You do not have to leave HotSchedules to get a lineup in FlowState. The common path is: keep building the week where you build it, export the Extended Schedule Report, and upload that file. FlowState places the names on the board for that week.
This is an import. It is not a live sync. HotSchedules does not learn about covers, drops, or lineup changes you make here. If that is a deal breaker, stay on one system.
What to export
The parser is written for the HotSchedules Extended Schedule Report. That file is usually saved as .xls and is really an HTML table. If you can open it and see a grid of names down the side and dates across the top, that is the file.
A photo of a printed week, a PDF, or another scheduler's export is a different path. Those only import when the store has the AI assistant turned on. The assistant reads the page the way a person would. It is slower, and it can miss a split shift that the HTML parser would have caught.
What the import writes
Each row becomes a published shift for that person, on that date, at those clock times, with the job or department as the position. Split shifts in one cell come in as two rows. A cell marked "[Shift Released]" still counts as scheduled: the person asked to drop it, they still own it until someone covers it.
The import is live when it lands. The crew sees those shifts. It is not a draft sitting in a builder.
If two teammates share the same full name, those rows are skipped and the uploader is told. Rename one person in Team and upload again. We will not guess which Jordan it is.
A later upload of the same HotSchedules week replaces the imported rows for those dates. Native draft rows you built in FlowState for another envelope stay put until you publish.
What it will not do
It will not write anything back to HotSchedules. Covers, time-off, and lineup assignments stay in FlowState.
It will not pull wages, punch times, or availability out of HotSchedules. Those are different products, and we do not have that pipe.
It is not a POS, and it does not replace a register. The import is names and clock times.
It will not invent overnight store hours. A 10pm to 2am shift is one shift. Store hours that close after midnight are a separate setting and are not turned on by this import.
When to stop uploading
If you want to build the week in FlowState, there is a native grid: draft, copy last week, publish. You can run that beside an imported week. Publish still replaces the live rows for those dates. You do not have to pick one mode on day one.
If HotSchedules is working and the only missing piece is the station board, upload is enough. Most stores that come from a screenshot of the week start there.
Price, because this page would be cute without it
FlowState is $189 per store per month, or $1,900 a year. Every teammate is included. There is no per-person charge for the people on the imported week. A web Monthly or Annual plan's first charge is refundable for 30 days, once per store.
We run this in seven stores we operate. That is not a customer count.
Do the arithmetic on your stack if you are deciding whether to keep HotSchedules and add this, or to fold the week builder in. Jolt alternatives if the question is food safety, not the schedule.