Last updated: February 2026
The rota grid shows staff as columns and dates as rows. Each cell represents one staff member on one day. Click any cell to open the shift popup.
Click an empty cell to open the popup, then select a shift template from the dropdown. The shift is created immediately. If an unfilled shift with the same label and times already exists for that day, the system will automatically assign the staff member to it instead of creating a duplicate.
Click a cell that already has a shift. The popup shows the current shift details with an Edit / Add mode toggle:
When you open the popup for a staff member who already has shifts or diary entries on that day, an amber warning box appears showing:
Right-click any cell to open the detailed shift editor. This gives you full control over shift fields including times, PA value, locum flag, and staff selection from a searchable dropdown.
EDRota supports keyboard shortcuts for faster rota editing. These work on the Detailed (Staff & Date) rota view.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Click | Open shift popup |
Shift+Click | Multi-select rectangle of cells |
Escape | Close popup / clear selection |
Delete+Backspace | Delete shift |
U | Unfill shift (remove staff, keep shift) |
S | Toggle sick leave |
Cmd/Ctrl+C | Copy selected days |
Cmd/Ctrl+V | Paste copied shifts at target cell |
Cmd/Ctrl+Z | Undo last action (batch-aware) |
Select a rectangle of cells to apply the same action to multiple staff members across multiple days in one go.
This sets the anchor point for your selection.
All cells in the rectangle between the anchor and this cell are selected. Selected cells are highlighted with a blue tint.
The toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen showing the number of selected cells.
All changes happen in parallel for speed. A toast confirms how many cells were affected.
Click "Clear" or click any cell without Shift to deselect.
Press Cmd/Ctrl + Z to undo the last rota action. This works from anywhere on the rota page, regardless of which element has focus.
The rota grid uses several visual cues to convey information at a glance without cluttering the interface.
When a staff member has a diary entry on a given day, their cell shows a coloured left border:
Hovering over any cell highlights the entire staff column with a subtle blue tint, making it easier to track which column you're looking at across a wide grid.
Saturday and Sunday rows have an amber tinted background to stand out from weekday rows.
Shifts that breach rest rules show an orange triangle in the corner of the cell. Currently the engine checks for the 11-hour minimum rest period between consecutive shifts. Click the compliance badge in the rota header to see all violations for the current month in a summary modal.
The "X% filled" badge in the rota header compares actual shifts against your minimum cover plan requirements. It turns green at 90%+, amber at 60-89%, and red below 60%. Only appears when a cover plan is active for the current role and month.
Each month shows an amber Draft or green Published badge. Draft months are still being edited; published months are finalised and visible in the audit trail.
Shifts with attached comments display a small indicator in the corner. Click it to view the full comment thread.
Rota patterns let you define reusable shift schedules and deploy them to the rota in bulk. Ideal for recurring rotation cycles, on-call rotas, and standard shift patterns.
Click "New Pattern" to start the builder.
Choose 1 to 12 weeks. A 2-week cycle means the pattern repeats every fortnight.
Click a day to add shift templates. You can add multiple shifts per day.
The preview shows total shifts and hours per week. Save when you're happy.
Click the "Deploy" button on any saved pattern.
Select the start and end dates for deployment.
You can assign staff during deployment or leave shifts unfilled to assign later.
The system shows any existing shifts that overlap with the pattern. You can proceed or adjust.
Shifts are created in bulk. A toast confirms the count.
Minimum cover lets you define how many of each shift type your department needs on each day of the week. When the actual rota falls short, amber gap indicators appear across all rota views — making missing coverage impossible to overlook.
Select the role you want to set cover requirements for.
Give it a name (e.g., "Standard Cover" or "Winter Cover") and set the effective dates. Toggle "Indefinite" if there's no end date.
For each day (Monday to Sunday), click "+" to add shift templates. Use the count badges to set how many of each shift type are needed.
The plan becomes active immediately for the specified date range. Gap indicators start appearing on the rota.
Cover plans have effective from and effective until dates so you can have different requirements for different times of year. Only one plan can be active per role at any given date — overlapping plans are rejected automatically.
Public holidays are workplace-scoped — all roles at the same workplace share the same holiday calendar. Holidays are highlighted in rose across the rota grid, diary, and statistics views.
The tab shows all holidays for the current workplace and year.
Fetches public holidays from an online database for your workplace's country. Duplicates are skipped automatically.
Delete any holidays that don't apply, or add custom ones (e.g., department training days, local events).
Each month's rota starts as a Draft. Once you're satisfied with the schedule, publish it to mark it as finalised. Publishing is permanent — a published month cannot be reverted to draft.
Make sure all shifts are assigned and coverage looks right. Check the completeness badge for a quick overview.
Only visible to admins with rota editing permissions. Located next to the draft badge in the rota header.
A confirmation dialog explains what publishing means. Confirm to proceed.
Go to Admin → Users to manage individual staff members. The user stepper guides you through five steps:
In edit mode, you can click any completed step in the stepper to jump directly to it. A Draft badge appears during creation to remind you that the user is not saved until you complete all steps.
After creating or editing a user without a login, the Completed step offers a one-click login setup. Enter an email and password to create a Clerk login. You can also manage logins later from the Logins tab in Admin.
Go to Admin → Users → Bulk Operations → Quick Add. Enter names (one per line or comma-separated), and users are created with auto-generated PINs. Each user gets a printable PIN slip you can hand out.
Shift templates define the building blocks of your rota — the shift types your department uses. Go to Admin → Templates to manage them.
To record leave (annual leave, study leave, sick leave, etc.), use the time-off category dropdown in the detailed shift editor — don't create All Day shift templates for leave types. The dropdown defaults to "Worked"; change it to the appropriate leave type. The shift label and colours auto-fill from the category.
Time-off categories appear in statistics, the ledger, and calendar feeds. If the role has leave-adjusted ledger targets, only shifts tagged with the correct time-off category will reduce target hours.
Every shift change is logged automatically. Go to Admin → Audit to view the trail.
Export the current rota from any view using the Share & Export dropdown in the toolbar. The export dialog lets you choose a format and set options before downloading.
The PA/Hours Ledger tracks programmed activities or hours against job plan targets for each staff member. It supports annualised contracts where monthly fluctuations are expected — the running balance shows whether staff are on track over the year.
Under an annualised contract, a consultant's workload is measured over the full year rather than week by week. The NHS standard is the 42-week working year: 52 weeks minus approximately 6 weeks of annual leave, 2 weeks of study leave, and bank holidays. Your annual PA or hours commitment is based on these 42 available working weeks.
In practice this means it's perfectly normal for any single month to be slightly over or under target. What matters is the running balance — the cumulative surplus or deficit across the year. A month heavy with annual leave will naturally show a lower "actual" figure, but that's accounted for in the ledger so it doesn't penalise staff.
There are two ways the ledger can handle leave, controlled by role settings. You should choose one approach — not both — to avoid double-counting:
When a role tracks the two activity categories separately (DCC/SPA in PA mode, or Clinical/Non-clinical in Hours mode), leave reduces each category's target proportionally based on the job plan split. For example, if a consultant's job plan is 32 hours Clinical and 8 hours Non-clinical per week, one day of annual leave reduces the Clinical target by 6.4 hours and the Non-clinical target by 1.6 hours — a total of 8 hours, matching one working day.
Ledger settings (use_ledger, use_pa, split tracking, leave handling, working days) are configured per role by a super admin via the System tab — not the department-level Admin panel.
Toggle the ledger on. This activates the Ledger view in Statistics and the balance footer on the Detailed rota view.
Select whether to track in PA (programmed activities) or Hours.
Toggle the split tracking option if you want two activity categories tracked with separate targets and balances. In PA mode these are DCC and SPA; in Hours mode they're Clinical and Non-clinical. Leave adjustments split proportionally based on job plan ratios.
A checkbox table lists all leave categories with two columns: "Adjust target" (reduces monthly target per leave day) and "Counts as worked" (credits actual hours). Tick one column per category — e.g., Annual Leave under "Adjust target", Sick Leave under "Counts as worked". A category cannot be ticked in both columns.
Defaults to Mon–Fri. Change this for non-standard work weeks — e.g., Sun–Thu (Saudi Arabia), Sat–Thu (UAE). The monthly target scales by the number of selected working days in each month.
The ledger derives monthly targets from each staff member's job plan. Before the ledger can show meaningful data, ensure job plans are set up under Admin → Users → Step 4. Staff without a job plan will show a dash (—) instead of a balance.
Click any target cell in the Ledger view to open the edit dialog. You can:
Overridden targets are marked with an amber asterisk (*) in the ledger grid.
Export the ledger from the Statistics page using the Share & Export dropdown. Two modes are available:
Comments on Date
Each day has a comment column on the far right of the rota grid. Comments are per-role, so each role has its own comment space.
Adding and editing comments
Click the comment cell (or the "+ comment" placeholder) to open the comment dialog. Type your note and save. Comments appear inline on the rota grid.
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