How do I set up the rota?

The rota starts off. Press Set up the rota — Quick start asks your areas, team and breaks; the Full set-up asks every choice — then Switch on the rota.

The rota starts switched off for every venue — including venues that used it before. Nothing you set up before is lost: your shifts, areas, people and requests are all kept, and the set-up starts filled in with them.

Rotas come with the Complete plan, or with the Team product (£25 per month) on any other plan.

The rota uses four names everywhere: Areas (where people work — Bar, Kitchen, Floor), Saved shifts (an area's usual shift, like Bar 17:00–23:00 — one click on the rota), Staff needed (how many people each area needs, and when) and Set hours (the hours or days a week someone works).

Switch the rota on

Open Rota in the sidebar's Team area. While it's off, the page shows one line and a pink Set up the rota button. Only an owner or admin can switch the rota on or off; anyone else sees who switches it on. You can also start from Your set-up on Home — the Team product's first step is Set up your rota.

Set up the rota opens a step-by-step window — the same kind of window as creating a loyalty scheme. Answer a step and press Next; close it at any time and your answers are kept for next time. On a computer, Your rota so far sums up your answers beside the steps.

The first step asks how you'd like to set up:

• Quick start — your areas, your team and how breaks work, then build your first rota in minutes. Everything else starts on the usual settings (only time-off requests on, open shifts on, staff see the whole team's rota) and can change later in Settings → Rota.
• Full set-up — every choice, one at a time.

Quick start

• Areas — the areas people work in. Each area asks What are your usual shifts? — for example Bar 10:00–14:00 and 14:00–22:00. Press Add a saved shift for each one (then Add another saved shift); Fill the week for me uses these to fill your week. It's optional — skip it if an area's times change each week. Each saved shift's break follows your break rule.
• Your team — everyone on your Staff page is listed. Untick anyone who never works shifts (an owner who doesn't, say) — they stay on Staff but are left off the rota and Fill the week for me. Tick the areas each person works, and Under 18 where it applies. Quick add on the rota then offers each person only the saved shifts of their areas.
• Breaks — Breaks are taken off automatically: how long, on shifts over how many hours (it starts at 30 minutes over 6 hours), and Breaks are paid or unpaid. Paid breaks count as work in hours, pay, tips shared by hours and holiday built up from hours. With clocking in on, it also asks whether staff clock out for breaks or the break is taken off. The rota never plans less than the law (20 minutes over 6 hours; 30 minutes over 4½ hours for under-18s).
• Check — everything you chose, and exactly what happens when you press Switch on the rota.

Full set-up

• What you’ll use — the rota itself is always on (you build each week; nobody sees it until you publish). Then choose the extras: Staff ask for time off and say when they can’t work, Staff swap shifts, Clock in and out on the PIN pad, Track holiday allowance, Track pay and what each week costs (owners and admins only), Open shifts and Staff can see the whole team’s rota (on to start with). Pick Week starts on here too.
• Areas, 3. Your team and 4. Breaks — as in Quick start. With clocking in on, Breaks also asks Which clock times count: from the shift's start (clocking in early counts from the shift's start, late from when they clocked in — the usual choice), the exact clock times, or rounded to the nearest 15 minutes.
• Set hours and days off (optional) — Set hours a week, Set days a week, and the days each person is Always off (always off on a Tuesday, for example). The rota warns you when someone is put on a day they're always off.
• Closing times (optional) — when you close each day, for "until close" in Staff needed. It's filled in from your opening hours if you have them. Tick Open 24 hours / no closing time for a venue that never closes (a care home, a hotel's night team) — "until close" then runs to 05:00 the next morning.
• Staff needed (optional) — pick some days, then for each area "from–until: how many people". Tick until close instead of an end time, and any time is allowed, even outside opening hours (cleaning, a staff meeting). Each day goes in one set of days — pick a day another set has and it moves. Where two lines for one area overlap, they add up (Bar 10:00–17:00: 2 people and Bar 12:00–14:00: 1 person means 3 on the bar over lunch). Join back-to-back staff needed into one shift lets Fill the week for me give one person back-to-back lines of one area as one long shift (a sleepover), up to the longest you set. When your areas are already saved (running the set-up again), this step is the same Staff needed screen as Settings → Rota — press Save staff needed before you go on.
• Swaps — only if you chose swaps: A manager approves (the usual choice), or Swaps that pass the rules go through by themselves (same area, before the cut-off and no new working-time warning — a manager only looks at the rest).
• Holiday — only if you chose to track holiday: days or hours, the usual allowance a year, when the holiday year starts (Holiday year starts), the most anyone can carry over, and whether to Build holiday up from hours worked (holiday that builds up at 12.07% of the hours worked — usual for irregular-hours and part-year workers). With that on, it asks Who builds up holiday from the hours they work? — tick each person it applies to (nobody is ticked to start with); everyone you don't tick has a set allowance a year. Then Blocked-out dates (days nobody can take holiday — Christmas week, say), the most people off on one day and from each area, what happens to a request over the limit (staff can still ask and you decide, or staff can't ask — you can always add holiday for someone yourself), and which Bank holidays the rota knows (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or none). A bank holiday someone has off comes out of their holiday allowance — unless you tick Bank holidays are extra (you close on them, or give them on top).
• Pay — only if you chose to track pay: each person's pay an hour. Only people allowed to see pay see it — owners and admins, unless you give See and set pay rates to someone else. Pay per area and a bank holiday rate are in Settings → Rota → Pay once your areas are saved.
• Check — everything you chose, and exactly what happens when you press Switch on the rota.

You can change anyone's pay, hours and holidays later: Staff → the … next to their name → Edit pay, hours and holidays.

Switch on the rota saves your answers first and switches the rota on last. If anything can't be saved, the rota stays off and your answers are kept — try again.

What's next: fill your first week

Once the set-up is saved, a What’s next window explains the quickest way to a first rota: Fill the week for me (in the Rota page's More menu, the ⋯) puts your people into your saved shifts to cover the staff you need; nothing is sent until you press Publish. Press Fill next week to open the Rota page on next week with Fill ready to review, or Done to close. If you haven't added any Staff needed yet, the window says so — Fill needs it to know how many people you need.

What changes when it's on

• Requests appears in the sidebar; Clock-ins & timesheets appears only if clocking in is on, and Holidays only if holiday allowance is on. Staff, Rota and Tips are always there — the tipping policy isn't tied to the rota.
• Nobody is told anything yet. Your team sees their shifts only when you publish a week.
• ResoFlow doesn't send staff reminders before their shifts — they check the rota themselves, on their own link or the venue's devices.
• Your set-up on Home ticks Set up your rota, then Publish your first week ticks itself the first time you publish.

Quick answers: overlapping Staff needed lines, automatic approval, reminders

• Swaps without a manager: choose Swaps that pass the rules go through by themselves (the Swaps step, or Settings → Rota → Time off and swaps) — same area, before the cut-off and no new working-time warning; a manager looks at the rest.
• Shift reminders: ResoFlow doesn't send staff reminders before their shifts — they check the rota themselves.
• Bank holidays: a bank holiday someone has off comes out of their holiday allowance, unless you tick Bank holidays are extra.
• Overlapping Staff needed lines for one area: they add up — Bar 10:00–17:00 for 2 people and 12:00–14:00 for 1 means 3 on the bar over lunch.

Change your answers

Every choice the set-up asks also has a setting in Settings → Rota — and an owner or admin can open the same set-up window again from there (Run the set-up again, under The rota — it opens on the Full set-up). Settings → Rota is laid out like every other settings page: each part — The rota, Areas, The week (with Open shifts and Staff can see the whole team’s rota), Staff needed, Closing times, Filling the week, Time off and swaps, Breaks, Clocking in (with which clock times count, the alert when someone hasn't clocked in, Shifts approve themselves within for timesheets, and the missed-break alert), Holiday (with blocked-out dates, the most off, bank holidays and Bank holidays are extra) and Pay — is a block that says what it's set to right now; open one to change it, then Save changes.

Switch the rota off

An owner or admin can switch the rota off in Settings → Rota: open The rota and choose Switch off the rota. It asks first, then:

• your team stops seeing their shifts — on their own link, in their calendar and on the venue's devices (their link says "The rota at your venue is switched off for now");
• there's no clocking in on the PIN pad, no new requests and no rota emails;
• anyone still clocked in is clocked out at that moment;
• nothing is deleted — switch it on again and everything is as you left it. Nobody is emailed that it's off.

Switching off is never blocked by your plan — a venue whose Team product has ended can still switch it off.