Help Center

The Date Header

The horizontal date header at the top shows each day in the timeline, including the day of the week, date, month, and year. The current day is highlighted, and any day that is part of a published (live) roster is visually marked. Public holidays are highlighted in red and show the holiday name.

Roster Tables

Rosters appear as tables anchored to the date header. Each roster spans a specific date range (typically a week, but it can be any length defined by its template). You can have multiple rosters visible at once as you scroll through the timeline.

Selecting a Roster

Click on a roster table to select it. The selected roster will be highlighted with a coloured border, and the right-hand sidebar will update to show the hours scheduled for each employee in that roster. Many actions, such as Publish, Print, Delete, and Auto-Generate, only work on the currently selected roster.

Two View Modes

Each roster is built in one of two view modes. Position View arranges the roster by area and position, with each row representing a position to be filled and each cell containing the employee assigned to that shift. Employee View arranges the roster by employee, with each row representing an employee and each cell showing the position(s) they are scheduled to work that day. The view mode is set on the template and cannot be changed after a roster is created — though the "View as Employees" button lets you see any position-view roster regrouped by employee at any time (see the View as Employees section).

Scrolling Through Dates

Simply scroll the date timeline horizontally and new dates will be loaded automatically as you reach the edges. There is no need to click "next week" or "previous week" — the timeline extends in both directions on demand. Any rosters that fall within the newly loaded date ranges will appear in their correct positions.

Roster Navigation Buttons

The left and right arrow buttons in the header scroll the timeline smoothly in either direction. Press and hold for continuous scrolling, or click briefly to nudge the view.

Go to Date

Click the "Go to Date" button to open a calendar picker. You can navigate between months using the arrows and click on any date to jump the timeline to that day. The "Today" button at the bottom of the calendar returns you to the current date. The selected date will be centered in the timeline view.

Zoom Control

Use the zoom slider in the header to scale the roster between 50% and 100%. This is useful for viewing more days at once on a smaller screen, or for zooming in to see more detail. Click on the percentage display to instantly reset the zoom to 100%. Your zoom preference is saved between sessions.

What Are Roster Groups?

Roster groups let you separate rosters into independent timelines, for example if you run multiple departments, sites, or shift patterns that are scheduled separately. Each group has its own set of rosters, templates, and published shifts, but employees can appear across multiple groups.

Switching Between Groups

Click the Roster Group button at the top-left of the page to open the Roster Groups modal. Select any group from the list to switch to it. The timeline will reload to show only the rosters belonging to that group.

Creating, Renaming, and Deleting Groups

Inside the Roster Groups modal you can create a new group with the "New Group" button, rename the current group with "Rename", or delete it with "Delete". Deleting a group is permanent and removes all of its rosters, so it requires the "Delete Rosters" permission and should be used with great care.

Cross-Group Shift Visibility

If an employee is scheduled in multiple groups on the same day, the system will detect overlapping shifts and warn you with a visual indicator on the cell. This helps prevent accidentally double-booking staff across departments.

What Are Templates?

Templates are saved roster layouts that you can drop onto the timeline to quickly create a new roster. A template defines the areas, positions, shift times, and (optionally) employee assignments for a recurring pattern, such as a typical week.

Finding Templates

Templates appear in the left-hand sidebar under the Templates section. Click the section header to expand or collapse the list. Use the search bar at the top of the section to filter templates by name. Each template shows its duration (in days or weeks) and its view type (Position or Employee).

Applying a Template to a Date

To apply a template, drag it from the Templates list and drop it onto a date cell in the timeline. As you drag, the date range that the template will cover is highlighted so you can see exactly where it will land. If the date range overlaps an existing roster or template, the drop will be blocked to prevent conflicts.

Auto-Pulling Templates

You can mark a template as Active so it automatically generates new rosters on a schedule. Click the calendar-with-arrow icon next to a template to open the activation modal. Choose how many weeks in advance the template should pull (so rosters are generated ahead of time), select the day of the week the template should start on, and optionally enable email notifications and mobile notifications so employees are alerted when the new roster goes live. Active templates are highlighted with a green indicator.

Deactivating a Template

Click the same icon on an active template to deactivate it. The template will stop auto-generating future rosters, but any rosters that were already created remain in place.

Template Forms and Meetings Carry Over

If a template has forms attached to its areas, positions, or shifts, or meetings scheduled on its days (set up on the Templates page), those attachments become real shift tasks and meetings automatically when the template is published as a live roster.

What the Bot Does

The Auto-Generate Bot fills in the empty cells of a selected roster automatically, choosing employees based on the rules you have configured. It respects approved leave, employee unavailability, position and area eligibility, employee qualifications (bot tags), and any custom hard rules and preferences in your ruleset. This is different from auto-pulling templates: auto-pull drops a saved layout onto the timeline on a schedule, while the bot actually decides which employee goes into each shift.

Opening the Bot

First click a roster table to select it, since the bot works on the currently selected roster. Then click the bot icon in the top toolbar (titled "Auto-Generate Roster") to open the Bot Ruleset Configuration window. If you haven't selected a roster, the bot will ask you to select a table first.

Hard Rules and Preferences

The bot is guided by two kinds of rules, shown on separate tabs. Hard Rules are constraints the bot must always respect, for example not scheduling an employee who is unavailable, exceeding maximum weekly hours, or placing someone who lacks the required qualification for a position. Preferences are softer goals the bot tries to satisfy where possible, for example spreading hours fairly or favouring certain employees for certain shifts.

Adding, Editing, and Removing Rules

The left panel of the configuration window lists every available rule, organised by category, with a search box. Click a rule to add it to the active list for this location, then configure its parameters in the slide-in panel that appears (for example, setting a maximum hours value, choosing which positions or tags it applies to, or setting time windows). Click any active rule to re-open its configuration or remove it. Changes are saved automatically.

Rulesets

You can keep multiple named rulesets and switch which one is active. Use the ruleset bar at the top of the bot window to select a ruleset, create a new one from the current rules, or delete one. The active ruleset is shared by the roster bot and the events Auto-Staff bot.

Writing Rules in Plain English (AI)

The bot window includes an AI assistant that turns plain-English instructions into rules — for example "never give Sarah more than 30 hours a week" or "always have at least two qualified baristas on weekend mornings". The assistant proposes rules for you to review and add; nothing is applied until you accept them.

Running the Bot

When you are happy with the ruleset, click the start button. A loading overlay appears while the bot works, and when it finishes the selected roster is filled in according to your hard rules and preferences. The roster is left unsaved so you can review the results and make tweaks before saving.

What the Bot Won't Touch

The bot only fills cells that are genuinely empty. It will not overwrite cells that already have an employee assigned. This means you can manually pre-assign certain shifts (for example, fixed staff in specific roles), then let the bot fill in the rest.

Qualifications and Bot Tags

The bot uses employee qualifications (bot tags) plus position and area assignments to decide who is eligible for which shifts. Make sure your employees are tagged correctly so the bot only places qualified staff into each shift. You can filter the employee sidebar by qualification to check who is eligible.

How Position View Works

In Position View, each row of the roster represents a position that needs to be filled in a specific area, and each column represents a date. You select the position for each row, then drop employees into each daily cell to assign who works that shift.

Assigning a Position to a Row

Click the row's position label in the sidebar to open the position selection modal. Search for and select a position, and the row will update with the chosen position name. The position determines which employees are eligible to be placed into that row's cells.

Assigning Employees

Drag an employee from the right-hand sidebar onto an empty cell to assign them to that shift. Alternatively, click an employee in the sidebar to select them, then click an empty cell to place them. To move an employee, drag them from one cell to another. To swap two employees, drag one onto the other. By default the shift times stay with the cell — hold Shift while dragging and the times swap along with the employees, so each person keeps their own shift.

Setting Shift Times

Click the clock icon (or the existing time text) in any cell to open the time editor. Use the start and end time pickers to set the shift times. The system will automatically calculate the hours and update the employee's daily and weekly hour totals in the sidebar.

Below the times, the editor lists the shift's breaks. Every shift starts with the location's default breaks (Settings → General → Breaks — for example a 30-minute unpaid meal break and a 10-minute paid rest break); remove one, add a meal or rest break, tick whether it is paid, or use "Reset to defaults". Unpaid breaks show as a small mug badge next to the time and come off the paid hours on the timesheet and in labour-cost estimates; paid breaks are recorded only. Breaks travel with the shift when you copy, paste, move or save it as a template. The sidebar hour totals stay as rostered (gross) hours.

Row Context Menu

Right-click anywhere on a row to open the row context menu. "Set Row Times" applies the same start and end times to every cell in the row at once, useful for repeating identical shifts across the week. "Duplicate Row" creates a copy of the row immediately below, including position and shift times. "Delete Row" removes the row from the roster.

Adding a Note to a Shift

Right-click a cell and choose "Add note" to pin a one-off note to that shift. The note is delivered to the employee with their shift — useful for instructions that only apply to that day, without creating a form.

Adding More Rows

Each area has a + button at the bottom of its rows. Click this to add a new blank row to that area, ready for you to assign a position and shifts.

How Employee View Works

In Employee View, each row represents one employee, and each cell shows the position (or positions) that employee is scheduled to work that day. Each position in a cell appears as a shift chip showing the position name and its times. This view is useful when you want to see at a glance what each employee is doing across the week.

Adding an Employee Row

Click the + button at the bottom of an area to add a new employee row. An employee selection modal will appear; search for an employee by name and click to select them. The row will be created and ready for you to add positions to each day.

Assigning Positions to Days

Pick a position from the right-hand sidebar (in Employee View the sidebar lists positions), then click into a day cell to assign that position to the employee for that day. You can place multiple positions in the same day cell if the employee works split shifts — each appears as its own chip with its own times.

Editing Shift Times

Click on a shift chip inside a day cell to open the time editor for that specific shift. Set the start and end times and save. Times are stored per shift, so the same employee can have different times on different days, or several differently-timed shifts on one day. The same editor shows the shift's breaks (starting from the location defaults) — adjust them per shift just like in the position view.

Selecting Cells and Shifts

Employee View supports full multi-select. Click a cell to select it, Ctrl+click (Cmd+click on Mac) to add or remove cells from the selection, and Shift+click to select a rectangular range from the first selected cell. You can also select individual shift chips: click a chip to select just that shift, and Ctrl+click to add more chips to the selection. Press Escape to clear any selection.

Copy, Cut, and Paste

With cells or chips selected, use Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+X to cut, and Ctrl+V to paste — or right-click for the same Copy, Cut, and Paste options. A multi-cell selection copies as a block that keeps its shape: paste lands the block with its top-left corner on the cell you paste into, preserving the row and day offsets (blocks can even span across week boundaries into the next roster). Copying a single cell and selecting several target cells pastes it into all of them at once. Pasting always adds to what's already in a cell rather than replacing it. Pressing Delete or Backspace clears the selected shifts or cells.

Fill Down and Fill Across

Right-click a cell and choose "Fill Down" to copy its shifts into the cells below in the same column, or "Fill Across" to copy them to the other days in the same row — ideal for uniform weeks.

Days Off (Blocked Days)

A cell can be marked as a day off, shown with blocked stripes. A day-off block only pastes onto days that have no shifts, and pasting shifts onto a blocked day lifts the block automatically.

Leave, Unavailability, and Conflict Indicators

Employee View shows the same round warning badges as Position View — leave conflicts, pending leave, unavailability, and overlapping-shift warnings appear in the corner of the affected cell, so both views read identically.

Row Context Menu

Right-click anywhere on an employee row for shortcuts: "Duplicate Row" copies the row including all shifts and times, "Clear All Shifts" empties the row while keeping the employee in place, and you can remove the employee entirely from the same menu.

Open Shifts in Employee View

Because rows belong to specific employees, open and bidding shifts in Employee View are managed from the date header rather than in cells — see the Open Shifts and Bidding section.

The Employee Sidebar

The right-hand sidebar lists every employee, along with their hours scheduled per day and per week (totals update live as you build the roster). Drag employees from the sidebar to roster cells, or click an employee to highlight every cell where they are already scheduled.

Contracted Hours at a Glance

If an employee has contracted hours set, the total-hours cell on their sidebar card is colour-coded against the roster you have selected: red when they are rostered under their contracted hours, green when the contract is met, and orange when they are meaningfully over. Hover the total to see the exact comparison (for example "38h rostered / 40h contracted — 2h short"). For rosters longer than a week, the target scales automatically.

Leave Return Badges

When an employee has approved leave overlapping the selected roster, their sidebar card shows an "On leave · back [date]" strip so you can see at a glance when they return before assigning shifts. Back-to-back leave requests are combined into a single return date.

Quick-Editing an Employee

Right-click an employee's card in the sidebar to open a quick-edit menu where you can update their Areas, Positions, and Qualifications without leaving the Rosters page. Handy when the person you want to roster isn't yet approved for the position.

Search, Sort, and Filter

Use the search bar to filter employees by name. The sort dropdown lets you order employees by first name or surname, and your preference is saved. Use the "Show All Positions" dropdown to filter the sidebar to employees holding a specific position — for example only nurses or only kitchen staff.

Colour Toggle

Click the colour-wheel icon to toggle employee colour-coding on roster cells. When enabled, each cell takes on the assigned employee's colour, making it easy to spot patterns at a glance.

Eraser Tool

Click the eraser icon to enable eraser mode. While active, clicking on a cell clears its time and assignment, and the employee's hour totals update automatically. Click the eraser again to turn it off.

Block Tool

Click the block icon to enable block mode. Clicking a cell while this is active marks the cell as blocked, meaning no employee can be assigned to it. Useful for closed days, days off, or unavailable shifts.

Time Tool

Click the clock-with-arrow icon to open the Time Tool. Choose a saved time template (e.g. "9:00 AM - 5:00 PM") and then click any cell to instantly stamp those times onto it. This is much faster than opening the time editor for each cell when you have lots of identical shifts.

Open Shift Tools

The Open Shift (Immediate) and Open Shift (Bidding) tools let you mark cells as available for staff to claim. Immediate shifts are picked up by the first qualified employee who accepts them. Bidding shifts gather applicants over time, and you choose who to award the shift to. See the "Open Shifts and Bidding" section below for full details.

What Are Open Shifts?

An open shift is a scheduled shift that has no employee assigned, but is published so that eligible employees can claim it from their app. There are two types: Immediate, where the first qualified employee to accept gets the shift, and Bidding, where employees apply and an admin chooses who is awarded the shift.

Creating an Open Shift in Position View

Use the Open Shift (Immediate) or Open Shift (Bidding) tool from the sidebar, then click an empty cell. The cell will be marked with a magnifying-glass icon (Immediate) or a gavel icon (Bidding). The cell still requires a position and shift times — set those as you would for any normal shift. When the roster is published, eligible staff will see the open shift and can request or bid on it.

Creating an Open Shift in Employee View

In Employee View, click the magnifying-glass icon on any date in the date header. This opens the Open Shifts modal for that day. Switch between "Create New" and "View Existing" tabs. To create one, choose the type (Immediate or Bidding), select an area and position, set the start and end times, and click "Create Open Shift".

Reviewing and Editing Open Shifts

The "View Existing" tab in the Open Shifts modal lists every open shift for that date with its area, position, and times. Click the pencil icon to edit a shift, or the bin icon to delete it. For Bidding shifts, an "Applicants" button shows how many employees have applied; click it to open the applicants list.

Awarding a Bidding Shift

For Bidding shifts, applicants are listed with their names and submitted notes. Review the list and click on the employee you wish to award the shift to. The cell will be reassigned to that employee, and the others will be notified that they were not selected.

Visual Indicators

Open Shift cells show distinctive icons (a magnifying glass for Immediate, a gavel for Bidding). Bidding shifts also show a small badge with the current number of applicants, so you can see at a glance which shifts are getting interest.

What Shift Tasks Are

Any form template can be attached to a roster so it appears as a task on the affected employees' shifts — a pre-shift checklist, a safety sign-off, a job sheet. The employee completes the task from their shift in the app or on their dashboard, and each person ticks off their own copy.

Attaching a Form

Click the "Forms" button in the roster header to open the forms tray, which lists your form templates as draggable chips. Drag a chip onto an area heading (everyone rostered in that area gets the task), a position heading (everyone working that position), or a single shift cell (just that shift). Drops are staged and sent when you save the roster.

Who Gets the Task

Attachments follow the schedule, not a fixed list of names: whoever is rostered into the covered area, position, or shift when the roster runs gets the task. Attachments apply to that roster week only — they don't carry over to future weeks automatically (attach forms to the template instead if you want them every week).

Adding a Meeting

Each date cell in the timeline has a small calendar icon. Click it to open the Schedule Meeting modal for that day. Enter a title, an optional description, and a start and end time (or leave the times blank for an all-day note). Then select the employees to invite using the search box and checkboxes, or click "Select All" to invite everyone.

Multiple Meetings Per Day

You can schedule multiple meetings on the same day. Existing meetings for that day are listed in the modal under "Existing Meetings This Day", where you can click any one to edit it or delete it.

Meeting Indicators

Days that have one or more meetings show a small indicator on the date cell. Hover over it to see a summary of the meetings.

Why Use Meetings?

Meetings are visible to invited employees in their app alongside their shifts. Use them for team meetings, training sessions, induction days, performance reviews, or any other event you want to communicate to staff alongside the roster.

Approved Leave

If an employee has approved leave on a day they are scheduled to work, the cell will show a red exclamation indicator. This warns you that the assignment conflicts with leave, and you should reassign the shift to another employee.

Pending Leave

If an employee has a pending (not yet approved) leave request, scheduled cells on those days show a yellow question-mark indicator. This is a softer warning — the leave hasn't been approved yet, but you may want to plan around it.

Unavailability

Employees can mark themselves unavailable on certain days or for certain time windows. If you assign a shift that overlaps an employee's unavailability, the cell will be flagged. Hover the cell to see the unavailability time range.

Highlighting Leave on the Sidebar

Click an employee's name in the sidebar to highlight all leave days for that employee in the timeline. This makes it easy to see at a glance when they are away before assigning shifts.

Cross-Roster Shift Conflicts

If an employee is scheduled for overlapping shifts on the same day in two different rosters or roster groups, both cells will be flagged with an overlap warning. Resolve by adjusting times or unassigning one of the shifts.

What It Does

The "View as Employees" button in the roster header opens the Employee View modal, which regroups the selected position-view roster as one row per employee — without converting or changing the roster itself. It reads your current grid including unsaved edits, so it's a live answer to "what does each person's week look like?".

Leave and Unavailability Flags

Each employee-day cell in the modal flags approved leave ("On leave", with the leave type when known), pending leave ("Leave pending"), and unavailability. Partial-day unavailability shows a midnight-to-midnight strip with the unavailable window shaded; all-day unavailability hatches the whole cell.

Editing from the Modal

Click a shift in the modal to open a small editor where you can adjust its times, add a note, or attach a form to that shift.

Printing the Employee View

Click the printer icon in the modal header to open a print preview laid out by employee. You can set how many days fit per page, toggle employee colours, and toggle the leave and unavailability flags. Your settings are remembered. Pressing Ctrl+P while the modal is open opens this preview; pressing it again prints.

Holiday Detection

The system automatically detects public holidays based on your region and marks them on the date header in red. The holiday name is shown beneath the date and on hover.

Why It Matters

Public holiday detection is purely informational on the Rosters page — it doesn't change how shifts are scheduled. However, it warns you when planning so you don't accidentally roster a closed day. Public holiday pay calculations happen in the Timesheets page once shifts are approved.

Regional Holidays

Some regions have their own holidays (for example, anniversary days that vary by province). The system uses your location's region to apply the correct holiday set.

Saving

Click the green save icon in the bottom-right of the page (or press Ctrl+S) to save your changes. Saving preserves all assigned shifts, times, open shifts, blocks, attached forms, and any other edits you've made. Saving does not publish the roster — it only persists your work.

Unsaved Changes Warning

If you try to navigate away from the page or refresh while you have unsaved changes, a warning will appear with three options. "Save & Continue" saves your changes before navigating. "Continue Without Save" discards changes and navigates away. The X button cancels the navigation and keeps you on the page.

What Publishing Does

Publishing a roster makes it live, meaning the assigned shifts become visible to employees in their app and the shifts feed into clock-in records and Timesheets. Until a roster is published, it is a draft only.

How to Publish

Select the roster you want to publish by clicking on its table, then click the "Save & Publish" button in the header. The button only appears when a non-published roster is selected. The roster will be saved and then marked as live, and live rosters are visually distinguished by a coloured border and a marker on the dates in the header.

Notifications on Publish

Two icon toggles in the header control whether employees are notified when you publish. The envelope icon ("Email Roster on Publish") sends each affected employee an email summary of their new shifts. The phone icon ("Mobile Notification on Publish") sends an in-app push notification. Both toggles are off by default and remembered per browser — if your staff aren't receiving notifications when you publish, check that the toggles are switched on. When the mobile toggle is on, shift changes you save to a live roster also push to the affected employees.

Unpublishing

If you need to make changes to a live roster, select it and click the "Unpublish" button. The roster returns to draft state, and shifts are temporarily hidden from employees. Make your edits, save, and then re-publish when ready.

What Happens to Existing Assignments

Unpublishing does not delete any cells — all assignments, times, blocks, and open shifts remain intact. The roster simply becomes draft again until re-published.

The "Delete Rosters" Permission

Deleting rosters is gated by its own "Delete Rosters" permission (separate from editing). Users without it don't see the delete button at all. Grant it deliberately in Settings → Roles — deleting a roster cannot be undone.

How to Delete

Select the roster you want to remove by clicking on its table, then click the bin icon in the header. A "Delete Roster" confirmation modal appears naming the roster's date range. To confirm, you must type the word "delete" into the box — the Delete button stays disabled until you do. If the roster is live, the modal warns you extra prominently that employees can currently see it.

Deleting Drafts vs Live Rosters

Deleting an unpublished (draft) roster simply removes it from the timeline. Deleting a live roster also removes it from employees' apps and from Timesheets, so use this with great care. If shifts on the roster have already been clocked or recorded in Timesheets, coordinate with your payroll team before deleting.

Template Instances

If you've dragged a template onto the timeline but haven't saved yet, removing it shows a lighter "Remove Template" confirmation with no typing required, since nothing has been stored yet.

Opening the Print Preview

Select the roster you want to print, then press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on Mac). The "Print roster" modal appears with a print-formatted preview instead of the standard browser dialog.

Print Options

Choose a layout — "All areas combined" or "One area per page" — and set how many days fit on each page with the Days per page slider. A Colors toggle tints cells with employee colours. Use the page navigation to check each page, then click "Print". Your print settings are remembered for next time.

Export to Excel

The print modal also has an "Export to Excel" button, which downloads the selected date range as a spreadsheet: your location name and dates at the top, one column per day, areas as banded sections, employees with their shift times in each cell, open shifts and blocked days clearly marked. Employee-view rosters export as one row per employee. Use it for records, sharing outside the system, or further analysis.

What the Panel Shows

A fixed sidebar on the left of the timeline shows information about the currently visible roster. In Position View, it lists each row's position name and area. In Employee View, it lists the employees in the roster.

Reordering Rows

You can drag rows in the sidebar to reorder them. The corresponding rows in the roster table will rearrange to match. This is useful for grouping related positions or employees together.

Quickly Selecting Areas, Positions, or Employees

Clicking a label in the sidebar opens the appropriate selection modal so you can change the area, position, or employee for that row without scrolling the roster horizontally.

Following the Visible Roster

As you scroll through the timeline, the sidebar automatically updates to reflect whichever roster is currently visible. If you scroll between two rosters, you'll see the sidebar swap content as the roster anchored to the current dates changes.

What Is a Shift Swap?

Employees can request to swap shifts with each other through their app. Some swaps may require admin approval before they take effect. The Rosters page shows pending and accepted swaps directly on the affected cells.

Swap Indicators

Each shift swap is shown as a small badge on the relevant cell. A grey badge means the swap is pending and waiting for someone to take the shift. A green double-check badge means the swap is accepted or approved. A red badge means the swap was rejected. An amber hourglass badge means the swap needs admin approval — click it to review.

Approving or Denying a Swap

Click the amber hourglass badge to open the Shift Swap Request modal. The modal shows who originally had the shift and who wants to take it. You can add a note explaining your decision, then click Approve or Deny. Approving immediately reassigns the shift; denying notifies the requesters that the swap was not allowed.

After a Decision

The cell's badge updates to reflect the new status (green for approved, red for denied). If you approved, the cell's displayed employee changes to the new owner of the shift.