One row per person per shift, across every event you run: call time, end time, unpaid break, hours, who is confirmed, which slots are still open and what each shift costs at an hourly rate. Coverage and overtime checks are built in.
What is inside
Saturday of the sample festival weekend, as it appears in the file. Grey columns are formulas.
| Date | Event | Role | Start | End | Break (min) | Hours | Worker | Status | Pay rate | Labor cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Captain | 10:30 AM | 11:30 PM | 60 | 12.00 | Maya Thompson | Confirmed | $20.00 | $240.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Bartender | 11:00 AM | 11:00 PM | 60 | 11.00 | Luis Ortega | Confirmed | $20.00 | $220.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Bartender | 12:00 PM | 8:00 PM | 30 | 7.50 | Jasmine Carter | Confirmed | $20.00 | $150.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Bartender | 12:00 PM | 8:00 PM | 30 | 7.50 | Marcus Bell | Confirmed | $20.00 | $150.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Bartender | 3:00 PM | 11:00 PM | 30 | 7.50 | Sofia Alvarez | Confirmed | $20.00 | $150.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Barback | 12:00 PM | 8:00 PM | 30 | 7.50 | Devon Price | Confirmed | $20.00 | $150.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Barback | 3:00 PM | 11:00 PM | 30 | 7.50 | (open slot) | Open | $20.00 | $150.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Brand ambassador | 12:00 PM | 6:00 PM | 0 | 6.00 | Tyler Nguyen | Confirmed | $20.00 | $120.00 |
| Sat, Nov 14 | Eastside Food & Wine Fest | Brand ambassador | 12:00 PM | 6:00 PM | 0 | 6.00 | Andre Williams | Confirmed | $20.00 | $120.00 |
Coverage tab
43 of the 50 positions in the sample are filled (86%), and the 6 short lines are flagged by name: Short 1.
Hours tab
Luis Ortega reaches 44 hours in the week of November 9: 4 hours over 40, with the overtime premium estimated before payroll.
Roster tab
Each worker's next certification expiry, the days left, and a status that turns amber 30 days out and red once expired.
Most agencies start with a sheet that lists events and a number of people per role. It works until the Friday before a festival, when nobody can say which of the four bartenders actually confirmed. This template is built the other way round: one row per person per shift. An unfilled slot is a row with no name and the status Open, so it gets counted instead of forgotten.
Four tabs do the checking for you. Roster keeps each worker's certifications with expiry dates (amber within 30 days, red once expired). Shifts computes hours from start, end and the unpaid break, past midnight included, and the labor cost at the hourly pay rate. Coverage compares what the client ordered with who is confirmed and flags each short line. Hours adds every worker's shifts per workweek across all your clients and flags overtime before it reaches payroll.
The sample is a fictional Austin agency on a busy week: a trade show booth, grocery demos, three bar jobs and a three-day food and wine festival. Pay is $20 an hour throughout, so every total is easy to check.
Excel 2019 or later and Microsoft 365 open the .xlsx as is. In Google Sheets, use File > Import > Upload with the .xlsx: formulas, dropdowns and colors come with it. The CSV holds the shift list alone, for pasting into a sheet you already run.
One row per worker on the Roster tab: primary role, phone, tier, city and up to two certifications with their expiry dates. These names feed the Worker dropdown, so a typo cannot create a second Luis.
Date, event, role and how many people the client ordered. The tab counts the Confirmed and Completed shifts for the same line and says Covered, Short 1 or Over by 1.
On Shifts: date, event, venue, role, start, end and the unpaid break in minutes. Hours and labor cost fill themselves, including shifts that run past midnight. A slot nobody has yet is a row with an empty Worker and the status Open.
Open, then Offered when you have asked someone, Confirmed when they said yes. After the event: Completed or No-show. Only Confirmed and Completed count as filled and as worked hours.
Set the first day of your workweek. The tab adds every shift per worker across all your clients and flags anyone over 40 hours in a week or over 8 hours in a day, with an estimate of the overtime premium.
Filter Completed rows for the pay period and send them to payroll. The same hours go on the client invoice: our staffing agency invoice template takes them line by line.
A 6 PM reception starts much earlier for the bar team: setup, ice, garnish, a walk-through with the captain. Put the real arrival time in Start, or the hours and the invoice are both short. Our catering staff ratios guide gives call times by role for a plated dinner.
A count in one cell hides who is missing. Four rows with four names, or three names and one Open row, show the gap at a glance and let Coverage count it.
In the sample, Luis Ortega works three weeknight bar jobs for three different clients (17 hours), then 27 hours at the festival: 44 hours in the Monday to Sunday week, so 4 hours over 40. No single client sees more than 27 of them. Only a sheet that adds every event per person catches it.
The gap between asked and confirmed is where no-shows start. Chase every Offered row 48 hours out, and keep a standby list for the roles that are hardest to replace. More in our guide to reducing event staff no-shows.
Food handler cards and alcohol server permits expire on their own calendar, often mid-season. The Roster colors tell you before you put someone behind a bar. State rules differ: see our alcohol tasting staff compliance guide.
A three-day festival is not three one-day events: the same people repeat and fatigue builds from one day to the next. Lay out all days on the same tab and read the Hours tab per person. Our multi-day festival scheduling guide covers shift lengths and relief.
The sample agency, clients and workers are fictional; the $20 hourly pay rate is an example. Overtime and break rules differ by state: check your state's labor department before you rely on the Hours tab. Nothing here is legal advice.
FAQ
Yes. Download the Excel file or the CSV without an email or an account, use it for your agency and share it with your team. The sample names, clients and phone numbers are fictional.
Yes. In Google Sheets, go to File > Import > Upload and pick the .xlsx file: the tabs, formulas, dropdowns and conditional colors come across. The CSV is only the Shifts list, useful to paste shifts into a sheet you already have.
Enter the real end time, for example 12:30 AM for a gala that closes at half past midnight. The hours formula wraps past midnight: 5:00 PM to 12:30 AM with a 30 minute unpaid break gives 7.00 hours.
The Hours tab adds each worker's Confirmed and Completed shifts per workweek, across every event and client, and shows the hours over 40. Federal law (the FLSA) requires time and a half over 40 hours in a workweek. Some states also count by the day: California pays overtime after 8 hours in a workday. The tab flags long days so you can check your state's rule. It is an estimate, not legal advice.
Offered means you asked the person; Confirmed means they said yes. Keeping the two apart is how you see, two days before the event, which slots still depend on someone answering a text.
Send a copy without the Pay rate and Labor cost columns: hide them or delete them in the copy, or export a filtered view as PDF. Clients usually want names, roles and call times, not your wages.
The Shifts tab is formatted for 400 rows and the Roster for 200 workers. Add rows inside the table to keep the formulas; past a few hundred shifts a month, most agencies move the schedule into software.
When the grid is not the problem anymore. Agencies usually outgrow the sheet when confirmations live in dozens of text threads, when clients ask for live updates, or when hours have to be checked against real clock-ins. Staffli covers those parts: shifts in your own worker app, SMS with delivery status, geofenced clock-in with a selfie and a client portal.
Contact
Share your market (events, trade shows, hospitality), your team size and monthly shift volume. We'll come back with a tailored Staffli and Nelson demo built for your operation.
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