Skip to content

Alerts

Alerts are the system's early-warning list: days that fall below minimum staffing, and other conditions that need a rota administrator's attention. This page explains where to see them, what they mean, and what to do about them.

Where to Find Alerts

From the admin dashboard, open Alerts. The page lists alerts newest first, and you can filter by:

  • Status — Active or Dismissed.
  • Severity — Critical or Warning.

Critical alerts (red) mark days that are below the minimum number of doctors. Warnings (amber) mark days approaching the limit or a clinician being overworked. Each alert shows its message, the date it refers to, when it was raised, and its current status.

The Active Alerts card on your dashboard counts the alerts that currently need attention, and the Shift Management calendar shows a small alert icon on any day with active alerts (red for critical, blue for informational) — click the icon to see that day's alerts.

When Alerts Are Created

Alerts are refreshed automatically at the moments staffing changes — when a rota generation phase finishes, when leave is approved, and when shifts change. You can also refresh them by hand:

  • Click Generate Alerts on the Alerts page. A form asks for the date range to re-check (and the reporting period for the overwork check), then the system scans those dates and creates or refreshes alerts.

Treat this button as "re-scan": it will not duplicate alerts that already exist, and it resolves alerts whose underlying problem has gone away.

Working Through Alerts

For each active alert:

  1. Read the message — it names the date and how many doctors short the day is (or the warning level).
  2. Decide on cover: add a shift on the Shift Management calendar (the day cell's sidebar lists who is available), arrange a locum, or move leave.
  3. Once the day is fixed, re-generate alerts (or approve the leave / add the shift that triggers the refresh) and the alert resolves or can be dismissed.

Dismissing and deleting

  • Dismiss on a single alert hides it from the active list without deleting it — use it when an alert is not actionable (for example a historical date, or a day you know is covered by an arrangement the system cannot see).
  • Dismiss All clears the current filter's active alerts in one go. Use with care: dismissing an understaffing alert does not make the day staffed.
  • Delete All permanently removes the listed alerts (there is a confirmation step). Use it only for clearing clutter you will never want to look back at; dismissal is usually enough.

Dismissed alerts remain queryable via the Dismissed filter, so nothing is lost.

What Triggers Understaffing Alerts

A day goes critical when the number of clinicians scheduled is below the configured minimum for that weekday. The minimums come from:

  • the base minimum staffing settings per weekday (see System Configuration), and
  • any minimum staffing rules that apply on that date — time-limited overrides that can raise (or lower) a day's minimum when specific conditions hold, such as named partners working.

Bank holidays and the first working day after a bank holiday have their own rules, which is why those days often need a second look after a long weekend.

See the Staffing Overview report for a forward-looking view of every understaffed date in a period, not just the ones that currently have alerts.