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EDRota Solo Guide

Last updated: Feb 2026

Getting Started

EDRota Solo is a personal shift tracker for individual clinicians. It gives you a calendar view of your shifts, ICS feeds for your phone calendar, shareable links for family, and statistics to track your PAs and hours — all in your own personal workspace.

Solo onboarding
Welcome to EDRota Solo
Set up your personal workspace
Role / Specialty
EM Consultant
Timezone
Europe/London
Create My Workspace

Creating your account

1

Sign up

Visit edrota.com and click "Get Started" under the Solo card. Sign in with Google, email, or another provider. Solo is free during beta with full functionality.

2

Name your role

Enter your role or specialty — for example "EM Consultant" or "Registrar". This is just a label for your own reference.

3

You're in

EDRota creates a personal workspace and drops you straight into the calendar view. You can start adding shifts immediately.

When you first open your rota, you'll see a Getting Started checklist that tracks your progress — creating templates, adding shifts, and sharing your rota. It dismisses automatically once you've completed the steps.

Tip
Your timezone is detected automatically from your browser. You can change it later in Settings → Workplaces.

Viewing Your Rota

Solo offers two rota views. Switch between them using the view selector at the top of the rota page.

Calendar view — your shifts at a glance
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
1
FT
12:00–22:00
2
N
00:00–08:00
3
E
16:00–00:00
4
D
10:00–18:00
5
M
08:00–16:00
6
7
8
FT
12:00–22:00
9
N
00:00–08:00
10
E
16:00–00:00
11
D
10:00–18:00
12
M
08:00–16:00
13
14
15
FT
12:00–22:00
16
N
00:00–08:00
17
E
16:00–00:00
18
D
10:00–18:00
19
M
08:00–16:00
20
21
22
FT
12:00–22:00
23
N
00:00–08:00
24
E
16:00–00:00
25
D
10:00–18:00
26
M
08:00–16:00
27
28

Calendar view (default)

A traditional month grid. Each day shows your shift as a coloured card with the shift label, start time, and end time. Weekends are highlighted in amber. This is the default view when you open the rota.

Detailed view

A grid with dates as rows and you as the single column. Since there's only one person, each cell is taller and shows the shift label alongside start and end times. This view is useful for a more compact, list-like overview of the month.

On mobile devices, the detailed view switches to a card-based layout instead of the grid. Tap a shift to quick-edit, or long-press for the full editor.

Public holiday highlighting

When you've configured public holidays for your workspace, those dates appear with a rose-tinted background on the calendar grid. Hover over the date to see the holiday name.

Compliance indicators

Shifts that breach rest rules (e.g., less than 11 hours between shifts) show an orange triangle in the corner of the cell. These help you spot scheduling issues in your own rota.

Cross-role overlap detection

If you have multiple roles, EDRota automatically checks for time clashes between them. When shifts from different roles overlap on the same day, you'll see a purple triangle on the affected shift card and a purple badge in the toolbar showing the total count. Click the badge to see full details of each overlap — which roles and shifts are conflicting, with times.

Tip
Overlap detection is time-aware — shifts on the same day that don't overlap in time (e.g., a morning shift at one hospital and an evening shift at another) won't trigger a warning. Shifts without times are treated as all-day and will always flag an overlap.

Date navigation

Use the month/year selector to navigate to any month. The "Today" button takes you back to the current month.

Adding & Editing Shifts

Adding shifts to your Solo rota is quick. Every shift you create is automatically assigned to you — there's no staff picker to deal with.

1

Click a date

Click or tap any date cell on the calendar or detailed view.

2

Pick a template

Select a shift template from the list (e.g., "Day", "Night", "Long Day"). The template fills in the times, colours, and PA value.

3

Done

The shift appears on the calendar immediately. Click it again to edit or remove it.

Editing a shift

Click an existing shift to open it. You can change the template, adjust times or PA value, or delete it entirely. For full control, use the detailed editor (long-press on mobile, or click the expand button in the quick popup).

Time-off categories

To record leave (annual leave, study leave, sick leave, etc.), open the detailed shift editor and use the time-off dropdown (top of the Flags section). It defaults to "Worked" — change it to the appropriate leave type. When you select a time-off category, the shift label and colours auto-fill from the category.

Time-off categories are managed centrally and appear in statistics, the ledger, and calendar feeds. If your role has leave-adjusted ledger targets, only shifts tagged with the correct time-off category will reduce your target hours.

Keyboard navigation (Detailed view)

In the Detailed view, use arrow keys to move between cells, Enter to open the shift editor, Delete/Backspace to clear a shift, and Escape to deselect.

Copy & Paste

Copy a range of days and paste them elsewhere on your calendar. Select the days you want to copy (Shift+Click to select a range), then press Cmd/Ctrl+C. Click the target day and press Cmd/Ctrl+V — the shifts are recreated starting from that day. Days that already have shifts are skipped. Paste can be undone with Cmd/Ctrl+Z.

Tip
Set up your shift templates first (Settings → Templates) so you can add shifts with a single click. EDRota comes with no templates by default — you'll need to create ones that match your actual shift patterns.

Quick Edit

Quick Edit lets you describe shift changes in plain English — or speak them — and EDRota figures out the rest. It's the purple Quick Edit button on the rota toolbar.

What it can do

  • Create shifts — "LD Mon-Fri", "Night every other weekend", "annual leave 10th to 14th"
  • Delete shifts — "delete my night on the 15th", "remove all shifts next week"
  • Edit shifts — "change my shift on the 10th to a long day"
  • Move shifts — "move my LD from the 12th to the 20th"
  • Swap shifts — "swap my shifts on the 5th and 12th"

How it works

1

Type or speak

Describe what you want in the text box. You can also tap the microphone button to dictate — voice input works in all modern browsers and recognises your shift abbreviations accurately.

2

Review the preview

EDRota shows what it understood as a list of actions, each colour-coded: green for create, red for delete, amber for edit, blue for move, purple for swap. Uncheck any action you don't want.

3

Apply

Hit "Apply changes" to execute. Nothing happens to your rota until you confirm.

Tips for best results

Tip
Use your template labels. If your templates are called "LD", "ND", "SPA", say those exact labels — EDRota matches them to your saved templates and fills in the correct times, colours, and PA values automatically.
Tip
Be specific about dates. "Night on the 15th" is clearer than "a night shift next week". Day names work too — "LD Monday to Friday" creates shifts for every Monday through Friday in the month.
Note
Quick Edit works with the current month only. It knows what shifts you already have on the rota, so "delete my night on the 15th" finds and removes that specific shift. But it can only see shifts in the month you're viewing.

Realistic expectations

Quick Edit uses AI to interpret your request. It handles straightforward commands and common patterns well, but it's not infallible — complex or ambiguous wording may be misinterpreted. The preview step exists for exactly this reason. Always review before applying.

Voice input uses server-side transcription that's tuned to your shift template labels — abbreviations like "CT1", "SHO2", and "SpR" are recognised accurately. It works in all modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) and supports any language. If voice isn't cooperating, typing is always available and works just as well.

Warning
If Quick Edit doesn't recognise a shift label, it flags it with low confidence (a red dot in the preview). This usually means the label doesn't match any of your saved templates. Create the template first in Settings → Templates, then try again.

Importing Shifts

If you already have your rota in a spreadsheet or on paper, you can import it into EDRota instead of adding shifts one by one. Go to Settings → Import and choose between two paths.

From CSV / Excel

Upload a .csv, .xlsx, or .xls file and walk through five steps: upload, map columns, map labels to your templates, preview, and import.

1

Upload your file

Upload a CSV or Excel file (.csv, .xlsx, .xls). Files up to 10MB and 500 rows are supported.

2

Map columns

EDRota auto-detects which columns contain dates, shift labels, and times. Review the suggestions and adjust if needed. You must have at least a Date and Label column.

3

Map labels to templates

Each unique label in your file is matched to your shift templates using fuzzy matching. You can also map labels to time-off categories, or set custom colours, times, and PA values.

4

Preview

Review all parsed shifts before importing. Each row shows its status — ready, warning (missing times), duplicate (already on your rota), or error (bad date). Exclude any rows you don't want.

5

Import

Click Import to create the shifts. A progress bar shows completion. When done, click "View in Rota" to see your imported shifts on the calendar.

From Photo / PDF

Take a photo of your paper rota, screenshot a PDF, or upload the file directly. EDRota will do its best to read the image and extract your shifts. It handles most rota formats — grid tables, lists, calendar layouts — and is comfortable working with incomplete or messy data, much like any EM doctor on a Monday morning.

That said, it can get things wrong. Blurry photos, unusual layouts, or handwritten rotas are harder to read. You will always get a chance to review and correct everything before anything is saved.

Tip
Help EDRota help you. Use the context field to tell it the month, the year, and your name if the rota covers multiple people. A clear photo with good lighting makes a real difference. The more context you provide, the better the results.
1

Upload a photo or PDF

Take a photo with your phone camera, or upload an image or PDF. Max 5MB. Add any context that might help (month, year, your name).

2

Review the extraction

EDRota shows what it found. Check the dates, labels, and times. You can edit any cell, add or remove rows, and pick your name if the rota has multiple staff.

3

Map labels, preview, and import

Same steps as the CSV path — match labels to templates, preview your shifts, and import. Nothing is saved until you confirm.

Supported file formats

  • CSV — comma-separated values, the most common spreadsheet export format.
  • Excel (.xlsx, .xls) — native Excel files. The first sheet is used.
  • Photo (JPEG, PNG, WebP) — phone camera photos or screenshots of your rota.
  • PDF — rota documents sent by email or downloaded from other systems.

Date format handling

EDRota detects your date format automatically. If the format is ambiguous (e.g., 01/02/2026 could be January 2nd or February 1st), you'll be asked to confirm whether dates are in DD/MM or MM/DD order.

Duplicate detection

The preview step checks for duplicates by comparing each row against shifts already on your rota (same date, label, start time, and end time). Duplicates are flagged in amber so you can exclude them before importing.

Tip
Set up your shift templates before importing. The wizard can auto-match labels to your templates, inheriting colours, times, and PA values — saving you from configuring each label manually.

Workplaces & Roles

Solo supports multiple workplaces and roles. This is useful if you work across different hospitals, have locum work alongside your main post, or hold multiple clinical roles.

Settings — manage workplaces & roles
Workplaces
Templates
Holidays
Job Plan
Royal London HospitalUK · Europe/London
EM ConsultantPA · Ledger
Acute MedicinePA
Private PracticeUK · Europe/London

How it's organised

  • Workspace — represents a hospital, trust, or organisation. Carries timezone, country, and public holidays.
  • Role — a position within a workspace (e.g., "EM Consultant", "Acute Medicine"). Each role has its own shift templates, rota, and statistics.

Adding a new workspace

1

Go to Settings → Workplaces

Open the Settings page and stay on the Workplaces tab.

2

Click "Add Workspace"

Enter a name for your new workspace (e.g., "Private Practice") and a role name.

3

Configure it

Set the country, timezone, and then configure shift templates and holidays for this workspace.

Adding a role to an existing workspace

Expand a workspace in the accordion, then click "Add Role". This is useful if you hold two positions at the same hospital — they share holidays and timezone but have separate rotas and templates.

Editing workspace details

Click on a workspace to expand it. You can change the name, country, and timezone inline. Changes are saved when you click "Save".

Role settings

Each role can be configured with:

  • PA tracking — enable to track Programmed Activities on shifts.
  • PA rules — define how PAs are calculated based on shift duration (e.g., "4+ hours = 1 PA, 8+ hours = 2 PAs").
  • Ledger — enable to track actual vs target PAs per month with running balances.
  • DCC/SPA split — when ledger is on, optionally split tracking into two categories. In PA mode these are called DCC (Direct Clinical Care) and SPA (Supporting Professional Activities). In Hours mode they're labelled Clinical and Non-clinical.
  • Leave categories — choose which time-off categories adjust your ledger targets and which count as worked.
  • Working days — set which days of the week count as working days for ledger calculations (default Mon–Fri).
Note
Deleting a workspace or role also deletes all its shifts, templates, and statistics. This cannot be undone. EDRota shows a confirmation with dependency counts before proceeding.

Shift Templates

Templates are pre-configured shift types that let you add shifts with a single click. Each template has a label, times, colour, and PA value.

Creating templates

1

Go to Settings → Templates

Select the Templates tab in Settings.

2

Add a template

Click "Add Template". Enter a short label (e.g., "D" for Day, "N" for Night), set start/end times, and pick a colour.

3

Set the PA value

If your role uses PA tracking, enter the PA value for this shift type (e.g., 2.0 for a standard day).

DCC/SPA and Clinical/Non-clinical flags

When creating a template, you can mark it as belonging to one of two activity categories. The labels depend on your role's tracking mode:

  • DCC / Clinical — time spent working directly with patients. In PA mode this is called DCC (Direct Clinical Care), a term from UK consultant job planning. In Hours mode it's labelled Clinical. Either way, it covers ward rounds, clinics, theatre lists, on-calls, and any activity where you're providing or directly supporting patient care.
  • SPA / Non-clinical — time spent on everything else that supports your clinical role but isn't direct patient contact. In PA mode this is called SPA (Supporting Professional Activities). In Hours mode it's labelled Non-clinical. This includes teaching, training, audit, research, CPD, appraisals, management meetings, and administrative work.

When split tracking is enabled in your role settings, the statistics ledger shows separate rows and targets for each category, helping you ensure you're meeting your contracted split (e.g., 7.5 DCC + 2.5 SPA = 10 PAs per week, or 30 Clinical + 10 Non-clinical = 40 hours).

All Day shifts

Templates can be created without start and end times — these are treated as "All Day" shifts and count as 24 hours in statistics. Useful for on-call cover or full-day commitments where exact times don't matter.

Warning
Don't use All Day shifts for annual leave, study leave, or other time off. Use the time-off category dropdown in the detailed shift editor instead — this ensures leave is tracked correctly in statistics and the ledger.
Tip
Keep template labels short (1–3 characters) — they need to fit in the calendar cells. Common patterns: D (Day), N (Night), E (Evening), LE (Late Evening), FT (Flexi-Time), AL (Annual Leave), SL (Study Leave).

Shift Patterns

If you work a recurring rotation — say a 4-week cycle of days, nights, and rest days — you can define it once as a pattern and deploy it to your rota in bulk. No more adding the same shifts month after month.

Creating a pattern

1

Go to Settings → Patterns

Select the Patterns tab in Settings.

2

Create a new pattern

Give it a name and set the cycle length (e.g., 7 days for a weekly pattern, 28 days for a 4-week rotation). Then fill in each day of the cycle with a shift template.

3

Deploy to your rota

Click Deploy, pick a date range, and preview the shifts that will be created. If the cycle is multi-week, you can choose which week to start from.

Multi-week rotations

For patterns longer than one week, the deploy dialog shows a "Rotation Start" selector. This lets you tell EDRota which week of the cycle you're currently in, so the deployed shifts align with your real-world rotation.

Bulk delete

Made a mistake or need to start fresh? The Bulk Delete button lets you remove all shifts in a date range at once.

Tip
Patterns are great for regular rotations. For one-off or irregular shifts, just add them directly from the calendar.

Public Holidays

Public holidays are workspace-level — all roles in the same workspace share the same holiday calendar. Holidays appear with rose highlighting on your rota.

1

Go to Settings → Holidays

Select the Holidays tab in Settings.

2

Auto-fill from your country

If your workspace has a country set, click "Auto-fill" to load that country's public holidays for the year. You can also add holidays manually.

3

Edit or remove

Click any holiday to rename it, change the date, or delete it.

Note
Public holidays affect ledger calculations — if your role has leave adjustment enabled, bank holidays can reduce your monthly target.

Share & Calendar Feeds

Two ways to get your shifts out of EDRota and into the rest of your life.

Share & Calendar Feeds
Share Link
edrota.com/shared/xK9m2p...
Family & friends see your shifts — no login needed
ICS Feed
All Shifts
Nights Only
Syncs to Google / Apple / Outlook

Share link

Generate a private URL that lets anyone see your shifts in a clean read-only view. No login required. Great for sharing with family, friends, or a personal assistant. You can generate and manage your share link from the export/share menu on the rota page.

  • Shows a rolling window of about 4 months
  • Updates automatically as you change your rota
  • Revoke and regenerate at any time

ICS Calendar Feeds

Subscribe to your shifts in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook. Your phone calendar stays in sync automatically.

  • Up to 5 feeds per role — create separate feeds for different shift types
  • Filter by activity type (DCC/SPA or Clinical/Non-clinical), time-of-day, or time-off categories
  • Rolling 3-month window with automatic refresh
  • Timezone-aware — shifts appear at the correct local time

Setting up a feed

1

Open the calendar feeds dialog

On the rota page, open the export/share menu and select "Calendar Feed".

2

Create a feed

Click "New Feed". Give it a name and optionally set filters.

3

Copy the URL

Copy the ICS URL and add it to your calendar app as a subscription.

Tip
Create a "Nights only" feed to get phone notifications specifically for night shifts, or an "Annual Leave" feed to track your booked leave in your personal calendar.
Note
Calendar apps refresh subscribed feeds on their own schedule — typically every few hours. Changes you make in EDRota are available immediately via the feed URL, but your phone calendar may take time to pick them up. This delay is controlled by Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook — not by EDRota. To force a refresh, remove and re-add the subscription, or check your calendar app's sync settings.

Statistics & Ledger

The Statistics page gives you a personal breakdown of your shift activity.

Statistics — personal shift insights
18
Total Shifts
9.4
PA This Month
+0.6
Balance
JanJunDec

Insights view

The default view. Shows KPI cards (total shifts, PA count, balance) and a chart you can toggle between weekly bars (shift activity per week) and a cumulative area chart. Filter by date range.

Grid view

A detailed breakdown table showing shift counts by type and by month. Includes time-off rows and heatmap colouring to spot patterns at a glance.

PA/Hours Ledger

If your role has the ledger enabled (Settings → Workplaces → Role → Ledger toggle), you'll see a third view tracking actual PAs or hours against your contracted targets.

  • Target — your contracted PA or hours for each month, from your job plan.
  • Actual — PAs or hours calculated from your shifts on the rota.
  • Balance — the cumulative difference. Green means ahead, red means behind.

The running balance supports annualised contracts — it's normal to be slightly ahead or behind in any given month, as long as things balance out over the year.

DCC/SPA and Clinical/Non-clinical split

When split tracking is enabled, the ledger shows separate rows for each activity category — DCC and SPA if your role tracks PAs, or Clinical and Non-clinical if your role tracks Hours — each with their own targets and balances.

Tip
Check your balance regularly. Catching a shortfall early gives you time to pick up extra shifts or adjust your pattern for the remainder of the year.

Switching Between Roles

If you have multiple workplaces or roles, use the role selector in the header to switch between them. Each role has its own rota, templates, and statistics.

Role switcher — personal & department roles
Personal
Royal London
EM Consultant
Department
St Thomas' / ED
EM Registrar

Personal and Department roles

If your department also uses EDRota, you may have both Solo (personal) and Department roles. The role switcher groups them into two sections:

  • Personal — your Solo roles, grouped by workspace name. Rose accent colour.
  • Department — your team roles, grouped by hospital and ward. Blue accent colour.

When you switch to a Department role, you see the team perspective — marketplace, diary, admin tools, and team features. When you switch to a Solo role, you see the personal perspective — your shifts, your stats, your calendar feeds.

Note
Solo and Department roles are completely independent. Shifts, templates, and statistics don't cross over between them.

Job Plan

The Job Plan tab in Settings lets you view and manage your personal job plan — the contracted PA or hours breakdown that feeds into the ledger.

What it shows

  • Total PAs — your contracted weekly PAs (e.g., 10 PAs).
  • DCC / SPA split — if split tracking is enabled, the breakdown between the two activity categories. In PA mode these are DCC (Direct Clinical Care) and SPA (Supporting Professional Activities). In Hours mode they're labelled Clinical and Non-clinical.
  • Working pattern — which days of the week you're contracted to work.
Tip
Your job plan drives the monthly targets in the PA/Hours Ledger. Make sure it matches your actual contract so the balance calculations are accurate.

FAQ

How much does Solo cost?

Solo is completely free while EDRota is in beta — full functionality, no restrictions. We'll give plenty of notice before any pricing changes when the product launches.

Can I use Solo alongside my department's EDRota?

Absolutely. You can have both Solo and Department roles on the same account. Switch between them using the role selector in the header. Your Solo shifts and department shifts are completely separate.

Can other people see my Solo rota?

Only if you share it. Use the Share link feature to give family or friends read-only access. Nobody else can see your Solo rota by default.

What is Quick Edit?

Quick Edit is the purple button on the rota toolbar. It lets you add, remove, or change shifts by typing or speaking in plain English — for example, "LD Mon-Fri" or "delete my night on the 15th". It matches your words to your saved templates and shows a preview before making any changes. See the Quick Edit section above for details and tips.

Can I import shifts from a spreadsheet or photo?

Yes, both. Go to Settings → Import and choose CSV/Excel or Photo/PDF. For spreadsheets, the wizard auto-detects your columns and date format. For photos, EDRota reads the image and extracts what it can — it works well with most formats but isn't perfect, so always check the results. See the Importing Shifts section above.

What about swap requests and the marketplace?

The shift marketplace is a team feature — it lets colleagues trade shifts with each other. In Solo, you're managing your own schedule, so the marketplace doesn't apply. If you also have a Department role, you can access the marketplace there.

How do I delete my Solo account?

Go to Settings → Workplaces, expand the workspace, and use the delete button. This removes the workspace, all its roles, and all associated data permanently.

My department wants to use EDRota — how does that work?

Your department admin sets up a Department workspace and adds you as a member. You'll have a Department role alongside your Solo role on the same account. Your Solo data stays untouched — it's completely independent.

Can I install EDRota as an app?

Yes. You can install EDRota as a standalone app on your device — look for the install option in your profile menu (top-right). On iOS Safari, use "Add to Home Screen". The app works offline for viewing cached data.

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