Admin Guide¶
This guide is for the rota administrator: the person who keeps the practice rota running day to day. You do not need any technical background to use it — every page below walks through the screens click by click, in plain language.
If a term is unfamiliar (WTE, duty doctor, fixed period, working term…), the Glossary explains it in a sentence.
Your Job in One Page¶
As rota administrator you are the person everyone else comes to. In practice that boils down to five responsibilities:
- Keep the rota staffed. Watch alerts, fix understaffed days, arrange locum cover.
- Process requests. Approve or decline leave and shift swaps; record sick leave.
- Generate the rota. Run the generation phases each planning cycle so future months are filled fairly.
- Keep clinician records right. Working terms, joiners and leavers drive everything the system calculates.
- Check fairness and leave. Use the reports; run the yearly Annual Leave Round.
Task Finder¶
| I need to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Approve or decline a leave request | Leave Management |
| Record someone off sick | Leave Management — Sick Leave |
| Add leave for someone who can't (or short-notice) | Leave Management — On Behalf |
| Review a leave cancellation request | Leave Management — Cancellations |
| Approve a shift swap between two clinicians | Shift Swap Approvals |
| Fill an understaffed day / book a locum | Manual Adjustments |
| Recover from a mistaken bulk change | Manual Adjustments — If You Make a Mistake |
| Generate next quarter's rota | Generating a Rota |
| Add a new clinician / change someone's contract | Managing Clinicians |
| Check duty days and Mondays are shared fairly | Reports |
| See who still has leave left to take | Reports — Remaining Leave |
| Run the yearly leave allocation | Annual Leave Rounds |
| Understand an alert I received | Alerts |
| Change staffing minimums, duty rules, notifications | System Configuration |
| Give or remove someone's admin dashboard access (superuser only) | System Configuration — User Access |
| Record the Christmas closure / block leave practice-wide | System Configuration — Holiday Periods |
A Working Rhythm¶
Not a rule, just what the job tends to look like:
Most days (minutes):
- Check the dashboard: pending leave requests, swap approvals, and the Active Alerts card.
- Action what is waiting — the queues are empty again in a few clicks.
Weekly:
- Skim the Staffing Overview report for the weeks ahead; fix or arrange cover for red dates.
- Record any sickness that has started or ended.
Each rota cycle (roughly quarterly):
- Run the rota generation phases for the next 3–6 months.
- Review the Phase 5 email report; check Duty Fairness and Monday Balance.
Yearly:
- Run the Annual Leave Round: open the window, nudge, resolve with the group, lock.
- Update reporting periods and holiday periods at year start (see System Configuration).
If Something Looks Wrong¶
- A day is understaffed — see Manual Adjustments for adding cover, and Alerts for what the system flagged.
- The numbers look odd (a clinician's target, a report figure) — check their working term first: almost every calculation starts from the working term. See Managing Clinicians.
- A generation phase failed — the error message names the phase and reason; the fixed-period and batch-mode guards explain most refusals (see Generating a Rota and System Configuration).
- You need the deeper "how is this calculated?" answer — the Technical Reference documents every formula, for the technically minded. Nothing there is required reading to run the rota.
Pages¶
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Alerts | What alerts mean, working through them, dismissing safely |
| Generating a Rota | The 6-phase generation process, reviewing results |
| Managing Clinicians | Adding clinicians, working terms, invitations, groups |
| Leave Management | Approving leave, coverage simulation, adjustments, sick leave |
| Annual Leave Rounds | The yearly staged allocation of next year's leave |
| Manual Adjustments | Shift management calendar, locum bookings, pinning, recovering from mistakes |
| Reports | Duty fairness, Monday balance, remaining leave, staffing, partner WTE |
| Shift Swap Approvals | Reviewing and approving shift swap requests |
| System Configuration | Staffing requirements, duty doctors, fixed periods, WTE weights |