Scheduling’s monthly loop: plan the month → generate a Draft → place people → publish. It presumes Scheduling setup already holds shift types and day types — a branch with no day types can’t plan anything, and the screen points there instead.
Once a month: plan the month
Plan a month applies the setup’s weekly rhythm to real dates: the calendar paints each date in its day type’s colour, with a dot on dates that override the rhythm. Only this month’s exceptions are handled here — this Wednesday closed, that Saturday open — the standing rhythm belongs to setup and doesn’t need restating monthly.
With the exceptions set, press Generate: the roster is created as a Draft and you land in the workspace. A month has exactly one roster — an already-planned month shows a banner linking to it where the generate button would be.
Placing people
The workspace has two views one toggle apart: Roster, a person × date grid of who works when, and Fill, the month as a calendar of where people are still missing, with the number still to place on its tab. Each day in the calendar lists its shift types as rows, in the order they start, each row led by its code; an open place shows the position it needs (for example “N” for Nurse), or the duty when the demand names one. Hover any place for the whole shift, its hours, the position and the name. “Drag a name onto a hole, or click the hole.”
The Staff panel shows each person’s hours on this roster and their consecutive days. When one more day in a row would need an override, the run turns amber with a warning icon; hover it for why.
- Click a hole: the candidate list, ranked clean → advisory → override → hard — a hard-conflicted candidate is shown disabled, not hidden. Days a colleague declared under Availability are flagged here too: Can’t work is an override, Prefer not advisory.
- Click a cell (a person, a date): their shifts that day, the open shifts they could take, day-off marks (statutory rest / rest day / public holiday — omit the type and the server applies its default: the week’s first day off is statutory rest, the next a rest day), and unassign.
The three conflict tiers are the workbench’s language: hard is refused (the server refuses it too, whatever the client shows); override takes a typed reason, stamped on the row; advisory writes with its flags showing. People on approved leave read “Leave” in their cells.
Publish — or start the month over
- Publish — the Draft roster’s primary action: the month settles at once and the roster becomes Published, one notification per person however many shifts they hold. After publishing, edits are cell-by-cell amendments — the roster stays Published and never returns to Draft; the hint says it straight: “It is published — changes happen on the roster itself, cell by cell.”
- Delete draft — a month that went wrong is removed whole (shifts, placements and its day marks, all in one go) and planned again — never regenerated over. The confirm says every shift, and everyone placed on one, goes with it; a Published month never offers the button.