How do I set desk-time rules and add lunch breaks?
Last updated August 25, 2026
Many libraries have unwritten desk rules. No more than two hours in a row at one desk. No more than four desk hours in a day. At least an hour of project time. The trouble with unwritten rules is that the schedule can't see them, so keeping them falls on the scheduler's memory.
Kickstool lets you write those rules down. Once you do, the shift dialogs point out any draft that breaks one. The warning is advice, not a wall. You can always save anyway, because sometimes the exception is the right call.
Everything on this page is off until you turn it on. If you never open these settings, nothing changes anywhere.
Turning on desk-time rules
- Open Settings → Schedule rules (admins only).
- Check the rule you want. Each one starts with a common choice from other libraries, and you can pick your own number.
- Save.
The three rules:
- Cap time in a row at one desk. Warns when someone's unbroken stretch at a single public desk runs past your cap. Moving to a different desk, or a break, resets the clock.
- Cap total desk time per day. Warns when someone's public-desk total for the whole day runs past your cap, even across separate shifts.
- Guarantee off-desk time per day. Warns when someone working six hours or more would get less off-desk time than your minimum. This is the fairness rule. It catches the person whose whole day is desk duty with no time for their real work.
"Desk time" means time assigned to a public desk, the same definition the desk-time balance report uses. Rules look forward at drafts. The report looks backward at what happened. Together they cover both directions.
Where the warnings show up
When you create or edit a shift, a Library schedule rules section joins the other heads-up warnings if the draft breaks a rule. Nothing is blocked. The warning names the rule and the numbers, and the scheduler decides.
Note
Warnings count the person's whole day, not just the shift you're editing. A two-hour afternoon shift can trigger the daily cap if the morning shift already used most of it.
Breaks and lunches
Enable break blocks on the same settings page and every shift dialog gains an Add a break button.
- In a shift dialog, click Add a break.
- Set the break's start and end times.
- Save the shift.
What a break does:
- It shows with the shift, so lunch is on the schedule instead of in everyone's head.
- Desk time is trimmed around it when you save. If nobody else covers the desk during the break, that hour shows up as a coverage gap, the same as any other gap.
- It doesn't count as desk time, and it doesn't count as off-desk time either. A lunch is a lunch, not project time.
Breaks on a recurring shift repeat with the pattern.
What this does not do
Kickstool never blocks a save over a rule, and staff aren't shown "violations" anywhere. The rules are a memory aid for whoever builds the schedule, written by your library, changeable anytime.