How to do Automatic Shift Scheduling with RotaPlanner

Our AI rota auto-population can save you hours of work every week by automatically generating a rota based on your shift schedule and staff availability.
It just takes a bit of setup—define your shifts, staff availability, and any key rules—and after that, creating future rotas only takes a few minutes.

Here's how it works

1. Add Shifts ✏️
   Setup your typical schedule once using recurring rules, then reuse them every week or month.
   E.g. 2 cleaners on Monday - Friday, 9am - 1pm.
2. Add Employees 🧑‍💼
   Enter their availability, skills (Cleaning, Reception, etc), contracted hours, and available locations.
   E.g. John is available all week days except Wednesday, trained in cleaning and works 30 hours a week.
3. Run Auto-Population 🤖
   Let AI build your rota based on all your rules and constraints.
4. Publish the Schedule ✉️
   Share the shift schedule via email, public link, or login access.

Let's go through each step

1. Add your shifts

You probably have a typical shift schedule that repeats every week, month or similar. We will replicate this by using the recurring shifts functionality.

Recurring shifts allow you to setup your typical schedule once, then reuse it every week or month. We have a comprehensive set of options you can use for your recurring schedules.

We can add these recurring shifts by selecting a value in the 'Recurrance' field on the 'Add Shift' dialog.

Here's some examples of recurring shifts you might have:

• Cleaning shift every Monday to Friday, 9am–1pm
• Morning front desk shift every Saturday, 9am–11am
• Security shift every day, 6pm–12am

More detailed instructions on how to configure different recurrence patterns

Recurring Shift Examples

Example 1: Weekday Cleaning Shift 🧹

Scenario: Cleaning staff work every Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Use Case: Regular cleaning coverage in an office, school, or hotel environment

Recurring Step: Select 'Every weekday (Monday to Friday)' in the Recurrence field.

Example 2: Alternate Day Front Desk Coverage 🧑‍⚕️

Scenario: Front desk staff work every Tuesday and Thursday, 12:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Use Case: Shared reception duties for part-time or split-week staffing

Recurring Step: Select ‘Custom’, then set:
– Every 1 Week
– Tick ✅ Tuesday and ✅ Thursday

Example 3: Weekend Warehouse Shift (Biweekly) 📦

Scenario: Warehouse staff cover Saturday and Sunday, 6:00 AM – 2:00 PM, every other weekend

Use Case: Biweekly rotation to avoid weekend burnout and balance shift load

Recurring Step: Select ‘Custom’, then set:
– Every 2 Weeks
– Tick ✅ Saturday and ✅ Sunday

2. Add Employees

This step is about telling RotaPlanner what your team can (and can't) do. The more information you provide, the more accurate and helpful the auto-scheduling will be.

For each employee, you can include:

• Availability: Which days and times they can work
• Contracted hours: e.g., 30 hours/week or month.
  The AI will try to fill these hours but will not exceed them.
• Skills: Roles they're trained for (e.g., receptionist, cleaner)
• Assigned locations: If you operate across multiple sites

Availability

The employee's availability is set on their 'Availability' tab. You can setup recurring rules for their availability as well as manually overriding for specific days.

You can also enable a feature that allows employees to set their own availability. This is done by ticking the 'Allow staff to set availability' checkbox in the 'Configure' page.

3. Run Auto-Population

Once your data is in, click the 'Auto Populate' button in the toolbar. RotaPlanner's AI engine will generate a schedule that's fair and compliant.

The AI auto-population takes into account:

• Employee Information:
  • Availability (e.g. John is available all week days except Wednesday)
  • Skills
  • Contracted weekly/monthly hours
  • Available locations
  • Booked leave
• Shift Requirements:
  • Start and end times
  • Required skills
  • Number of staff needed
  • Location
• Fair Distribution: The system assigns shifts starting with employees who have the least hours worked, ensuring a fair distribution of work. If it cannot fully assign a shift (e.g., six shifts but only five employees), it will present it's best attempt.
• Minimum rest between shifts, defaults to minimum of 6 hours between shifts (configurable in settings)

After generation, you can manually adjust the schedule as needed or undo the auto-population and try again with a different configuration. The undo option is available in the Auto-Population modal via the toolbar.

4. Publish the Schedule

Once you're happy with the rota, hit Publish on the toolbar. Then you can share it in a few different ways:

• Email: A personalised email is sent each of the staff members on the rota with the details of their shifts.
  You can also choose to send the whole schedule to everyone.
• Public link: Use a shareable, view-only link (no login needed)
• System access: Staff log in and see a read-only version of their schedule

What if I need to make changes later?

You are free to make changes to the schedule after publishing it, you can then notify the affected staff of the changes automatically via email. This is done by clicking on the 'Publish & Share' button in the toolbar.

Start sharing your shifts with RotaPlanner today

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RotaPlanner is built to save you time—and to keep improving. Whether you're managing a small team or a multi-location business, we're here to help.

• 💬 Real support: Speak with a human who can help you get setup.
• 🚀 Constant improvement: Our roadmap is full of AI features to reduce your manual workload even further.
• 🔄 Easy to use: Set up once, and reuse your rota structure every week.

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By Kieran - Founder