Shift Schedule Creator

In From your team mode, the tool first counts the shifts you need each week and the most your team can give:

Each person can give 7 days minus their days off, up to their maximum days. If the team can give fewer shifts than you need, some shifts will stay empty however they are arranged.

Then it fills the week one day at a time, shift by shift. For each shift it looks at who is not off that day, has days left, is not already working that day, and has had the minimum rest since their last shift ended. It picks the people with the least room to spare first. Someone who can only work Monday to Wednesday gets those days before someone who can work any day. A preferred shift counts in a person's favor. Ties go to whoever has fewer days and hours so far. The result is a sound draft, not a proven best answer, so check it and swap by hand where you know better.

In Rotating pattern mode there is no filling to do. Each crew follows the same cycle of days on and off, started on a different day, so one crew covers every shift every day. The tool lays that cycle over your dates and counts each crew's hours, runs and weekends.

A café with five staff

A 24-hour café runs three 8-hour shifts and one person on each. That is 21 shifts a week. Alice has weekends off and likes mornings, Bob has Sundays off, Carol has Saturdays off and likes afternoons, and Eve likes nights. Together they can give 25 shifts, so there is room. The rota covers 21 of 21 shifts. Eve works 5 shifts (40 hours) and Alice works 4 mornings with her weekend free.

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Two people short

Now only Alice and Bob are available that week. They can give 10 shifts against 21 needed, so the best any rota can do is 10. The tool fills 10 of 21 and names the 11 empty shifts, so you know exactly which ones to offer as extra hours or to agency staff.

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DuPont crews over Thanksgiving

A plant runs four crews on the DuPont pattern from Mon, Nov 2, 2026. Each crew averages 42 hours a week, works no more than 4 shifts in a row and gets a 7-day break once a cycle. On Thanksgiving, Thu, Nov 26, 2026, Team D works the day shift and Team B the night shift. To match your own crews, move the cycle-day slider until the rota lines up with who is on today.

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In team mode the big number is shifts covered out of shifts needed. When it falls short, the sentence under it says why. Either the team cannot give enough shifts, or it can but days off and the rest rule leave nobody free for certain slots. The first needs more people or more days. The second often needs one person to swap a day off.

The rest rule defaults to 11 hours. That is the daily rest in article 3 of the EU Working Time Directive. US federal law sets no rest minimum for adults, though some states and industries do. A late shift ending at 10:00 pm followed by a 6:00 am start leaves only 8 hours, so an 11-hour rule blocks it.

The hours table flags any week over 40 hours, the point where the Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime pay for nonexempt staff. Over 48 is flagged too, the EU's average weekly limit.

In pattern mode the big number is the average week over a full cycle. Four crews sharing round-the-clock cover always average 42 hours, and three platoons on 24 on, 48 off average 56. The patterns differ in how those hours fall:

• Counting people, not shifts. Five people for three shifts sounds like plenty, but 24/7 cover needs 21 shifts a week. At five shifts each that is 4.2 people before anyone takes leave.
• Forgetting the night-to-morning turn. A night ending at 6:00 am and a morning starting at 6:00 am the next day is 24 hours of rest, but a night followed by an afternoon the same day is not. The rest rule checks each case.
• Typing times the tool cannot read. Use 6:00 am or 06:00. A shift that ends earlier than it starts runs past midnight; one with the same start and end is 24 hours.
• Reading a short window as the average. 4 on, 4 off has a 16-day cycle, so 12 weeks is not a whole number of cycles and one crew can show 44 hours a week. Use the cycle figure for pay planning.
• Leaving holidays out. Pick a holiday calendar to see who is on duty on each public holiday before you publish the rota.