Rostering is vital to workforce management, particularly in the care sector, where having the right staff at the right time is crucial. This FAQ guide provides clear answers to common rostering questions and practical tips to help you optimise your scheduling process. Whether you’re just starting or looking to fine-tune your approach, this guide will show you how to leverage and streamline operations, reduce errors, and improve team collaboration.
General Questions
What are the default Grace Periods?
‘Due’: This status appears once the scheduled event time is reached.
‘Overdue’: An event is marked as ‘Overdue’ at either half the planned duration or 30 minutes after the due time, whichever is shorter.
What do the different warning types mean?
Missed: A team member hasn’t clocked in, and their shift’s end time has passed.
Skills: The team members scheduled don’t collectively have all the required skills for this shift.
Clocked Out Early: A team member clocked out before the planned end time of their shift.
Clocked In Late: A team member clocked in after the scheduled start time.
Clocked In Early: A team member clocked in before the scheduled start time.
Clocked Out Late: A team member clocked out after the planned end time.
Duration Mismatch: The time clock in and out differs from the planned shift duration.
Double Booked: A team member is scheduled for two overlapping shifts.
How do I change Site settings?
What can be changed or added?
Contract types
Funding types
Visit types
Shift types
These options are found in the Site Settings under ‘Rostering':
What happens when I edit a type?
Editing visit or shift types will update all future events where they’re used. However, events with past start times will remain unchanged for accurate reporting.
Can I add new types?
Yes, new types can be added at any time.
Can I delete types?
Types can only be deleted if no future events are using them. This will remove them from new events but allow them to remain in past events to maintain reporting accuracy.
What happens when you delete a Service User or Team Member?
Deleting a Service User: All their data is removed from the rota, and their events are anonymised. You can still report on hours worked, but no personal information will be left.
Deleting a Team Member: They will no longer appear as an option for event allocation. Previous events will display an icon to show they have been deleted.
Visit vs Shift?
What is the difference between a visit and a shift?
A Visit is specific to a Service User, meaning it’s scheduled for a specific individual.
A Shift is more general and isn't assigned to any specific Service User, such as during midnight rounds covering multiple Service Users.
Which types of care use visits or shifts?
Dom Care typically uses visits since care is often tailored to individual Service Users.
Residential Care commonly uses shifts for general staff coverage.
Live-in care often uses a combination of visits and shifts to meet the needs of live-in care arrangements.
Can I group visits and shifts?
Currently, there isn't an option for group visits and shifts.
Manging my Rota
How do I set up my rota as a multi-site user with different zones?
In 'Settings', you can add shifts and visit types; if you'd like to categorise this by house (zones), you can have the 'day' shifts with the house as a type.
When you go to 'Manage patterns' under 'Rota', you can filter by type or, in this case, house name; you will then only see all the visits and shifts for that house.
How do I edit clock-in time in the Care Office?
If your carers cannot clock in or out in the carer app, you can manually do this in the Care Office.
Go to the Rota and click on the visit/shift you need to clock in/out manually.
Click on 'status' and then the clock-in button next to the relevant team members.
You can then change the clock in time and date and add a note.
When manually clocking in and out, you need to make sure this is done for all team members on the visit or shift; otherwise, it will still show as 'in progress'