Get told when a swap opens up for a hard shift
Updated October 13, 2026 · with an example to try
On a shift's swap page in Capillary's Find a swap, choose Tell me when a likely swap shows up. Every few hours Capillary refreshes your group's calendar and looks for that shift's swaps again. When a likely swap appears that wasn't there before, it sends you one email. Watching ends when the shift starts or a request for it is agreed.
Watch a shift
Example · runs in your browser; nothing you enter is sent
The sample group again, a week earlier: Ava also works Saturday's day shift, so no one can take Cy's, and nothing gets you out of your Saturday night. Watch it, then step through the next calendar refreshes.
Your shift
Sat, Nov 7 night, 19:00 to 07:00
Mon, Nov 2, 08:00
You start watching your Sat, Nov 7 night.
No likely swap for your Saturday night yet.
A demonstration with the sample group; nothing is sent. Here a swap counts as likely when it passes the checks and no one in it has to work a kind of shift they refuse; Capillary judges likelihood from each colleague's pattern. Watching ends when the shift starts or a request for it is agreed.
At first nothing gets you out of the sample's Saturday night: Ava works Saturday's day shift too, so no one can take Cy's. The first refresh moves a shift that doesn't help. The second shows Ava's Saturday day gone to someone else, and the three-way swap through Cy and Ava appears, with one email.
How watching works
- On a shift's swap page, choose Tell me when a likely swap shows up.
- Every few hours, Capillary refreshes the calendars that have a watched shift or an open swap request, no more often than every 3 hours each. That also lets it notice a done swap without you opening Capillary.
- After each refresh, it finds the watched shift's swaps again, with the same checks for overlaps and rest as the rest of Find a swap. A likely swap that wasn't there before sends one email, such as "A likely swap showed up for your Sat, Oct 24 shift." Like every swap email, it names no colleague.
- Watching ends when the shift starts, when a request for it is agreed, or when the shift is no longer yours in the calendar.
Why a shift opens up
A group's schedule keeps moving after it's published: colleagues swap with each other, pick up shifts and give them away. A shift with no likely swap today can have one tomorrow, often because someone else's swap freed a colleague. It matters most for the hard shifts. In Capillary's simulation on made-up groups, most shifts with no likely swap were weekend nights.
When the email comes
- 1
Open the shift in Find a swap
The new swap is with the others for that shift, ranked by how likely each colleague is to say yes.
- 2
Send a swap request
Each colleague gets a link to answer yes or no without an account (swap requests).
- 3
Or keep watching
If it isn't the swap you want, leave the shift watched. Another email comes only when another new likely swap shows up.
Common questions
- How often does Capillary check?
- Every few hours, and no more often than every 3 hours for each calendar. A calendar file you uploaded doesn't change between checks, so alerts come from calendar links.
- Will I get an email for every swap?
- No. You get one when a likely swap appears that wasn't there before, and none while nothing new shows up.
Find swaps in your own group's schedule.
Find a swap is free for clinicians. Bring in your group's schedule from its calendar link, and Capillary checks every swap for overlaps and rest for both people, puts the colleagues most likely to say yes first, and finds three-way swaps, and bigger ones where smaller swaps run short. Your copy is yours: no one in your department or hospital sees it (who can see what).