This article outlines the difference between sessions and shifts. In Lumary, your organisation can choose to use just sessions, just shifts or a combination of shifts and sessions on rosters.
Required and supported packages
Available with: Lumary WFM
Supported in: Lumary DC
What is a session?
A session is a specific period of time when a service is delivered. It can exist on its own or be assigned to a shift. Each session can contain:
- one or more workers
- one or more clients
- the client or clients' funding and planned service details (from their current service agreement)
A session typically contains the following information:
- Work type and session type
- Session start and end dates and times
- Attendees (assets, clients and worker/s)
- Planned services
- Session activities e.g. breaks, sleepovers, higher duties
- Additional comments/information
Sessions can be created from:
- a base roster
- a roster period, or
- the live schedule.
What is a shift?
A shift is a block of time assigned to one worker and can include one or many sessions. All sessions inside a shift must be assigned to that same worker (or both be unassigned), but can have different or multiple clients.
A shift typically contains the following information:
- Work type and session type
- Shift start and end dates and times
- Attendees (assets and worker/s)
- Session activities e.g. breaks, sleepovers, higher duties
- Additional comments/information
Note: Clients are NOT assigned to shifts. Clients can only be assigned to sessions. Sessions can then later be assigned to shifts.
Shifts can be created from:
- a base roster
- a roster period, or
- the live schedule.
Why use shifts?
Shifts are especially useful if a worker is rostered for a block of time but supports different clients within that period.
Remember: To add sessions to a shift, the session’s start and end times need to fit within the shift’s timeframe, and the worker assigned to the session must match the shift (either the same worker or both left unassigned).
Example: A support worker has a shift from 9:00am–5:00pm. Within that shift, they might have:
- a 3-hour session with client Abigail in the morning from 9:00am - 12:00pm, and
- a 1 hour lunch break
- a 4-hour group community access session with four clients in the afternoon from 1:00pm - 5:00pm.
This way, your organisation can track both the worker’s overall shift and the detailed sessions they deliver.
In Lumary, if you create a shift with multiple sessions, the worker only needs to:
- Clock in and out of the shift once (this covers their overall work period).
They don’t need to clock in and out of each individual session inside that shift.
👉 Sessions within the shift are tracked against the client, funding, and service details, but the worker’s time tracking happens at the shift level.
Types of sessions
In Lumary, there are various types of sessions:
You must have Shifts activated in your environment to be able to access these functions. If you can't find them, please speak to the Lumary team to get access.
Shifts are a type of session that allows you to collective modify sessions for ease of management.
The process of creating a shift and how to manage it post creation is detailed in these articles: