Rota software

Staff rota software: plan the week, publish it, count the hours

The manager builds the rota, decides on requests and runs payroll in the admin panel in a browser. The team sees their shifts, offers swaps and asks for time off in the InShift app on iPhone and Android. One set of data behind all of it, priced per active person, with as many locations as you run.

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What the rota software is made of

The admin panel is admin.inshift.app, and it opens in any browser on a laptop, a tablet or a phone. Its sections are “Planner”, “Requests”, “Chat”, “Employees”, “Payroll”, “Property”, “Locations”, “Integrations” and “Settings”. The InShift app comes from the App Store or Google Play and shows each person their rota, swaps, requests, hours and pay; a manager gets the team’s day and the planner in the same app.

Both work on one set of data. The manager presses “Publish” in the panel, and the shifts are on the team’s phones. Someone offers a shift in the app, and it is already in the manager’s list. A rate set against a person once turns every published shift into money in “Payroll”. Every frame below is the live demo organisation.

Planner

The rota is built from shift types and goes out with one button

A location’s shift types are set once: name, start and finish, days of the week, colour. From then on the manager clicks an empty cell, picks the type, and the shift is in. Until it is published only the panel sees it; “Publish” shows how many shifts are going out and hands the rota to the team.

  • “Week”, “Month”, “Year” and “List” views; “All locations” puts the whole chain on one screen
  • Hours and wage for the week next to each name; a time conflict is flagged the moment a shift is placed
  • “Copy last week” brings the week over as drafts, and only the differences get edited
  • “Open shift” with nobody on it: the team asks for it in the app, the manager picks who gets it
  • The same planner in the manager’s app, for a shift put in on the way home
How the first rota is built

Team app

Their own rota, swaps and requests in every pocket

The manager adds a person, the card gets a six-digit invite code, and the app opens on their rota. The home screen shows today’s shift with its time and location, buttons for “Day off” and “Open shifts”, and the phone gets a push for every change to the rota and a reminder before a shift.

  • A month calendar with their own shifts and “Who else is working” for any day, when the role may open the location’s rota
  • “Substitute”: pick a shift, offer it to a colleague, the manager approves in one tap
  • Holiday, sick leave or a personal day as a request, with the days left and the status
  • Their own hours and pay on the “Stats” screen, without asking the office
  • Team chat and announcements in the same app as the rota
Every screen of the app

Requests

Swaps, open shifts and time off in one list

Everything the team asks for from their phones lands in “Requests”: a swap with a colleague, a claim on an open shift, holiday, sick leave, a personal day. The manager sees who it is and which shift it touches, then approves or rejects with one click; the person gets a push with the decision.

  • Swap rules are yours: “Coworker only”, “Manager only” or “Coworker + manager”
  • Holiday allowance per year on the employee card; the days left show in the app
  • An approved swap moves the shift in the rota by itself
  • Filters by status and location, and the same list in the manager’s app
What the team can do on their own

Payroll

The hours come out of the rota

Every published shift has a type, a time and a person, so the hours for a period are known without a separate sheet. Pay terms are set per person: an hourly rate, a price per shift or a monthly salary. Premiums for nights, holidays and hours over the daily norm are rules that apply to everyone from a date you pick. “Payroll” shows what is accrued, what is paid and what is owed, per person.

  • Columns: shifts, scheduled hours, rate, premiums, accrued, paid and owed, with a total row
  • “Premiums”: “Night hours” inside a window, “Holiday work” on the dates you list, “Over the daily norm”
  • Payouts are recorded here, and the period closes with a button
  • “Export to Excel” for whoever runs payroll
Hours from the rota, ready for payroll

Locations

One account for every site you run

Each location has its own address, shift types and manager, who sees only their own rota. The owner opens “All locations” and gets the whole chain on one screen, site under site. Departments and job positions are shared across the organisation, and access rights are set per role.

  • “Locations”: a card per site with the people on it and the shift types it runs
  • “All locations” in the planner: every site’s week one under the other, with the day’s cover
  • Cover across sites: a person can be marked as available for substitution where they do not usually work
  • Access rights per role: a role sees the whole organisation or only its own locations, and a new one takes a minute in “Access rights”
Roles and access

More of the panel

Six more screens from the same demo

Each frame opens larger on a click.

  • “Copy last week”: 39 shifts come over as drafts, the team sees nothing until “Publish”
  • Shift types: name, days, time and the price of a shift, set once per location
  • “Request rules”: what the team may do on their own and who approves
  • The invite: a six-digit code sent by WhatsApp, Telegram or email, valid for 7 days
  • “Dashboard”: who is working now, the week ahead with its gaps, and the month in numbers
  • “Employee’s view”: the app through any teammate’s eyes, without asking them

Also in the software

Sections that get switched on when a team needs them.

Team chat

A team chat, a chat per location and groups of any make-up. An announcement from the manager arrives as a push, and the panel shows how many people have read it.

Property

Uniforms, keys, devices with serial numbers: what was issued to whom and who has it now. The person confirms receipt in the app.

Claude and ChatGPT

An assistant with an API key reads the rota and answers in words: who is on tomorrow, whether the week has an overlap, what was accrued this month.

API keys and webhooks

A public API for your own system, BI or payroll: keys with scoped rights, webhooks for events, documentation on the site.

Help centre in the panel

Step-by-step articles with a frame of every screen open inside the panel and the app; the support chat sits behind the same button.

Three languages

English, Ukrainian and Russian in the panel and the app. Each person picks their own in settings, and the rota does not change.

A spreadsheet and InShift

What changes for the manager when the rota moves out of a file.

The rota

Excel or Google Sheets
A file posted to the group chat every week
InShift
One rota in the panel; the team sees it in the app after “Publish”

Hours per person

Excel or Google Sheets
Formulas kept alive by hand
InShift
Next to the name in the planner and in “Payroll”

A swap

Excel or Google Sheets
Messages, calls, and nobody is sure who turned up
InShift
“Substitute” in the app, the manager approves in one tap

Telling the team

Excel or Google Sheets
The manager writes to the group
InShift
A push after publishing and a reminder before the shift

Several sites

Excel or Google Sheets
A separate file for each
InShift
“All locations” for the owner, their own site for each manager

Nights and holidays

Excel or Google Sheets
An extra column with a formula per person
InShift
A rule on the “Premiums” tab applies to everyone from a date

Payroll

Excel or Google Sheets
Formulas that break with one edit
InShift
Accrued, paid and owed per person, “Export to Excel”

Live by this evening

Nothing to install on the computer.

  1. 1

    Sign up

    Email and a password, or “Continue with Google”, at admin.inshift.app. The organisation is created with every section in place.

  2. 2

    A location and its shift types

    The site’s name and the shifts it runs: “Morning 08:00–16:00”, “Evening 13:00–21:00” or your own, with days of the week and a colour. More sites are added the same way.

  3. 3

    The team, by code

    “Add Employee”, or “Add multiple” with the names pasted from your spreadsheet: name, job position, location. Each card gets a six-digit code the person types into the app from the App Store or Google Play.

  4. 4

    The first week and “Publish”

    Shifts go in from the cell menu, and the hours sit next to each name. After publishing the team sees the rota on their phones and gets a push.

Frequently asked questions

What does the rota software cost?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that, Basic is priced per active person on the “Employees” list a month, with unlimited locations, payroll and API keys included and 20% off when paid yearly. The app for the team is part of it; nobody pays extra for a phone. The numbers are on the pricing page.

What do I need to install?▾

Nothing for the manager: the admin panel is admin.inshift.app in a browser. The team installs the InShift app from the App Store or Google Play and joins with a code.

How do I get the rota out of Excel?▾

There is no file import, and you do not need one. Names are pasted from the spreadsheet into “Add multiple”, one per row; job positions and locations are picked once. Shifts go in by shift type from the cell menu, and a week that looks like the last one is brought over with “Copy last week”.

Does it cope with a shift that runs past midnight?▾

Yes. A shift type such as 22:00–06:00 is one shift: it sits on the day it starts, its hours count in full, and the planner knows it overlaps with a morning shift the next day. “Night hours” on the “Premiums” tab pays a premium for the hours inside the window you set.

Can I run several sites from one account?▾

Yes. Each location has its own shift types and its own manager, who sees only that site. The owner opens “All locations” and gets the whole chain on one screen. Job positions and departments are set once for the organisation, and access rights per role.

How do bank holidays get paid?▾

“Holiday work” on the “Premiums” tab: you list the dates, and shifts on those days are paid at the multiplier you set, from the date the rule takes effect. There is no built-in list of public holidays, so a team in England and a team in Scotland each keep their own.

Can staff swap shifts among themselves?▾

That is a setting. “Request rules” offers “Coworker only” (the shift moves the moment a colleague accepts), “Manager only”, “Coworker + manager” (a colleague accepts first, then the manager approves) or off. Open shifts and time off each have their own rule.

Is there an API?▾

Yes. “Integrations” issues API keys with rights to read or change the rota, there are webhooks for events, and an MCP server through which Claude and ChatGPT read the rota. The documentation is at inshift.app/api/.

Try the rota software with the whole team

The panel in a browser, the app from the App Store and Google Play, the first week published tonight.

Start for free