ShiftWake User Guide

ShiftWake needs a free account so your alarms and schedules can be safely backed up and shared with colleagues.

1. Open the app and either register with your e-mail and a password, or tap Sign in with Google.
2. If you registered by e-mail, check your inbox and tap the verification link, then return to the app and tap "I have verified my email".
3. Grant the permissions the app asks for — notifications and exact alarms are needed so your alarm can actually wake you.

Tap "⏰ Add alarm" on the main screen and fill in:

• Name — e.g. "Factory", "Hospital".
• Schedule type — how your work days repeat (see the next chapter).
• Cycle start date — for rotating schedules, pick any day on which your cycle begins.
• Ring times — one or more times per work day (wake-up, breakfast, leave home…). Each can be switched on/off; two- and three-shift schedules — and custom cycles with more than one work block — let you set different times for shift A/B/C.
• Sound, volume and vibration — pick any ringtone; the sound fades in gently over 30 seconds.
• Dismiss method and snooze length.
• Sleep reminder and Google Calendar sync — optional per-alarm extras, see chapters 13 and 14.

A 14-day preview calendar at the bottom shows exactly which days the alarm will ring, so you can verify your cycle before saving.

• Button — classic: a snooze button and a small floating "off" button.
• Easy math — solve a simple sum up to 10 (e.g. 5 + 2).
• Hard math — for heavy sleepers: multiplication and multi-step problems (e.g. 34 + 7 × 8).
• Type a word — copy the displayed word.
• Shaking — shake the phone 10 times.

Snooze: press the snooze button, the volume keys, or simply let the screen turn off — the alarm returns after your chosen snooze length. The number of snoozes is limited so you cannot snooze forever.

• Each alarm card shows its name, schedule type, ringtone and the next ring time.
• The right switch turns the whole alarm on or off.
• If the alarm still rings today, a second, date-labelled switch appears. Turning it off skips only today's ringing — the rest of the cycle is untouched. It also cancels a currently snoozed ring.
• Swipe a card to the left to reveal Copy and Delete. Deleting asks a small math problem so it cannot happen by accident.
• Below the alarms you'll find confirmed shift swaps, a friends' schedule preview and quick buttons for all features.

Open 🗓️ Calendar to see your whole month: work days, free days, holidays, vacations and swaps are colour-coded. Long-press any day to create an exception:

• Work day / free day override — an extra shift on a free day, or a day off on a work day.
• Manual shift choice — for two/three-shift schedules force shift A/B/C or a custom time for that one day.
• Extra shift (overtime) — a one-off alarm at a time you choose, with a note.
• Repeat yearly — useful for fixed dates such as company holidays.
• Change the ring time for one day — keep the work day but wake up earlier or later, for example for a doctor's appointment before your shift.

Exceptions only affect the selected day — your regular cycle continues around them, and they can be removed from the same dialog.

1. Open Vacations, pick the alarm and the date range, then save.
2. All alarms of that schedule stay silent for the whole range — no need to switch anything off.
3. Deleting a vacation restores the normal cycle. You can also remove a single day from the calendar — the vacation splits automatically.

Balance counter

At the top of the Vacations screen set your yearly allowance (e.g. 25 days). The app shows how many days you have used this year and how many remain — planned future vacations count as used, the same way your employer counts them. If you go over, the balance turns red.

Choose your country in Settings. Before every public holiday the app asks — both inside the app and as a notification:

• "Yes, I work" — the alarm rings as usual.
• "No, day off" — the alarm stays silent on the holiday.

Your answer is stored as a calendar exception, so you can change it later in the calendar. To disable holiday handling, set the country to "None".

Swap a shift with a colleague who also uses ShiftWake:

1. Open ↔️ Shift swap, enter your colleague's e-mail (the one they use in ShiftWake).
2. Pick the date in the mini calendar — the app shows whether you work that day and your ring times.
3. Tap Send proposal. Your colleague receives a push notification.
4. They open the request, pick which of their alarms applies, and accept or reject. The app blocks accepting a swap that makes no sense (you both have the same shift).
5. After acceptance both calendars update automatically: whoever takes the shift sets a one-off alarm time; whoever hands it over gets a free day.

• Pending proposals expire after 48 hours.
• You can cancel your own proposal any time — the colleague is notified.
• The History & active tab lists everything you sent and received.

Let family or teammates see when you work — without giving them your account:

1. Open 🔗 Share schedule, choose the alarm and tap Generate code. You get a 6-character code with limited validity.
2. Send the code to the other person (message, e-mail…).
3. They open the same screen in their ShiftWake app, enter the code and accept.

• Followers see your work/free days — including the "Friends' schedules" button, which shows today, tomorrow and the day after for everyone they follow.
• When you edit your schedule, followers receive it automatically.
• You can stop sharing any time — followers are notified and the schedule disappears from their app.

The 📊 Monthly overview button shows, for any month and alarm: work days, free days, vacation days, extra shifts and shift swaps. It uses exactly the same calculation as the calendar — handy for checking your payslip.

1. Long-press an empty spot on your home screen → Widgets → ShiftWake → drag it onto the screen.
2. When you drop it, choose which alarm this widget should follow — a specific alarm, or Automatic (always the alarm that rings soonest). You can add several widgets, each tracking a different alarm.
3. The widget shows that alarm's next ring time and whether you work today, tomorrow and the day after (✔ = work, — = free).
4. It refreshes automatically whenever your schedule changes. Tapping it opens the app.

Each alarm has its own sleep reminder: open the alarm, turn on 😴 Sleep reminder and choose how many hours of sleep you need (4–12), then save. The app sends a notification at exactly next ring − sleep hours: "Your alarm rings at 04:30. Go to bed now to get 8 hours of sleep." It follows that alarm's rotating schedule, days off and vacations.

Google Calendar sync is set per alarm: open the alarm, turn on 🗓️ Google Calendar sync and allow calendar access, then save. ShiftWake writes that alarm's next 180 days into your phone's calendar as all-day events:

• 🔔 Work – [alarm name] with your ring times in the note,
• 🏖️ Vacation – [alarm name] for vacation days.

Because these are normal phone-calendar events, Google Calendar syncs them to the cloud — so a partner with a shared family calendar sees your shifts too. Events update automatically and only ShiftWake's own events are ever touched. ShiftWake also takes them back out of the calendar whenever you:

• turn off 🗓️ Google Calendar sync inside an alarm — removes just that alarm's events;
• switch an alarm off (the toggle on the home screen or inside the alarm) — it stops ringing and its calendar events go with it;
• delete an alarm;
• tap Clear ShiftWake from Google Calendar in Settings — clears every alarm's events at once and turns sync off for all of them.

Removals reach Google Calendar within a minute or two, just like when events are added.

• Timer — several countdowns at once, each with its own ringtone; it keeps running with the screen off and survives a phone restart. Stop the ringing with the button, the volume keys or by turning the screen off.
• Stopwatch — start/pause, lap times and reset.

• Language — 43 languages; your phone's language is always first in the list, marked with a 🌐 globe icon so you can find it even if you switched to an unfamiliar language.
• Public holiday country — or "None" to disable holiday prompts.
• Date format — how dates appear throughout the app.
• Subscription — status and a shortcut to manage it in Google Play.
• Log out / Delete account — deletion is protected by biometric confirmation and removes your data from the phone.

The alarm doesn't ring

• Allow notifications and alarms & reminders (exact alarms) for ShiftWake in Android settings.
• On Huawei and Xiaomi phones, aggressive battery saving can kill alarms. The app offers to open the right settings screen — allow ShiftWake to run in the background / autostart.
• Check Do Not Disturb: if alarms are blocked in your DND configuration, the app shows a red warning card on the main screen with a shortcut to fix it.
• Allow full-screen notifications (Android 14+) so the alarm screen can appear over the lock screen.

Push notifications don't arrive

• Notifications about swaps and sharing need an internet connection and notification permission.
• Battery savers can also delay pushes — see the Huawei/Xiaomi note above.

Alarms disappeared after reinstalling

Sign in with the same account — your alarms, exceptions and vacations sync back automatically.