Some organisations prefer to build a rota manually, as opposed to using templates to generate rotas automatically. Copying a rota, copying shifts or building a rota by hand are all quick and easy ways of putting a schedule together.

👀 Find out more in our Spotlight Session 'Basics of rota building'.

A rota always begins life in a draft state. This means it's private and can't be seen by regular employees. Only you and others with the access rights to edit rotas will be able to see it.

To create a blank rota, simply click on Rotas in the main navigation menu, then click Rota editor. Navigate to an empty week. You'll see Draft in the status bar. Alternatively, you may use the Drafted rota icon on the Dashboard.

Instead of building a rota from scratch, sometimes it's faster to copy a previous rota and make a few modifications. You can copy a draft or a published rota, but either way your new rota will begin life as a draft.

You may need to resolve some validation issues if any arise. A common reason is when someone who was previously available is no longer free, perhaps due to absence or unavailability.

You can save time adding shifts by copying them across different days and employees.

Simply right click on any shift and click Copy shift. Right click wherever you'd like to paste it and click Paste shift.

When adding a shift, you’ll see three intelligent recommendations based on the employee's previous shift history. Just click to Add a shift as usual, and select the recommendation from the options to automatically populate the shift type, start and finish time to reduce the time required manually entering the details.

The suggestions will update as Rotaready keeps learning and checking the employee's most recent shift history. If you can't see any recommendations for an employee, then we don’t have enough data just yet, these will appear as the employee is scheduled more shifts.

If you'd prefer not to view shift recommendations, you can disable it from the Settings button on the Rota Editor.

Simply click on a shift and click the Delete button. You can also right click on a shift and click Delete shift. If you’d like to remove all shifts at once, click the Tools button on the top right corner and click Clear rota - be careful in doing so, as there's no 'undo' button!

A notable event is an occasion which is relevant to your business, such as a promotion you may be running. You can add events using the rota editor by clicking the small calendar icon in the date cell.