Online rota planner for UK teams

A rota planner is software that builds and publishes staff schedules, replacing spreadsheets and paper rotas. TimeTally's rota planner lets you drag shifts onto a weekly grid, copy previous weeks, and publish to staff instantly — with approved holiday and absence already visible so you never schedule someone who is off.

Staff book leave from their phone and it lands on the rota straight away, so managers see who is off before they schedule rather than discovering a clash after publishing. Staff can also request a shift swap with a colleague, which the manager approves or rejects. Unavailability is recorded as a leave request — there is no separate availability form.

TimeTally includes a full 14-day free trial with no card required, then costs £3 per employee per month. That covers rota planning, leave management, timesheets and payroll export — most free rota tools cover scheduling alone and charge separately for time tracking.

Yes. A member of staff picks the shift they want to give up and the colleague they want to swap with, and the request goes to a manager to approve or reject. TimeTally warns the requester if the colleague already has approved leave on that date, so a swap cannot quietly create a gap in cover.

They describe the same thing. Rota planning, rota scheduling and shift scheduling all mean deciding who works when and telling them about it. What separates tools is what happens after the rota is built: TimeTally publishes it to staff phones, keeps approved leave on the same grid, and carries the hours through to timesheets and payroll export rather than stopping at the schedule.

Yes. The rota has both a week view and a month view, so you can plan a full month of shifts and switch back to the week when you need the detail. Whole weeks can be saved as templates and applied to the weeks and months ahead, so a repeating work rota does not have to be rebuilt each time.

Yes. Shifts worked become timesheet hours, and approved hours export to Xero or QuickBooks, or as a CSV for any other payroll provider. Overtime is priced separately at whatever bands you have set, and exported periods are marked as paid so the same hours cannot go out twice.

Yes. Rotating and continental patterns including 4 on 4 off, 5 on 3 off and 12-hour shifts are supported, and repeat automatically once set. Use the shift pattern calculator to check average weekly hours against the 48-hour limit before committing a pattern to the rota.

Yes. TimeTally totals projected wage cost as you build the rota, so you can adjust shifts before publishing rather than finding out at payroll. The rota cost calculator gives the same figure for a one-off check.

Yes. You can schedule across multiple sites, assign staff to more than one location, and view either a single site or the whole organisation. Staff only see the shifts that apply to them.

You can create shifts as far in advance as you like in TimeTally. Many managers plan two to four weeks ahead to give staff adequate notice, and some build patterns months in advance for predictable shift cycles.

Yes. The team calendar shows confirmed annual leave, sick leave, and TOIL bookings alongside the rota. When planning ahead, you can see who's already booked off and build shifts around actual confirmed availability.

Yes. You can copy an existing week's rota and use it as the starting point for the next. For teams with consistent shift patterns, this makes rota planning very quick — just adjust for leave or cover.

Yes. Each employee can have their own contracted hours and shift pattern. Part-time staff, zero-hours workers, and full-time employees all appear in the same rota planner so you can see the full picture.

Staff submit leave requests through the TimeTally app, which managers approve from the same system. Approved leave automatically appears on the calendar, so the rota planner always reflects current confirmed availability.

A spreadsheet rota is static — it doesn't link to leave bookings, doesn't notify staff of changes, and can't be accessed from a phone. TimeTally's rota planner connects shifts to real-time leave data, emails staff their shifts in one click when you publish, and is accessible from any device.