Monthly rota
Weekdays run a training day 8AM-6PM plus an evening 6PM-8PM. Weekends and bank holidays combine these into one 8AM-8PM session. Nights run 8PM-8AM throughout.
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Red means the trainee has not sent their choices in yet. You can edit trainee-facing choices here; admin-only rota details stay hidden.
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Trainee rotation records
Historical and allocated rota assignments. Click any cell to edit.
Uncovered shifts
Unallocated shifts remain empty for locum cover.Account
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Requests made from the login page. Approving lets someone sign in and adds them to the trainee list.
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Setup
Shift targets
What each working percentage starts with.
Targets by working percentage Editable
These are the numbers a trainee starts with when their working percentage is set. Change one here and it applies to every trainee put on that percentage from then on. Trainees already set up keep their current numbers, and any trainee can still be adjusted on their own page.
Where these come from
- Every figure starts as HR's own, taken from the 13-week work schedules.
- A weekend training day is HR's weekend long day, so those two are counted together under training days. Weekday and weekend nights are counted together as nights.
- Lates and evenings have no HR figure at all, so the site scales its own from full time.
- Lates and evenings are set here only, and only three targets drive the rota. Generation places training days, long days and nights. The late and evening figures are kept because they cap what one trainee can be given by hand, and because the counts are worth having in the records — but nothing about generating a rota depends on them.
- 90% has no HR row either — those numbers are worked out from full time and marked as such.
- Anything you change is highlighted, so it is always clear which numbers are no longer HR's.
Review
Rules and settings
Every rule the site applies. Taken from the HR 13-week work schedules unless marked otherwise.
From HR — used exactly as supplied
Estimate — please check and correct
Shift types From HR
| Shift | Times | Hours | Plain | Enhanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Training Day | 08:00 – 18:00 | 10 | 10 | — |
| Long Day | 08:00 – 20:00 | 12.5 | 10 | 2.5 |
| Late | 13:00 – 20:30 | 7.5 | 5 | 2.5 |
| Evening | 18:00 – 20:00 | 2.5 | — | 2.5 |
| Night | 20:00 – 08:00 | 12.5 | — | 12.5 |
- The rota allocates three of these: a training day, a long day and a night. Weekends and bank holidays run one 08:00–20:00 session plus a night.
- A training day holds several trainees at once — it is where everyone not on call is working. A long day and a night are one trainee each.
- Late and Evening keep their definitions and their hours, but are not placed on the rota.
- HR also names an AM half day (08:00–13:00) and a PM half day (13:00–18:00). These are the halves a Training Day and a Late are built from rather than shifts anyone is rostered to, so they are not offered on the rota.
- A Training Day is an AM plus a PM. A Late is a PM plus an Evening.
- Long Day and Night each count an extra 30 minutes for handover in the hours total. The times shown above are the times staff work to.
How hours are counted From HR
- Enhanced time is any hour after 18:00 or before 07:00.
- All Saturday and Sunday hours are enhanced, whatever the shift.
- A night shift counts as enhanced from start to finish.
- Hours are worked out from the clock every time, so the same shift always gives the same answer.
Working percentages From HR
| Percentage | Long Days weekday | Long Days weekend | Nights weekday | Nights weekend | Standard | Hours per 13 weeks | Average per week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | 8 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 29 | 590 | 45.38 |
| 90% Not from HR | 7 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 26 | 510 | 39.23 |
| 80% | 7 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 22 | 470 | 36.15 |
| 70% | 6 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 20 | 400 | 30.77 |
| 60% | 5 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 17 | 345 | 26.54 |
| 50% | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 15 | 300 | 23.08 |
- Admin sets the percentage for each trainee and the shift numbers above fill in automatically.
- HR's figures are used exactly as supplied. They do not scale evenly — 80% is 470 hours rather than 472 — because they feed payslips.
- At 100% the 590 hours split into 300 hours of on-call — the long days and nights — and 290 hours of training days. Both count towards the total; only the on-call part is cover the rota has to fill.
- 90% has no HR template, so its figures are worked out from 100%. These need checking.
On-call cover required From HR
| Day | Long Day | Night |
|---|---|---|
| Every day, including weekends | 1 | 1 |
- This is an on-call rota. Training days are still allocated here so that hours are counted correctly, but they are self-rostered and can be moved later, so they are not part of the cover the rota has to fill.
- The numbers come from HR's own targets rather than being chosen. At 100% a trainee does 12 long days and 12 nights over the 13 weeks, and spreading those across 8 full-time equivalents works out at almost exactly one of each per day — 0.98 on a weekday and 1.23 at a weekend.
- That gives 175 hours of on-call cover a week, against the 185 hours 8 full-time equivalents provide.
- Late shifts are not part of required cover. The work schedules give no Late target and none of the templates contain one, so a Late can be assigned but is never counted as a gap.
Safe working limits From HR
- Maximum 72 hours in any 7 days.
- Maximum shift length 13 hours.
- Maximum 4 nights in a row, then 46 hours off.
- Maximum 7 shifts in a row.
- Maximum 4 long shifts of 10 hours or more in a row, then 46 hours off.
- No more than 1 weekend worked in 3.
- A shift that breaks any of these is refused, not just flagged.
Staffing the rota From HR
- The rota is staffed to 8 full-time equivalents, not 8 people.
- Ten part-time trainees can make up the same 8 equivalents.
- Admin allocates people to shifts; the site checks each person's hours against their own percentage.
- Any shift left unfilled becomes a locum shift automatically. An empty shift is normal, not an error.
- Locums cannot be booked beyond their contracted hours.
What this site is for
- Setting up the rota at the start of each 3-month rotation. Trainees send in their choices, the rota is generated and checked against the rules, then published.
- Swaps and day-to-day changes happen on the department's own rota platform, not here. Once a rotation is published, changes are made there.
- Annual leave is not booked or approved here either. It is requested on a separate platform and reviewed by HR, so this site neither counts a trainee's leave nor checks their entitlement.
- As a rough guide, a trainee takes around 7 days of leave in a 3-month rotation, and leave falls on normal working days.
Rotation cycle
- Rotations start in February, May, August, and November.
- Each rotation starts on the first Wednesday of the cycle month.
- Each rotation ends the day before the next cycle starts.
- New 3-month rotations need fresh trainee assignments and do not roll forward automatically.
Night shifts
- Up to 4 nights can be worked in a row, followed by 46 hours off.
- Trainees can still say how they prefer their nights grouped, but a preference is only honoured if it keeps within the safe working limits.
- Night grouping options: no consecutive nights, 2 in a row, 4 in a row, weekend block, or flexible.
Weekends
- Weekend shifts are worked as a Saturday and Sunday pair wherever possible.
- No more than 1 weekend in 3 for any trainee.
- At 100% that works out at 1 weekend in 3.25; at 70% and below it is 1 in 6.5.
- All weekend hours are enhanced.
Bank holidays Estimate
- A bank holiday runs the weekend shape: one 08:00–20:00 session plus a night, rather than a training day and a long day.
- Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day are shared out one each. A trainee already working one of them is not given another in the same rotation, so the festive period does not land on one person.
- Substitute days count as the day they replace — a Boxing Day substitute is still Boxing Day.
- Marking the date days only or nights only overrides this, so a trainee who wants to work Christmas still can. So does an admin forcing the shift.
- Easter, May and August bank holidays are not capped. Spreading a quiet Monday as hard as Christmas would cost cover for nothing.
- A bank holiday is never left uncovered. If the ordinary pass cannot fill one, generation will put somebody past their own shift target or onto a second festive day rather than leave it empty.
- If nobody at all is available, one of them is picked from those who could lawfully work it — this happened on one rota where all nine trainees asked for Christmas Day off. Generation names anybody picked this way so they can be told.
- Contract limits are never bent for this. Rest after nights, consecutive shifts, hours in seven days and 1 weekend in 3 stay refusals whatever the date.
- A bank holiday is enhanced in full, exactly as a weekend is. Christmas Day 2026 falls on a Friday; every hour of it is enhanced, not the two and a half an ordinary Friday evening would earn.
Collecting choices
- Trainees set their available dates and notes, then send them in when they are ready.
- In Trainee preview, each trainee is red until they have sent their choices and turns green once they have, with a note of who is still outstanding.
- A trainee can change their mind and send again; the rota manager sees the most recent version.
- Nothing stops the rota being generated before everyone has replied — the colours are there so it is obvious who to chase first.
Publishing
- A rota stays a draft until it is published, and trainees see a short note rather than an unfinished rota.
- Trainees can still set their availability while a rota is a draft.
- Publishing warns first if any required shift is still uncovered, and says how many.
- A published rota can be pulled back to draft if it needs more work.
Generating the rota
- On-call comes before training days. An evening or night left empty is a locum booking; a training day place left empty is a quieter week that can be made up or taken as leave. Where a trainee could cover an uncovered on-call shift but for the training days around it, the training days are given up.
- Only training-day places are ever given up that way — they hold several people, so vacating one costs no cover. A long day, a night or a weekend session is never taken from one trainee to fill another, which would only move the gap.
- It places training days, long days and nights, and nothing else. Lates and evenings stay empty for someone to fill by hand if they are wanted; they are not cover the rota has to provide, and generating them would spend a trainee who is then unavailable for a night.
- It gives a different rota every time. Rather than always picking the single best-placed trainee, it picks at random from among those who are equally well placed, so two runs produce different rotas.
- Random only within reason: a trainee who has already worked much more than their share is never picked over one who has worked less.
- The choice is weighted by how much of their quota each trainee has left, so someone at 50% is picked about half as often as someone full time.
- A trainee's date choices are granted through every pass of generation. They are overridden only at the end, and only for two reasons: a shift that would otherwise be left uncovered for a locum, and a trainee who would otherwise finish short of the hours they are contracted for.
- Contracted hours are put in the rota even where the trainee asked for the day off. A rota that leaves somebody twenty shifts short is not honouring a preference, it is underpaying them. Swapping a shift or booking leave afterwards is theirs to arrange; getting the hours into the rota is the department's job.
- Bank holidays are taken first when that happens, being the hardest to fill by hand afterwards. Everyone given a shift against their wishes is named in the report, so they hear it from a person rather than from the rota.
- A trainee is never given a shift that breaks an admin exception or a safe working limit. Those are refusals whatever the cost: somebody worked against their wishes is a conversation, somebody worked without their rest is an incident.
- The one exception is a shift an admin has forced, which is placed first and kept.
- Anything it cannot fill is left empty for a locum. An empty shift is expected, not a failure.
- Night grouping preferences affect how much gets covered. Trainees who cannot work nights in a row are available for fewer of them, so the tighter the preferences across the team, the more nights are left for locums. The preference is always honoured; the cost shows up as empty shifts.
Trainee/admin exceptions
- Trainees mark each date one of three ways: days only, nights only, or not available. Leaving a date unticked means they can work either.
- A date marked days only is never given a night, and a date marked nights only is never given a day shift. Marking a date either way also counts as asking for it, so the generator leans towards giving them that shift.
- Admins can force a day or a night on a specific date — for childcare and the like. A forced shift is placed before anything else and the rest of the rota is built around it. These controls are admin only and are not shown to trainees.
- A forced shift is kept even where a working rule would have refused it, but generation reports any that breach one, and any that two trainees were promised.
- Trainees are allocated to one 3-month rotation block only; allocations do not roll forward into the next rotation.
- Deleting a trainee from a rota removes only that 3-month assignment and keeps the user account.
- Admins can set weekday exceptions such as no Mondays or no weekends. These are set by admin only and are not shown to trainees.
- Admins set each trainee's working percentage; the shift numbers fill in from the table above.
- Remaining unallocated shifts stay empty and are listed as locum/uncovered shifts.
Privacy and access
- Trainees see only their own trainee page.
- Trainees do not see other trainee names in rota cells.
- Admin preview shows trainee-facing view while keeping other people private.
- Admins can create trainee or admin user accounts.
- Admins can reset passwords manually, assign existing trainee accounts to the active 3-month rota, and delete user accounts.
- Trainee accounts are kept for 10 years of inactivity before being removed, so rotation records outlast a trainee's time in the department. Admin accounts stay indefinitely.
- Email/SMS recovery is shown as a local test flow here and needs a live backend provider for real delivery.