more sellers (including you) yesterday! Let me know if you now have access. Thanks!

Re: Square Teams App / Square Shifts - “cover shift”

vivalaboba — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 19:28:34 GMT

Hello @Jerry_

Looks like as of 5 days ago, the updated version of the Square Teams app has this feature. I only know because one of my new employees tried using it, but I wasn't notified at any step of the shift covering process, so I had no idea what happened until someone different showed up to work (which was a bummer, these features should be explained/announced to customers.)

Anyway, although I'm glad this is finally happening, there are still a couple of issues:

my employees need to be able to request coverage to employees with any job title, not just the same job title as the person requesting the coverage, which is what it's limited to now. another part to this - can you request that a specific person covers? and not "all baristas" or "all shift supervisors" ?
my employees need to wait for manager’s approval before coverage is confirmed (it says “been sent to viva la boba for approval” but i haven’t received any notification or email to approve anything. the only way to know anyone sent anything is if they tell me, or if i happen to be perusing the app and see an orange "pending" button next to whoever requested coverage.)

also, how much time before these shift cover requests expire? i got an alert that a request expired (but never got an alert that there was a request in the first place.) i would love these alerts via email and not the app, similar to when i get a shift trade email.

right now, employees can only request coverage from other employees that match their job description. i need them to be able to ask either a single specific person or anyone who works at our store, not have it be divided by job role only.right now, i am not notified when there is a pending coverage request. i can only see this orange pending button if i happen to be on the app.