Roster Calendar

The Roster Calendar is where you plan who works when. You add shifts for the days you choose, check them for clashes and against your budget, then lock the week so your staff can see it.

This guide covers how to:

1. Choose the dates and Locations to show.
2. Add, change, copy and move shifts.
3. Find clashes and check the roster against your budget.
4. Lock a week and notify your staff.
5. Clone, import and print a roster.

Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Roster Calendar.

Before you roster

• Your Locations are set up. See Locations.
• To roster by Role, each Role is linked to its Locations. See Roles.
• Your staff can work at those Locations. See Groups.

Choose the dates and Locations to show

The bar at the top decides what the calendar shows. It opens on the current week.

Beside the range, the calendar shows the week number, counted from the start of the financial year, such as "Week 49". A padlock before it means the week is locked.

Clone Week, Send Notifications, Auction, PDF Export and Export CSV work on one week at a time. Before you use them, choose 1 Week with the date box on the first day of a week.

Switch between List, By Location and By Employee

The tabs under the bar show the same shifts in three ways:

In By Location and By Employee:

• Type in Search to find shifts by name, time, Location, Role, Job or note.
• Click Pin to the top to compare on a row to keep it at the top while you scroll.
• In By Employee, click an employee's photo to see their weekly hours and contact details.
• With the range on 1 Day, each row shows the day as a timeline. Drag either end of a shift to change its times.

The calendar remembers your view. The page address keeps your dates, Locations, view and filters, so you can share a link to exactly what you're looking at.

Add a shift

Add a shift in By Location or By Employee

1. Hover over the day on the row the shift belongs to, then click +. The Add shift window opens.
2. Choose the Employee.
3. Under When, check the Day, then enter the Start and End times, and Break at if you roster breaks.
4. Under Where, check the Location / Role, and choose a Job if the Location uses Jobs.
5. Add a Note if your staff need one, then click Add shift.

Add a shift in List view

1. Find the day, then the Location row the shift belongs to, or its Role row if you use Roles.
2. Click + on that row. An empty shift appears. To add several at once, enter how many in the box beside + first.
3. Choose the employee. The list groups staff as Available, Unskilled, Unavailable, Rostered On and On Leave for that time. Choose Open for a shift with nobody in it yet.
4. Enter the Start and End times, for example "17:00" and "21:00", and the Break start time if you roster breaks.

Each change saves as you make it. Press Enter to move to the next shift. Each shift can also have a Job, if the Location uses Jobs, and a Note your staff can read.

A shift that ends after midnight goes on the day it starts, for example "22:00" to "06:00" on Friday.

Turn on Unworked shift for a shift that stays on the roster but isn't worked, such as a shift during the employee's leave. It's hidden from the employee and costed as their leave or public holiday pay.

Change, copy and move shifts

In List view, change a shift's times, employee, Job or note in its row. The bin deletes it, and the copy icon copies it. To paste, click the paste icon that appears on any Location or Role row.

In By Location and By Employee, click a shift to open it, make your changes, then click Save, or click Delete. You can also:

• Drag a shift to another day or row to move it. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) as you drag to copy it instead.
• Select several shifts with Ctrl, Cmd or Shift and a click, or by dragging a box around them on an empty part of the grid.
• Right-click a shift, or press and hold it on a touch screen, for Edit, Copy, Cut, Delete and Deselect.
• Paste copied shifts into any day, in any week, with the paste icon on the day or Ctrl+V. Copied shifts stay copied while you move to another week.

Change several shifts at once

In List view, tick the shifts you want, or tick a row's box to select all its shifts. A bar appears with Copy, Delete and Time. Time changes the start or end time of every selected shift, or moves them all earlier or later by the same amount.

In By Location and By Employee, select the shifts, then right-click and choose Edit with the number selected, such as Edit 3. The window changes the times, Location / Role, Job or note of every selected shift. Fields showing Mixed keep each shift's own value. Click Save 3 shifts when you're done. To move shifts to another day, drag them instead.

In List view, each Location or Role row also has its own settings for that day:

• A Job list: Set blank to: gives every shift with no Job the Job you choose, and Clear all jobs removes them.
• A note for the whole row.
• Hide all Shifts for the day and Highlight location for day for what your staff see.

Find clashes and problems with the filters

Above the roster, filters count the shifts that need a look. Click one to show only those shifts, and click Clear filters to show them all again. A filter only appears when it has shifts.

Other filters show Unassigned, Open and Auction shifts, shifts on Leave, Unworked shifts, shifts with No times, and shifts that have a note (Has note). With Roster Confirmation on, you can also show shifts that are Pending, Accepted or Declined.

Check shifts against availability and leave

The calendar colours a shift when the employee can't work it:

In List view the colours are on each shift's hourly graph, which shows on wider screens. In By Location and By Employee the shift itself is coloured, and an empty day in By Employee shows On leave or Unavailable. Hover over the colour in List view, or open the shift, to see why, such as their Weekly Availability, another shift, the skill they haven't completed, or their leave. Staff set their weekly availability on the Employee Console, or you can set it on their profile under Availability.

When a Location or Role requires a skill, such as an RSA, staff who haven't completed it are listed as Unskilled when you choose the employee. See Skills and Documents.

Shifts during leave

When shifts your staff can still see fall during their leave, the calendar opens a Shifts during leave window listing them. Click Hide all, or untick the shifts to keep and click Hide. Click Not now to leave them as they are. A hidden shift stays on the roster as an unworked shift, costed as their leave pay.

If you delete a shift during leave, the calendar asks Hide instead of delete? Click Hide shift to keep it as an unworked shift, or Delete anyway.

Keep the roster to your budget

The budget box at the bottom of the calendar compares the week with your goals: Hours Goal, Cost Goal, Total Hours Rostered, Total Est Cost, Goal vs Roster Difference and Percent of Goal. The goals start from each Location's hours and cost goals, and you can change them for the week. Goals show when the range is 1 Week starting on the first day of a week.

Each shift's cost is worked out from the employee's pay rules, the same way a pay run would pay it. Click a shift's cost to see the pay lines behind it. After you change pay rates or pay rules, click Recalculate costs to cost the week's shifts again. Unworked shifts are costed as leave or public holiday pay and left out of Total Est Cost.

Use the buttons in the box's corner to show the full box, a compact one, or hide it. Bring it back with Show budget.

Lock the week and notify your staff

Staff can't see a week until it's locked. Until then, their Employee Console shows "Roster not set yet".

1. Show the week and the Locations you want to publish, with the range on 1 Week, then click Lock.
2. Check the week in the Lock this week window, then click Confirm. The Send Roster Notifications window opens.
3. Under Select Notification Types:, tick Microkeeper App, Email, SMS (10c per sms) or any mix.
4. Choose All Rostered Staff, or Only Updated Shifts to notify only staff whose shifts changed since the last notification.
5. Click Send, then Back to Rosters. Click Skip to lock without notifying anyone.

To lock several weeks at once, choose a longer range, such as 4 Weeks, then click Lock and Confirm. Notifications don't open after locking several weeks, so send them one week at a time with More Actions > Send Notifications.

Only staff at the Locations shown are notified. To notify staff again later, show the week and click More Actions > Send Notifications.

To change a locked week, click Unlock and Confirm, make your changes, then lock it again. Your staff can't see the week while it's unlocked. Who can lock and edit locked weeks is set in Roster Settings.

Clone a week into other weeks

1. Show the week you want to copy, with the range on 1 Week and the Locations you want to copy.
2. Click More Actions > Clone Week. The Clone Roster window opens.
3. Under Clone to:, choose Calendar, then Single Week and the week, or Multi Week and two or more weeks. Choose Template to save the week as a roster template instead.
4. Tick Reset Job allocation? to clear the Jobs on the copied shifts.
5. Click Clone, check how many shifts each week will replace and whether any of the weeks are locked, then click Confirm Clone.

To start each week from a standard week, see Roster Templates. To copy only some shifts, copy and paste them instead.

Import a roster from a spreadsheet

Click More Actions > Import CSV and choose a CSV file. The first row is a header, and each other row is a shift with these columns, in this order:

1. Employee: their username or employee ID.
2. Date: dd/mm/yyyy.
3. Start Time and End Time: HH:MM, in two columns.
4. Location: its title.
5. Role: its title, if the Location uses Roles.
6. Optional: Job, Break Start Time, Note and Hide (0 or 1).

A file can cover up to 62 days. To get a file in the right format, show a week you've rostered with the range on 1 Week, and click More Actions > Export CSV.

Print or share the roster

• Calendar View, under More Actions, lays out the dates shown for printing. Choose the Locations, dates and columns at the top, then print it or save it as a PDF from your browser.
• PDF Export, under More Actions, gives a plain list of one week's shifts, ordered as rostered, by employee, by start time or by end time.
• Export CSV, under More Actions, downloads one week's shifts as a CSV file you can open in Excel or Google Sheets.
• Staff can add their shifts to their phone or computer calendar. See Calendar Feed.

Roster on a phone

On a phone, the Roster Calendar fits the smaller screen:

• The Filters button holds the view, the filters and the Locations.
• By Location and By Employee show one day at a time. Use the arrows to move between days.
• List view scrolls sideways, keeping the employee in view.
• The budget box is hidden. Check the budget on a computer or tablet.

What your staff see

Once a week is locked, staff see their shifts in the Roster section of the Employee Console and the Microkeeper app, with each shift's Location, Role, times and note. Unworked shifts stay hidden from them. Whether they can also see who else is working is set by Full Roster in Roster Settings.

If you turn on Roster Confirmation in Roster Settings, staff accept or decline each shift, and you're emailed when they decline. In List view each shift then shows its status: #P pending, #A accepted or #D declined. Changing a shift's employee or times sets it back to pending.

Roster Calendar troubleshooting

Guides related to the Roster Calendar

• Roster Templates
• Roster Cycles
• Shift Bidding
• SMS Rosters
• Calendar Feed