Rota Builder

The rota builder is the main scheduling interface in StaffBrik. It is where you plan your week, assign shifts to staff, track labour costs against your budget, and publish the finished rota to your team.

Opening the Rota Builder

Navigate to StaffBrik > Rotas. You will see the rota for the current week at your selected location. Use the location selector at the top of the page to switch between sites if you operate more than one.

Views

The rota builder offers several views to suit different planning needs:

Week View (Default)

The standard planning layout. Each column represents a day of the week (Monday to Sunday), and each row represents an employee. Shifts appear as coloured blocks in the grid.

This is the view you will use most often for day-to-day rota planning.

Day View

Zooms in on a single day, showing all scheduled shifts with more detail - start and end times, break durations, and assigned roles. Useful for checking coverage on a busy Saturday or managing a large team on an event day.

Month View

A high-level overview of the full month. Each day shows a summary of total scheduled hours and headcount. Use this to spot patterns - weeks where you are consistently over or under staffing - and to plan ahead.

All Locations View

Displays rotas for every location side by side. Ideal for multi-site operators who need to see the whole picture at once - for example, checking that you are not accidentally double-booking a floating team member across two venues on the same day.

Print View

A clean, printer-friendly layout of the current week's rota. Designed to be posted on a kitchen noticeboard or staff room wall. Includes employee names, shift times, break details, and total hours.

Assigning Shifts

There are two ways to add shifts to the rota:

Drag and Drop

Click and drag on an empty cell in the week view to create a new shift. A dialogue appears where you set the start time, end time, break, and role. Once confirmed, the shift block appears on the grid.

You can also:

• Move a shift - drag an existing shift block to a different day or a different employee.
• Resize a shift - drag the edges of a shift block to adjust start or end times.
• Copy a shift - hold the modifier key (Cmd on macOS) and drag a shift to duplicate it.

Manual Entry

Click on any cell and select Add Shift to open the full shift creation form. This gives you more control over break configuration, role assignment, and cost preview.

Copying a Previous Week's Rota

Most hospitality businesses follow a broadly similar pattern week to week. Instead of building the rota from scratch every Monday, copy an existing week as a starting point:

1. Click Copy Previous Week in the toolbar.
2. Select which week to copy from (defaults to last week).
3. StaffBrik duplicates all shifts into the current week as draft shifts.
4. Make adjustments - swap staff, tweak times, add or remove shifts.
5. Publish when ready.

tip

Copying last week's rota and making small adjustments is the fastest way to plan. A bakery with a regular team might only need to change one or two shifts each week. A restaurant with variable bookings might adjust more - but starting from a template is still quicker than building from nothing.

Budget Tracking on the Rota

As you add and adjust shifts, the rota builder displays a running total of your planned labour spend for the week. This is shown against your budget envelope:

• Total planned spend - the sum of all shift costs for the week.
• Budget target - your weekly labour cost target (set in budget settings).
• Remaining - how much headroom you have before hitting the target.
• Status indicator - green (under budget), amber (approaching budget), red (over budget).

The spend figure updates in real time as you add, move, or remove shifts.

caution

Budget tracking uses the employee's current hourly rate at the time each shift was created. If you change a rate mid-week, existing shifts retain their original cost. See cost snapshotting for details.

Shift Publication Workflow

Rotas in StaffBrik follow a two-stage workflow:

1. Draft - the rota is being planned. Staff cannot see draft shifts. You can freely add, move, and delete shifts without anyone being notified.
2. Published - the rota is final (or as final as it gets). Staff with Employee or Manager access can see their upcoming shifts. Notifications are sent for any changes.

See Budgets and Publishing for the full publication workflow, including locking rotas to prevent further edits.

PDF Export

To export the current rota as a PDF:

1. Click Export in the toolbar.
2. Select PDF.
3. Choose the date range (defaults to the current week).
4. The PDF is generated and downloaded to your device.

The exported PDF uses the same layout as the print view - clean, readable, and suitable for posting in the venue or emailing to staff who prefer a paper copy.

info

PDF exports include shift times, break details, and total hours per employee. They do not include pay rates or cost information - so they are safe to share with the full team.

Multi-Location Planning

If you manage more than one site, the rota builder supports cross-location planning:

• Switch locations using the dropdown at the top of the page to plan each site's rota independently.
• All Locations view shows every site on one screen, making it easy to spot gaps or overlaps.
• Floating staff who are assigned to multiple locations can appear on any site's rota. StaffBrik will warn you if you schedule the same person at two locations on the same day.

tip

For a small group - say, a cafe and a bakery next door - it often makes sense to plan both rotas side by side in the All Locations view. You can see at a glance whether you have enough cover across both sites.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Speed up rota planning with these shortcuts:

Shortcut	Action
Arrow keys	Navigate between cells
Enter	Open shift editor for the selected cell
Delete / Backspace	Remove the selected shift
Cmd + Z	Undo last change
Cmd + Shift + Z	Redo
Cmd + C	Copy selected shift
Cmd + V	Paste copied shift