Rota Planner
Rota Planner
Before you can schedule an employee's shifts in the Rota Planner, you'll need to enable them as a shift worker by ticking 'Works Shifts' in their profile. If an employee has a fixed Working Pattern set, they'll still show on the rota planner, but their fixed Working Pattern can only be amended in their employee profile.
You can use the Rota Planner to assign shifts to your employees, if their shift pattern changes week to week. Employees who are on a fixed working pattern will show in grey and cannot be amended here. You can choose to only show Shift Workers on the rota.
Assigning Shifts to Employees
To assign shifts to employees, simply click where you’d like to place a shift and select the times. You can also set a break duration to be automatically deducted from that shift, and have the option to add a title and notes to the shift.
To determine which day you would like to have at the beginning of the Rota Planner, go to Account > Settings > 'First Day of Working Week' > scroll down to the bottom of the page and click save. The rota can be exported as a CSV & in JPEG format, exactly how it appears on screen.
Open Shifts
What is an open shift?
An open shift refers to a work shift that has not yet been assigned to an employee. It remains available for scheduling, and can be filled by an employee based on availability or specific scheduling needs. If a shift has been assigned but the employee is no longer able to work this, the shift can be reverted back to 'open' - ready to be assigned.
Copying & Pasting Shifts
To move a shift, simply drag and drop to where you need it. Hold the 'Shift' key whilst clicking and dragging on the left hand border of a shift, to copy and paste it into a new cell on the rota. To copy an employee's shifts onto another employee, click 'Copy shifts' then 'Paste shifts'. You can also copy and past shifts onto the same employee, but a different week. To copy your whole rota, click ‘Copy week’ and paste your shifts onto a new week.
Draft and Published Rotas
When creating a Rota, this will be saved as a draft so you can come and go and work away at assigning shifts. Once you're happy, you can finally publish your rota which will notify employees they have a new schedule to view. If things change, you can still edit the rota once published - it will return to a draft again.
Rota Planner Templates
The Template feature in the Rota Planner allows you to streamline the process of assigning shifts and rotations to staff. If you operate a recurring pattern, such as 4 on, 4 off, Templates allows you to configure and save this shift schedule. Once saved, you can apply templates to a specific timeframe and choose to replace existing saved shifts with the new applied template.
By using pre-configured templates, you can quickly apply a set of predetermined shifts or rotations to your team's schedule, saving time and ensuring consistency. We have a guide specifically for Rota Planner Templates here, which covers more detail around creating and applying reusable templates.
Setting the Working location of a Shift Worker
To set a working location of a Shift Worker, go to Employees > Employee Directory > profile of the specific employee > HR tab > scroll down to the end and enter in Working Location(s). Click 'Update Employee'.
If you have any further questions on the Rota Planner, please reach out to us at [email protected]