Shift Rota Builder App for Shops, Restaurants and Clinics

Shift Rota Builder is an offline app for managers who still build the weekly rota on paper, in WhatsApp or in a spreadsheet and only find out about a thin shift, a short turnaround or a seventh day in a row when it has already happened. You define shift codes and staff once, pick a code in each cell of the week, and the app counts hours and checks the rota against the rules you enter.

What it does:

• Weekly grid with a keyboard-friendly selector in every cell (no dragging, works on a phone), a second selector for split shifts, fill a row, copy last week, clear a week, go to any week by typing a date as DD/MM/YYYY
• Shift codes with start, end and unpaid break; overnight shifts such as 22:00 to 06:00 are handled; OFF, AL and SL for days away
• Coverage rules by day, role and time window ("at least 2 baristas present from 07:00 to 15:00"), checked minute by minute with overnight shifts counted on both days; the first short window is shown for every day
• Conflict checks: rest gap between shifts (also across weeks), shift too long, too many days in a row, weekly hours over your maximum, overlapping shifts, leave and a shift on the same day; click an issue to jump to the week
• Hours per cell, per person per week against contracted hours, and per day (people on shift and staff hours)
• A4 landscape print for one week or a batch of weeks, with legend, coverage summary and conflicts; CSV export of the rota and of the conflicts; staff CSV import with line-numbered errors; JSON backup and restore

The problem it solves: a thin shift or a tired team found out on the day. Instead of re-reading the grid by eye, you see the shortfalls and conflicts as you build the week.

Rules are settings. Minimum rest, maximum shift length, days in a row and weekly hours start blank, with a warning, and the checks for a blank limit stay off. You enter the values that apply to you; the example data uses example numbers only. Verify with MOHRE / your PRO / your contract.

What it is not: it does not publish the rota to staff, take swaps or requests, record clock-in times, calculate pay or know any labour law. It is not connected to any government system. For a spreadsheet-based attendance and overtime planner see the separate Staff Attendance, Overtime and Shift Planner; this app is a working offline tool with validation, imports and tested checks.

Verified by driving the real app in headless Chromium: 45 scripted checks (dates, week starts across year end and the leap day, validation, CSV import, backup round trip, print preview and a 3-page landscape PDF) and 50 random rotas (2,868 cells, 858 coverage checks, 756 conflicts) compared with an independent minute-by-minute Python model with zero mismatches. The scripted flows also ran in WebKit. Firefox could not be launched on the test machine, so it was not tested there. Not tested in Microsoft Edge or on a physical phone (the layout was checked at 375 px wide).