Rota software: plan the week, publish it to phones
Build the rota as a draft, check it against working-time rules and your labour budget, then publish. Each person sees their shifts in the staff app and their phone's calendar.
Free for up to 10 people, with every feature. Not a trial.
How it works
Plan
Add shifts by person or by site, copy last week, use templates or fill from work patterns. Drafts are only seen by managers.
Publish
Each person gets one message about their shifts. Later changes only tell the people affected.
Staff respond
They confirm, say they can't make it with a reason, claim open shifts or ask to swap.
Build the week your way
See the week by person or by site, or switch to day, month or list views. Drag to move a shift, hold Alt to copy it, edit several at once and undo mistakes. Other managers' changes appear as they make them.
Save shift and week templates, copy a day or a week, set repeating shifts, fill the week from work patterns or import a CSV.
- Person or site view
- Templates and repeating shifts
- Drafts until you publish
Working-time checks as you plan
KiteClock checks each shift against UK working-time rules: 11 hours' rest between shifts, weekly rest, the 48-hour average (with a recorded opt-out), a 20-minute break over 6 hours, and limits for young workers.
By default these warn a manager and stop staff actions that would break them; a manager can override with a reason, which is kept.
- Rest and break checks
- 48-hour average and opt-outs
- Overrides need a reason
Open shifts, swaps and availability
Post open shifts that staff can claim, with your approval if you want it. Staff who can't take one see exactly why. Give-aways and swaps go to whoever accepts first, then to a manager to approve.
Staff set when they're unavailable, available or would prefer to work, one-off or repeating, and the rota shows it while you plan.
- Claims, give-aways and swaps
- Availability on the rota
- Requests expire before the shift
Also in the rota
Labour cost
Planned hours and cost per day, worked out with the same pay rules as timesheets, with optional weekly budgets per site. Admins only by default.
Calendars and sharing
A private calendar feed for each person, a share link for each site (first names and times only), CSV or XLSX export and an A4 print view.
Auto-assign
Fill open shifts as drafts with the reason for each choice, and undo it. It uses your rules, not AI.
Works with
Questions
Do staff see the rota before it's published?
No. Shifts stay as drafts that only managers see until you publish them.
How do staff find out about their shifts?
Publishing sends each person one message, and their shifts appear in the staff app and their phone's calendar. Later changes only tell the people affected.
Can staff swap shifts?
Yes. They can give a shift away or swap it; it goes to whoever accepts first, then to a manager to approve by default.
Does the rota check working-time rules?
Yes: rest between shifts, weekly rest, the 48-hour average, breaks over 6 hours and young-worker limits. Managers can override a warning with a reason.
Can I see what the rota will cost?
Yes. Planned hours and labour cost per day use your pay rules, and you can set a weekly budget per site.
Is attendance checked against the rota?
Yes. KiteClock compares clock-ins with published shifts, for example "Late · 9 min", while pay always uses the time actually clocked.
Free for up to 10 people
Every feature, not a trial, no card needed. Bigger team? Try everything free for 14 days, or book a demo.