Choose Your Scheduling Approach

Manager Guide

Version
R2025.2.1
ft:lastEdition
2025-12-01
Choose Your Scheduling Approach

Dayforce has two scheduling features that you can use to create and manage your location’s schedules: Schedules and Centralized Schedules. The two features are quite similar (for example, managing time away, schedule acceptance, and unfilled shift bidding are the same). However, there are some key differences.

Comparison of Schedules and Centralized Schedules
Feature Description
Schedules

Access and configuration:  

  • Role feature access: Schedules
  • Role authorization access: Schedule Data (All Permissions)
  • For more information about the additional role features that are available for Schedules, see Schedules in the Dayforce Implementation Guide.

The Schedules feature is used for single-location scheduling, which means that you can load and schedule your staff for a single location. This feature is typically used by managers and supervisors who need to schedule their direct reports for one location.

Schedules has three views that you can choose from: Grid View, Bar View, and Split View. This screenshot shows the Bar View:

Schedules Bar View.

Dayforce shows schedules for your location one week at a time.

Centralized Schedules

Access and configuration:  

  • Role feature access:  
    • Centralized Schedules > Import ProtoSchedule
    • Centralized Schedules > Multi Week
    • Centralized Schedules > Save as ProtoSchedule
  • Role authorization access: Operational Templates (All Permissions)

The Centralized Schedules schedule is used for centralized scheduling, which means that you can load multiple locations, departments, and projects at once and schedule employees across your organization simultaneously. Additionally, you can load schedules with a one, two, or four week duration. Centralized Schedules is similar to the Schedules Grid View. It doesn’t have any other view options.

Centralized Schedules uses operational templates to control how Dayforce loads and then groups shifts in Centralized Schedules.

Centralized Schedules grid showing schedule details for two locations.

Centralized Schedules shares a number of role features with Schedules. See Centralized Schedules and Schedules in the Dayforce Implementation Guide.