Why am I not able to see available schedules for swapping in Teams?

Question

The following are the steps I've taken:

Within Teams Shifts:

1. Clicked "Requests."
2. Clicked "New Request."
3. Clicked "Swap."

When I try to select my shift or a team member's shift to swap with, the system states "There are no shifts on this day," even though I have myself scheduled for the days I'm trying to swap.

Please help.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Dear @Vasquez, Fabian,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A Forum.

I understand how inconvenient and challenging it is when the Teams Shifts system prevents you from using the "Swap" feature, especially when you can clearly see your shift on the main schedule. It's truly confusing when the system claims "There are no shifts on this day."

This specific problem where you can see your shift in the main schedule view but the "Swap" request tool cannot see it usually points to one of three issues: a system synchronization problem, an incorrect setting on the shift itself, or a policy restriction.

Here are the most likely causes and the steps you and your manager should take to resolve this:

 

1. Shift Not Being Available for Swapping (The "Published" Issue)

The most common cause is that the shift you are trying to swap has not been published or has been locked. Shifts must be actively published by the schedule owner/manager to be accessible by the "Requests" tool.

Ask your schedule owner or manager to check the following:

• Is the schedule fully published for those days? If the shifts are just "Drafts," they won't appear in the swap request list.
• Is the specific shift "Open" or assigned to you? Even if assigned, the act of publishing makes it available.
• Has the manager recently made a change to the schedule? If so, they must hit the Share or Publish button again to finalize the changes and sync the schedule with the requests tool.

2. System Synchronization Incident (Data Lag)

If the shift was just published, there may be a temporary data lag or an issue between the main Shifts schedule database and the separate Requests tool API.

• Wait and Retry: Wait 15-30 minutes and try creating the swap request again.
• Force a Refresh: Try forcing a deep refresh of Teams:
  1. Go to the main Schedule view.
  2. Have your manager make a minor edit (like moving a shift by 5 minutes) and then move it back.
  3. Publish the change again. This action forces a system-wide sync.

3. Policy Restrictions on Swapping

While less common, your organization's IT admin might have implemented a restriction on swap requests.

Ask your administrator or manager if there are any Time Off policies or Swap policies applied to your team that would restrict swap requests to certain timeframes (e.g., swapping must be requested 48 hours in advance, or certain shift types are exempt).

If you have confirmed that the schedule is published and the issue continues, the problem is likely an incident affecting your team's specific service configuration. For problems of this nature, I recommend that the Global Admin in your organization create a service request with Microsoft Support. If you don't know who your IT administrator is, please refer to this article: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support A technical support engineer can perform a remote session to investigate the situation, verify the backend configurations, and run any necessary synchronization tools to resolve the problem. If the issue requires further attention, they can escalate it to a specialized team for deeper analysis. Ask The Global Admin in your organization to create a service request with Microsoft support to get advanced technical assistance and diagnostics. For detailed instructions on how to get support, please refer to Get support - Microsoft 365 admin.  

For additional assistance, use this link to find the appropriate contact number: Global Customer Service phone numbers - Microsoft Support 

I truly hope you get your issue resolved swiftly. Please know that even though I can't directly intervene, directing you to the correct, specialized support is the most effective help I can provide from my position. Once you have a Support Ticket ID, you can share it with me here in the Microsoft Community via a private message. This will allow me to track the progress and ensure your case receives the necessary attention. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I'm looking forward to your reply.  

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