Set Up Automated Shift Reminders in Homebase

What This Does

Homebase automatically sends text reminders to your team members 24 hours and 2 hours before every shift — reducing no-shows and last-minute call-outs without any ongoing manager effort.

Before You Start

• You have a Homebase account with at least one schedule published
• Your team members have phone numbers entered in their profiles
• Employees have accepted their Homebase invitation (so texts reach them)

Steps

1. Find Notification Settings

In Homebase, click your store name in the top left, then go to Settings → Notifications.

2. Enable Shift Reminders

Under Employee Notifications, find Shift Reminders. Toggle on:

• "Send reminder 24 hours before shift" — yes
• "Send reminder 2 hours before shift" — yes

Both reminders go as text messages to the employee's mobile number on file.

3. Customize the Message (Optional)

You can edit the default reminder message. Consider adding: "Reply UNABLE if you can't make it so we have time to find cover." This gives you advance warning.

4. Check Phone Numbers

Go to Team → select each employee → verify their mobile number is correct. Reminders only work if this is up to date.

5. Test It

Publish a schedule with your own number added to a test shift. You should receive the 24-hour reminder automatically.

Real Example

Scenario: A 35-person team at a general merchandise store. Before shift reminders, 2–4 people per week were no-shows or last-minute call-outs. After enabling, the manager started getting advance "can't make it" texts instead of silence until the shift starts.

What you do: Enable both reminders in settings (5 minutes), verify phone numbers are correct.

What you get: Automatic texts to every employee before every shift, every week, forever — with zero ongoing effort. Managers at stores using this consistently report fewer cold no-shows and more time to find replacement coverage.

Tips

• Ask employees to respond to reminders when they get them — even just "Got it" — so you know the texts are reaching them.
• If you use Homebase's team messaging, you can set up shift-specific group chats for the opening and closing teams separately.
• Pair this with the Auto-Schedule feature (see Level 2 guide) — it takes less than 15 minutes total to build and communicate an entire week's schedule.

Tool interfaces change — if a button has moved, look for similar Notification or Reminder options in Settings.