ShiftSketch

How to use ShiftSketch

• 1. Roster. Choose a starting roster (blank, a preloaded example, or one you saved). Edit any cell, add or remove lines, tick Lock to protect a line, or press Optimise to get suggested changes. Review the suggestion before you keep it, then save the roster under a name.
• 2. Rules & Shifts. Set your cover hours, roster rules (shifts per week, minimum rest, maximum shifts in a row) and the unpaid break. Then set each shift’s start and finish time and how many staff it needs each day. Do this before you press Optimise so the suggestions follow your rules.
• 3. Scorecard. See how the roster measures up against your rules: the checks, the positives and negatives, and what has changed from the starting roster.
• 4. Export. Print the roster, or export it to PDF, Word, Excel or CSV, or as a file to keep or share.
• 5. Calculator. Cost a shift from the EBA: pick the rate period and band, the number of staff, ordinary hours or overtime, the day (including public holiday), tick to add EBA penalties, and include super. Add shifts to a list to total them.

Building the roster

Starting roster	The roster you begin from: a blank roster, a preloaded example, or one you saved earlier. Press Reload to discard unsaved edits and return to it.
Undo / Redo	Steps back or forward through your changes one at a time, including cell edits, added or removed lines, Lock, names, notes, shift times, settings, loading, importing and Optimise. Keyboard: Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y.
Line types	A line is one position in the roster (one person’s pattern). Full-time and Part-time lines rotate week to week in the order listed, top to bottom. Fixed lines (for example a flexible work arrangement) do not rotate. Use + Full-time line, + Part-time line and + Fixed line to add them, and Clear all shifts to empty the grid.
Staff name	Type the name of the person on a line. It is separate from the line number, which is the rotation position. Names are included in CSV, Excel and Word exports.
Lock	Tick Lock on a line to stop Optimise changing it.
Drag handle (⋮⋮)	Drag a line up or down within its group. The order sets the rotation, so moving a line changes which weeks pair up. On the shift times table the same handle reorders shift types.
Cell note (small +)	Records a concern against one shift. Notes appear as a yellow dot, are listed under the roster, are saved with the roster and are printed in the PDF.
Spotlight (◎)	Dims every other line so you can focus on one person’s pattern. Press it again, or press Esc, to clear.
Steer empty cells	When ticked, an empty cell only offers the shifts that are still short that day. See Tips for the detail.

Optimising

Optimise	Suggests shift changes that reduce coverage gaps and rule breaks. It keeps the best result and lists the top three underneath, so you can switch to another option with one tap. Use Undo to return to the previous roster.
Search effort	The dropdown beside Optimise. Quick runs one search (a couple of seconds). Standard (default) keeps the best of 5 searches. Thorough keeps the best of 6 longer searches.
Minimise changes	When ticked, Optimise weighs disruption more heavily and prefers the smallest set of edits to the current roster. Off by default, because a roster with real gaps often needs bigger changes.
Compare	Shows two panes side by side: the current (starting) roster on the left, locked, and your proposal on the right, still editable. Rows line up, and any cell that differs is outlined on both sides. A summary underneath compares the two, and the scorecard sits below at full width. Press Back to build to return to the normal view.

Vacancies and overtime

+ Vacant line	A rostered position with no staff member yet (the staff name starts as “Vacant”). Its shifts never count as cover, so they stay on the overtime offer list. Optimise parks any shift it cannot cover on an unlocked vacant line, and takes it off again when real staff can cover it. Lock a vacant line to keep it exactly as you set it. Edits you make by hand are moved on or off vacant lines automatically, and Undo reverses both together.
+ Casual / + Overtime line	A pool line with no fixed shift count. Assign it to a vacant shift in the grid to record a casual or overtime pickup. Optimise never moves or assigns these lines.
Overtime offer list	Every shift the blueprint still needs, shown with its day, full start–finish time and the number of staff required. A row drops off the list once a line covers it.
Copy offer text	Copies the offer list as plain text to paste into Teams, email or SMS.

Reviewing the result

Cover against the blueprint	Compares the staff on each shift, each day, with the number the blueprint needs. The costliest unfilled gap is marked with a star (★); fix it first if you are editing by hand.
What changed	A plain-English list of every change from the starting roster, per line (for example “Tue: 07:30 → off”), with weekend days gained or lost and paid hours before and after. It is also printed at the top of the PDF.
Scorecard	Checks the roster against your rules. Where a check shows Review or Fails, its detail names the lines and days behind it.
Present	A clean, enlarged view for a projector or meeting-room screen. It hides settings, help text and the export panel. Press Esc or choose Exit presentation to return.
Collapsible panels	Click a panel heading to open or close it.

Rules & Shifts

Cover hours	The hours someone must always be on. This drives the cover check in the scorecard. Nothing is checked outside these hours.
Roster rules	Shifts per week (full-time and part-time), minimum rest between shifts, and maximum shifts in a row. Tick default to use the standard value, or untick it to enter your own. Set minimum rest or maximum in a row to 0 to switch that rule off.
Line structure check	Average across the rotation (default): all full-time lines together, and all part-time lines together, add up to the target shifts per week times the number of lines, so individual lines can differ. Every line hits the target: each line has exactly the target. Off: not checked.
Paid hours	Paid hours are finish minus start, less the unpaid break. The break comes off shifts of the length you set or longer.
Shift types and blueprint	Each shift’s start and finish time, and the number of lines (one line is one person) needed each day. Changing a time moves every rostered shift of that type. Apply template loads a ready-made set. + Add shift type adds a new shift time.
Priority and Weight ×	These control how much a gap in that shift counts against the score. Raise Weight above 1 to have Optimise fill that shift’s gaps ahead of other shifts at the same priority.
Set as my default	Remembers your shift times and blueprint so a new blank roster starts from them. Reset default clears it.

Saving, exporting and importing

Save this roster as	Stores the roster under a name in the Starting roster dropdown, in this browser only. Delete saved removes it.
Print / Save as PDF	Opens your browser’s print dialog with the colour-coded tables. Choose “Save as PDF” as the destination. The report opens with What changed, then the roster and coverage.
Export to Excel / Word	A colour-coded file with the master roster, shift coverage and vacant shifts, matching the on-screen shift colours. Excel and Word may show a one-time “format does not match” warning; choose Open anyway.
Include the scorecard	Off by default, so print and exports hold the roster, coverage and changes only. Tick it to add the scorecard.
Copy / Download CSV	Gives you the roster as a spreadsheet-ready table.
Export / Import roster file	Saves or loads a complete roster, shift times and blueprint as a file, to keep as a backup or send to someone else. Import from text loads roster text you paste in.

What Optimise checks

• Coverage first. It fills blueprint gaps, weighted so high-priority shifts are covered before low-priority ones, and uses each shift’s Weight × setting on top of that.
• Rest and runs. It requires your minimum rest between shifts, caps shifts in a row, and limits how many weekends in a row part-time and full-time lines can work.
• Cover hours. It checks that every half-hour of your cover hours has someone on, and limits part-time Sunday work.
• Days off together. A lone rest day between working days (across the whole rotation, wrapping week to week) counts against a roster, so runs of two or more days off are preferred.
• Consistent shifts. It keeps shifts matching within a run of working days, with the latest shift last (07:30, 07:30, 08:30, 12:00 is ideal). Starting earlier the day after a later shift counts against a roster, and so does hopping between different shifts.
• Even hours. It favours an even spread of paid hours across lines of the same type in the printed week.
• Line structure. It keeps the line structure you chose in Rules & Shifts.
• Smallest change. It tries direct swaps between two lines as well as moving one line’s own shifts, and makes the smallest set of changes that still improves the roster. Tick Minimise changes for an even gentler suggestion.
• Protected lines. It never moves Locked, Casual or Overtime lines.
• Vacant shifts. It moves shifts from vacant lines to real staff where it can, and parks anything it cannot cover on a vacant line so it shows on the overtime offer list. Vacant shifts never count as cover.

Tips

• Rest rule in the grid. After you assign a shift, the next day’s dropdown for that line only shows shifts that leave enough rest. For example, with 10.5 hours of rest, after a 12:00–22:00 shift only 08:30 or later is offered the next day. Hover a restricted cell to see why options are missing.
• Steering to gaps. While a shift that day is still short of its blueprint number, empty cells (shown with an amber highlight) only offer the shift or shifts still short, so a full shift is not offered again. Fill the gaps, here or on another line, and the full menu returns. Casual and Overtime lines are steered the same way. Vacant lines are never restricted. Untick “Steer empty cells toward coverage gaps” above the roster to see the full menu everywhere.
• Filling a vacancy with a pickup. Add a Casual or Overtime line, check the overtime offer list for what is still open, assign that shift to the new line in the grid, and type the person’s name into the Staff name column.
• Custom rosters. Start from “Blank roster”, set your shift times and blueprint, then add lines.
• Shift colours. Each shift type has its own colour in the grid, coverage table, print and exports. The legend above the grid shows which is which.
• Saving. Nothing is saved automatically except what you Save or Set as default, and that is stored in this browser only. Use Export roster file for a backup you can keep or move to another computer.