Publish shifts without emailing the customer.

This guide shows how to publish shifts in Odoo Planning without Odoo emailing the customer, and explains what your employees still receive. The short answer for Odoo 20: open the Planning settings and untick Confirmation Email. Shifts that have a customer then publish without the "Intervention scheduled" email. To skip every email for a single shift, including the one to the employee, move the shift to Scheduled from its status bar instead of clicking Publish.

It is written for planners, service managers and administrators who schedule on-site work and would rather contact customers themselves. The steps were verified on Odoo 20.

Before you start

• Version and edition: Odoo 20 Enterprise. Planning is an Enterprise app. If your Planning settings do not show Confirmation Email, see the last section of this guide.
• Apps and settings: the Planning app with the Field Service option ticked in the Operations section of the Planning settings. The customer email described here comes from Field Service.
• Access rights: the Configuration menu in Planning is only shown to Planning administrators, and its Settings entry also needs access to the Settings app.
• Terms used: a shift is a block of planned time for an employee or other resource. Publishing a shift moves it from Draft to Scheduled so the people assigned can see it. An email template is a stored message that Odoo fills in with the record's details before sending. The chatter is the message history at the bottom or side of a record. Developer mode shows technical menus and fields; you switch it on from the Developer Tools section at the bottom of the Settings app.

What Odoo sends when you publish

Publishing a shift can produce two separate emails:

• To the employee: every assigned employee who has a work email is notified. Publishing one shift sends its details under a subject starting "Planning: new shift", and publishing a period sends a summary titled "Your planning from" with the dates.
• To the customer: if the shift has a customer, Odoo also posts a message on the shift from the template Field Service: Shift Scheduled. Its subject begins "Intervention scheduled" and it is emailed to the customer.

Every publishing route triggers both: the Publish button on a shift, the Publish button above the shift list, and Publish & Send in the window that opens when you publish a whole period from the schedule. The customer email has its own switch in the settings. The employee email has no setting in Planning.

Turn off the customer email for every shift

1. Open the Planning app and go to Configuration > Settings.
2. In the Operations section, find Confirmation Email. Its description says it emails the customer a confirmation when a shift is published.
3. Untick the box. The Email Template field below it disappears.
4. Click Save.

From then on, publishing a shift that has a customer sends the customer nothing, and no "Intervention scheduled" message is added to the shift's chatter. Employees are still notified as before.

The setting is stored per company. In a database with several companies, switch to each company in turn and repeat the steps. To turn the email back on later, tick the box again and choose a template in Email Template. The list only offers templates built for shifts, so you can point it at your own copy with different wording.

Schedule one shift without any email

Sometimes you want to keep the customer email in general but skip it for one job, or you do not want the employee emailed either. In that case, change the status rather than publishing:

1. Open the Planning app and click the shift on the schedule to open it. It needs a start and an end date, otherwise the status bar cannot be clicked.
2. In the status bar at the top of the shift, click Scheduled.
3. Click Save.

The shift now has the same Scheduled status that publishing gives it, but neither the customer nor the employee receives an email. Only Planning administrators can change the status this way. Tell the employee about the shift yourself, because Odoo will not.

Check that it worked

1. Create a test contact with an email address you can open.
2. In the Planning app, create a shift for a future date with that contact as the customer and an employee assigned, then click Publish.
3. Open the shift again and read its chatter. With Confirmation Email unticked, there is no message titled "Intervention scheduled".
4. Check the test inbox. Nothing about the shift should arrive, while the assigned employee still receives the shift email if they have a work email.

If you used the status bar instead, neither inbox should receive anything.

Common mistakes to check first

• Archiving the template to stop the email. In Odoo 20, archiving or deleting the Field Service: Shift Scheduled template turns Confirmation Email off for every company that used it. The email stops, but if you restore the template later, you also have to tick the setting again and select the template.
• Changing the setting in one company only. Each company keeps its own value, so shifts in another company keep emailing customers.
• Expecting the setting to cover employees. Confirmation Email only controls the customer message. Employees with a work email are still emailed when you publish.

If your settings have no Confirmation Email option

If Field Service is on but the option is missing, your database is probably on an earlier version that has Field Service shifts but not this option. The common workaround is to take the recipients off the template. On Odoo 20 it works like this, so check the same fields on your version and run the test above before relying on it:

1. Turn on developer mode.
2. Open the Settings app and go to Technical > Email > Email Templates.
3. Search for "Field Service" and open the template used when a shift is scheduled. In Odoo 20 it is called Field Service: Shift Scheduled.
4. Open the Settings tab and untick Default Recipients. The To (Emails), To (Partners), Cc and Cc (Partners) fields appear. Make sure all four are empty, then save.

This has two limits. The "Intervention scheduled" message is still added to the shift's chatter, and anyone following the shift still receives it by email. If a customer has been added as a follower of a shift, the message still reaches them. The Odoo 20 setting avoids both problems, because it stops the message from being created at all.

Steps verified on Odoo 20. Menus and labels can differ on other versions.

Common questions

How do I stop Odoo Planning from emailing customers when I publish a shift?

In Odoo 20, open Planning > Configuration > Settings and untick Confirmation Email in the Operations section, then save. Shifts with a customer then publish without the Intervention scheduled email.

Can I publish a shift in Odoo without emailing the employee?

Planning has no setting for the employee email. To schedule a single shift without any email, open it and click Scheduled in the status bar instead of Publish, then save.

Which email template does Odoo use for the customer shift email?

In Odoo 20 it is Field Service: Shift Scheduled, and its subject begins Intervention scheduled. Confirmation Email in the Planning settings decides whether it is sent and lets you choose another template built for shifts.

Is unticking Default Recipients on the template enough to stop the customer email?

It removes the customer as a recipient, but the message is still posted on the shift and anyone following the shift, including a customer added as a follower, still receives it. Where the Confirmation Email setting exists, it is the safer option because no message is created.

Why did Confirmation Email turn itself off?

In Odoo 20, archiving or deleting the template selected for it switches Confirmation Email off for the companies that used that template. Restore or pick a template, then tick the setting again.