# My availability

![My availability](/files/help/employee-availability-2.mp4 "Mark Preferred, Available, or Can't work for the month on your portal.")

An employee uses **Availability** in the employee portal to say which days they can work. Marking a day does not assign a shift. Publishing a schedule does not create pay.

1. Open **Availability**. On Home, the schedule card opens the same page. The card says Preferred, Available, or Can’t work.
2. The page opens on the coming month. Use **Today**, **Previous month**, and **Next month**.
3. Select days that are still open. Past days are disabled.
4. Choose **Preferred**, **Available**, or **Can't work**. On a preferred day you can set **Shift you prefer**.
5. Choose **Submit** when the scheduler should treat the month as submitted. **Copy last month** repeats the previous month onto this one.

See [Mark preferred days](/hrms/attendance/mark-preferred), [Mark available](/hrms/attendance/mark-available), and [Mark can't work](/hrms/attendance/mark-cant-work).

## What you should see

The subtitle says drag days, then choose Preferred, Available, or Can't work, and that we save as you go. The chip says Not started, In progress, Submitted, or Reopened.

A confirmation says Availability submitted after **Submit**, and Copied last month after **Copy last month**.

A scheduler reviews the same month from **Availability** under Shift & Attendance. See [Review who is available](/hrms/attendance/availability-inbox).

## If something looks wrong

A past month says This month has already passed. A locked month says: This month is locked. Ask a scheduler to reopen it if you need to make a change. See [When a month is locked](/hrms/attendance/locked-month).

If **Availability** is missing, open **Settings**, then **Employee portal**, and turn on **Schedule**. Choose **Save**. The confirmation says Employee portal saved. The home schedule card uses that same switch.

A failed load says Failed to load availability. A failed save says Failed to save availability.