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Rota PlannerSchedule shifts and manage your team

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Leave & Absence

Leave TrackingHoliday and absence management
View all features One plan · £3 per employee per month

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Rota planning for UK dental practices

Rota Software for Dental Practices

Dental practice rota software for UK practices. Put your dentists, dental nurses, hygienists and receptionists on one weekly grid, check that every dentist has a nurse for each day, and publish the rota to their phones. Approved holiday sits on the same grid as the shifts, so you see a gap in a dentist's list before the day, not on it. Built on the same staff rota software the rest of TimeTally uses, at £3 per employee per month with holiday tracking and timesheets included.

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Week of 16 June

All departments
Publish Rota Published
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Rota Published!

Your team has been notified

Shift Templates

New Template New Template

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Evening

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Shift Swap Request

Awaiting your approval

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Priya S.

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Approve Approved!

Shifts published!

Week of 16 Jun

Swap approved

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Evening added

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this week · 40h

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“The app is simple to use, reliable, and makes managing holidays, absences, and staff records straightforward. The system has saved us a significant amount of administration time.”

CLI ManchesterJordan Ingoe, CLI Manchester

See how dental practices plan their rota with TimeTally

Build next week's rota, staff clock in against the shifts you assigned, and approved leave feeds straight back into the plan. One system, no re-keying between them.

Free dental rota template: build your practice rota online

The template is ready to fill in. It has rows for two dentists, two dental nurses, a hygienist and a receptionist, and tapping a day offers four shift templates under Use a shift template: Clinic 08:30–17:30, Late clinic 11:00–20:00, Morning session 08:30–13:00 and Saturday 09:00–13:00. Rename the rows, add your own people and fill in the week. Hours add up as you go, and it flags a shift that starts less than 11 hours after the last one. Building is free with no account; printing or downloading needs a free account.

Build the dental surgery staff rota by dragging shifts onto the grid

The rota is one row per person and one column per day. Click an empty cell to add a shift, drag a shift to another day when a dentist swaps their late clinic, or drop it onto another nurse to hand it over. Copy last week forward and you only edit what changed: holiday, a training day, an extra Saturday.

A week of the rota with one row per person, coloured shifts on the days they work, and hours and cost totals under each day

  • Click a cell to add a shift

    Tap an empty day to put a dentist, nurse or receptionist on it, or drag a shift to another day or person

  • Filter to one job role

    Show only the dental nurses, or only the dentists, and count each day's column against the other

  • Paid hours under every day

    An Hours row totals each day and the week, with each role's unpaid lunch taken off

  • Publish when the week is ready

    Until you publish, the week is a draft only managers see. Then you choose whether to email the team

The Dental Nurse Rota on Every Nurse's Phone

Once you publish a week, each nurse, dentist and receptionist sees their own shifts in the TimeTally app on iPhone or Android, or in a browser. Each shift shows its times, its job role and any note you added. Nobody needs to ring the practice on Sunday evening to ask what time they start.

  • Publishing asks whether to email the team. When you publish a week again, only the people whose shifts changed get an email. There are no push notifications.
  • A nurse can propose a swap with a colleague or give a shift away. The colleague accepts, then a manager approves it. Swaps are on by default and can be turned off.
  • Turn on "Who's on" and staff can see who else is rostered on the days they work, so a nurse knows which dentist is in. It is off by default.
  • The same app is where staff book holiday and fill in timesheets, so the whole team uses one login.
Timesheets and clock-in Get Started
A member of the practice team viewing their upcoming shifts on their phone

Cover a Dental Nurse's Holiday Before the List Is at Risk

Holiday and sickness show on the rota on the days they fall, in the same grid as the shifts. You see that both nurses on Thursday have booked the same week before you approve the second request, not when the dentist arrives to an empty surgery.

  • Cover offered when you approve

    Approve a request and TimeTally lists that person's shifts on those days, with the colleagues who have no shift and no leave that day

  • Same practice first

    People on the same rota are listed first, and you can look at your other practices too. Each name shows its department

  • Pick a name and it is live

    The shift moves to them and that week is published, so the new name is on their phone. No emails are sent

  • Book a Christmas closure for everyone

    An admin can book leave for the whole team at once. Only the days each person works are taken from their allowance
A rota week with approved annual leave and sick leave shown in place of shifts

Save clinic days, late clinics and Saturday mornings as templates

Most practices run the same few sessions every week. Save each one once with its times, job role, colour and unpaid lunch, and it becomes a choice in the shift form. A Clinic 08:30–17:30 with an hour for lunch is 8 paid hours every time it is used.

Adding a shift from a saved template: the template picker, start and end times, role, break and a Save Shift button

  • A colour per session

    Clinic, Late clinic and Saturday each get a colour, so you can see who covers the evening and the weekend without reading times

  • Half-day sessions

    A Morning session 08:30–13:00 with no unpaid break suits a part-time nurse or a hygienist's half day

  • Week A and week B

    If late clinics and Saturdays alternate, save each week as a week template and drop the right one onto any future week

  • Copy a week forward

    Copy this week onto the following weeks in one go, then change only the days with holiday or training

What a dental practice rota has to get right

Dental practice staff scheduling is mostly about pairs and sessions: a nurse for each dentist, a hygienist on the right days, reception for every hour the doors are open, and cover when someone is on holiday. Holiday allowances themselves are covered on the staff holiday tracker page.

A week of shifts across the whole team, one row per person, with an unfilled shift outlined in red
Chairside

A dental nurse for every dentist

The GDC's standards say a dentist should work with another trained member of the dental team when treating patients. In most practices that means a nurse at the chair, so the rota is really a list of pairs.

  • Give Dentist and Dental nurse their own colours, then filter the grid to one role to count nurses against dentists for each day
  • Write the pairing in the shift note, such as "With Dr Shah, surgery 2", and the nurse sees it with the shift on their phone
  • TimeTally does not pair people for you and does not know your chairs or surgeries. A staffing alert counts heads per day, not per session
Holiday

Nurse holidays without cancelled lists

If a nurse is off and nobody covers, a dentist's list is at risk. Approving the holiday and finding the cover happen in the same place.

  • Approved holiday shows on the rota grid on the days it falls, beside everyone's shifts
  • Approve a request and TimeTally lists that person's shifts on those days, with colleagues who have no shift and no leave that day
  • The list shows each person's department, not their job role, so put your nurses in their own department to spot them quickly
Sessions

Late clinics, Saturdays and part-time days

Few practice teams work the same five days. Associates and nurses often work two or three days, and the late clinic and Saturday morning are shared out.

  • Save Clinic, Late clinic, Morning session and Saturday as templates, each with its own times, colour and unpaid break
  • Holiday for part-time nurses can be pro-rated from the days they work
  • Bank holiday sync books a bank holiday only for people who work that day, so a Tuesday-to-Thursday nurse is not charged for Easter Monday
Sites

More than one practice

A group with two or three practices can keep a named rota for each one and switch between them from one menu.

  • A nurse who covers two practices can be on both rotas. A day they work at the other practice shows its name in their cell
  • A person has one shift per day. A day split between two sites is one shift with two time blocks, on one practice's rota
  • A manager limited to one practice's people can only add, move or delete their shifts, though they can still see the other rotas
Get Started

Two Rota Settings Worth Setting Up in a Dental Practice

Most of the rota works without any setup. These two take a few minutes on the day you switch it on, and they matter more in a practice than in most workplaces.

Staffing alert

Get a warning when a day has too few dental nurses.

Put your dental nurses in their own department, then add an alert such as "fewer than 3 staff in Dental nurses on a day". A day below it shows as a red line above the grid, and again in a warning when you publish.

The alert counts the people with a shift that day. It does not know whether they are on the morning or the afternoon, and it does not compare nurses with dentists. Use it as a safety net and still read the times.

It warns and does not block: you can publish anyway. An alert can cover one rota or all of them, so a group can set a different number for each practice.

Swaps and who's on

Decide whether staff can swap shifts and see who else is in.

Shift swaps are on by default. A nurse picks a colleague and a shift, the colleague accepts, and a manager approves or rejects it. Nothing changes on the rota until a manager approves.

If you would rather every change came through the practice manager, turn swaps off for the whole organisation. The rule is enforced in the database as well as in the app.

"Who's on" is off by default. Turn it on and staff see the names, times and job roles of colleagues rostered on the days they work, so a nurse can see which dentist they are with.

Dental rota examples: how four practices build their week

Each example lists the shift templates it needs and the order to build the week in. If you want a blank spreadsheet to sketch on first, the staff rota template is a free download.

A two-surgery practice

Two dentists, two or three dental nurses, a hygienist two days a week and one receptionist. You need two templates: Clinic 08:30–17:30 and Morning session 08:30–13:00. Put the dentists on first, then a nurse against each dentist's days, then the hygienist and reception. Filter the grid to Dental nurse and check each day has as many nurses as dentists. Copy the week forward and edit only for holiday.

A practice with late clinics and Saturdays

Open until 20:00 two evenings a week and on Saturday mornings. Add Late clinic 11:00–20:00 and Saturday 09:00–13:00. A late clinic needs a dentist, a nurse and reception until close, so build those three shifts together. If staff take turns, build week A and week B and save each as a week template. The shift pattern calculator works out the dates for a longer cycle.

Part-time associates and nurses

An associate in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday needs a nurse on exactly those days. Put the associate's days in first and the nurse's shifts beside them, and add a note with the surgery if it changes. For part-time nurses, holiday can be pro-rated from the days they work, and bank holidays are booked only on days they work. The part-time bank holiday calculator shows the same arithmetic.

A group with three practices

Create a rota for each practice and add the people who work there. A floating nurse joins all three rotas, and a day they are already working at one practice shows that practice's name on the others. Publish each practice's week on its own. If each practice has its own manager, limit each one to their own people so they can only change their shifts.

Hourly nurses and reception

Hourly staff can fill in timesheets or clock in on their phone, and a manager approves the hours. If you switch time tracking off, pay can come straight from the rota shifts instead. Approved hours export to Xero, QuickBooks or a CSV file for your payroll. Salaried staff can stay on the rota without filling in anything.

When a spreadsheet is still fine

A single-dentist practice with one nurse and fixed days may never need more than a printed week on the wall. The spreadsheet stops working when you add a second dentist, part-time nurses, a late clinic or a second site, and staff start messaging to ask when they are in. That is when a rota published to their phones saves more time than it takes to set up.

Chairside cover and records

Chairside cover, practice software and what TimeTally will not do

TimeTally is a rota, holiday and timesheet app for the practice team. It is not practice management software and not a compliance system. This is where the line falls.

Pairing Is Your Decision

TimeTally does not pair a nurse with a dentist and has no record of chairs or surgeries. You give each person a job role, filter the grid by role, and write the pairing in the shift note if you want it on the nurse's phone. A staffing alert can warn you when a day has too few people in a department, but it counts heads per day, not per session, and it never stops you publishing.

It Does Not Link to Your Appointment Book

There is no connection to Dentally, Software of Excellence, R4 or any other practice management system. TimeTally does not see patient appointments, does not book patients and does not move appointments when a dentist is off. If a dentist books holiday, rebooking their patients stays in your practice software.

Self-Employed Associates

You can put associates on the rota and their holiday in the calendar, at £3 a month each like anyone else. TimeTally does not work out associate pay, fee shares or UDAs, and it does not hold contracts. Those stay with your practice software and your accountant.

GDC, CQC and Records

TimeTally does not store GDC registration numbers, indemnity, CPD or vaccination records, and it does not map anything to CQC inspections. What it keeps is the staffing record: every shift with its date, times, job role and person, which week was published and when, approved holiday and sickness, and approved timesheets. The rota prints, and hours export to CSV.

Who Can See What

You can limit a manager to certain departments or named people. A limited manager can only add, move or delete shifts for their own people, but they can still see the other rotas, because every member of the organisation can read shifts. Pay details can be hidden from a manager, which also keeps the cost row off their rota.

What TimeTally Does Not Do

It does not build the rota for you: every shift is placed by a person. Staff cannot post their availability, and there are no open shifts for staff to claim. Rota updates arrive by email, not push notification. And there is no shared reception tablet for clocking in: everyone clocks in on their own login, on their own phone or a browser.

Simple, Transparent Pricing

One price for the whole product. GPS clock-in is £1 extra per employee. A practice with 12 people on the rota pays £36 a month.

£3/employee/month

Billed monthly. Cancel anytime.

A rota for each practice or site
Clinic, late clinic and Saturday templates
Holiday cover suggested on approval
Holiday tracking and timesheets included
Get Started

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In short

What is dental practice rota software?

Dental practice rota software builds the weekly staff rota for a dental practice and publishes it to the team. TimeTally does this for UK practices at £3 per employee per month. You save your clinic days, late clinics and Saturday mornings as shift templates and click them onto a week grid, one row per person. You filter by job role to check each dentist has a dental nurse. Approved holiday and sickness show on the same grid. When you approve a holiday, TimeTally lists the shifts it affects and who is free to cover them. Each practice in a group can have its own rota. Staff see their shifts on their phones, and holiday tracking and timesheets are included. TimeTally does not pair nurses with dentists for you and does not connect to practice management software.

Price
£3 per employee a month
Publishing
One rota, one week at a time
Pairing
Checked by role filter, not automatic
Sites
A named rota per practice
Includes
Holiday and timesheets at no extra cost

Dental rota software: common questions

How do you make a dental nurse rota?

Start with your opening hours and sessions: the normal clinic day, any late clinic, and Saturday mornings if you open. Put approved holiday and training on the rota first so you build around them. Then put each dentist on their days and give every dentist a nurse for each session they work, adding the hygienist's days and reception cover for the hours the practice is open. Check each person's weekly hours against their contract and publish the rota so the team can see it. The free dental rota template on this page starts with dentists, dental nurses, a hygienist and a receptionist, and with Clinic 08:30 to 17:30, Late clinic 11:00 to 20:00, Morning session 08:30 to 13:00 and Saturday 09:00 to 13:00 as shift templates.

Can the rota pair dentists with nurses?

Not automatically. TimeTally does not know which nurse works with which dentist, and it has no record of chairs or surgeries. What it gives you is a way to check. Give Dentist and Dental nurse their own job roles, filter the grid to one role at a time, and compare each day. You can write the pairing in the shift note, such as "With Dr Shah, surgery 2", which the nurse sees with the shift on their phone. You can also put nurses in their own department and set a staffing alert, such as fewer than three nurses on a day. It counts the people with a shift that day, not per session or per chair, and it warns before you publish rather than stopping you.

Can staff see their shifts on their phone?

Yes. Once you publish a week, each person sees their own shifts in the TimeTally app for iPhone or Android, or in any browser, with the times, job role and any note on the shift. Publishing asks whether to email the team; staff who have rota emails switched on get one, and when you publish a week again only the people whose shifts changed are emailed. There are no push notifications. Staff can propose a swap or give a shift away: the colleague accepts and a manager approves it. Whether staff can see who else is working that day is a setting, off by default.

How do we cover a dental nurse's holiday?

When you approve the request, TimeTally lists the shifts that nurse is rostered on for those days. Against each shift it lists colleagues who are free: no shift of their own that day and no leave of their own, pending requests included. People on the same rota come first, and you can choose to see people on your other rotas too. The list does not check job roles, so it can show a receptionist as free; each name carries its department, which is why it helps to put nurses in their own. Pick a name and the shift moves to them, and that week of the rota is published. Nobody is emailed. If nobody is free, the holiday is still yours to approve or decline.

Does it work with our practice management software?

No. TimeTally does not connect to practice management systems such as Dentally, Software of Excellence or R4, and it never sees your appointment book. Patients are booked in your practice software as now. TimeTally covers the staff side: the rota, holiday and sickness, and timesheets for hourly staff, with exports to Xero, QuickBooks or CSV for payroll.

Can we add self-employed associates to the rota?

Yes. You can add anyone you put on the rota, and each person costs the same £3 a month. Be clear about the limit: TimeTally does not work out associate pay, fee shares or UDAs, so those stay with your practice software and your accountant. For associates it is a place to show which days they are in and who is nursing for them.

What does dental rota software cost?

TimeTally is £3 per employee per month, with no setup fee and no minimum contract. A practice with three dentists, five dental nurses, a hygienist, two receptionists and a practice manager is 12 people, which is £36 a month. That covers the rota, holiday and sickness tracking and timesheets. GPS clock-in is an optional add-on at £1 per employee per month. There is a free 14-day trial and no card is needed to start it.

Can we run rotas for more than one practice?

Yes. Create a named rota for each practice and add the people who work there. Someone who works at two practices can be on both rotas, and a day they are working at the other one shows that rota's name in their cell. Each practice's week is published on its own. A person has one shift per day, so a nurse who works a morning at one site and an afternoon at the other is one shift with two time blocks. You can also limit a manager to one practice's people, so they can only change those people's shifts; they can still see the other rotas.

Still have a question? See all FAQs

Related Resources

Tools and guides for practice managers and practice owners

Free Rota Maker

Build any staff rota online for free, with no account needed to startOpen the rota maker

Staff Rota Template

A free Excel and Google Sheets grid if you want to sketch the week on paper firstDownload template

Shift Pattern Calculator

Work out the dates for a rotating late clinic or Saturday cycleOpen calculator

Pro Rata Holiday Calculator

Holiday for a nurse or receptionist who works part of the weekOpen calculator

Part-Time Bank Holiday Calculator

How many bank holidays a part-time member of the team is dueOpen calculator

Staff Holiday Tracker

Allowances, requests and approvals for the holiday that shows on the rotaLearn more

How to Create a Staff Rota

A step-by-step guide to planning a rota that covers every sessionRead the guide

UK Rota Laws

Rest breaks, notice and working time rules that apply to a practice rotaRead the guide

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