Spreadsheet, rota software or automatic rota generation?
Three ways to build a staff rota, and they are not three grades of the same thing. A spreadsheet records decisions you make. Rota software gives you a better place to make them. Automatic generation makes the first draft for you, from the rules you set. This page is for working out which one your week actually needs — and we say so knowing that we give the spreadsheet away.
The question is who makes the decisions.
Not how modern the tool looks. Each step up moves a decision from the manager's head into the system — and each one asks for a bit more setup in return.
- LEVEL 1
Spreadsheet
- Who decides
- You. Every shift is a decision you make and type in.
- What the tool does
- Records the decisions and displays the week. Adds the hours up, if it is built well.
- Best when
- A small team, a stable pattern, one manager who holds the whole picture in their head.
- Stops being enough when
- When availability, leave, contracts and training live in more places than the sheet, and every change means checking them all again.
- LEVEL 2
Rota software
- Who decides
- Mostly you, in a better place to do it — with the team's availability and leave beside the grid.
- What the tool does
- Centralises the rota: publishing to staff, availability and leave requests, changes, often timesheets and clocking. Automation depth varies by product.
- Best when
- The team is big enough that publishing, requests and changes are the pain, and the manager still wants to place the shifts.
- Stops being enough when
- When the week itself is the hard part — coverage against demand, contracts that must add up, rules that must hold — and a nicer grid does not solve it.
- LEVEL 3what RotaBot does
Automatic generation
- Who decides
- The solver proposes; you review, adjust and publish. Nothing reaches staff until you say so.
- What the tool does
- Takes your requirements, availability, approved leave, roles, contracts and rules, and builds a whole week against all of them — or lists what it could not cover, and why.
- Best when
- Demand changes through the day and week, contracts and casual hours mix, training decides who can do what, and building the rota by hand is an evening every week.
- Stops being enough when
- It does not stop; it changes what your week is spent on. The setup it needs is real, and it is not free.
Where each one puts the work.
| Spreadsheet | Rota software | Automatic generation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who makes the scheduling decisions | You | You, with better information | The solver proposes; you decide |
| Where availability and leave live | Wherever you keep them | In the same system as the rota | As inputs the week is built around |
| Conflict checking | By eye | Alerts, in many products | Built in: an assignment that breaks a rule is never made |
| Publishing to staff | Print, photo, group chat | Publish, and in many products notify | Publish a reviewed week; staff open it in a browser |
| Coverage against demand | Your judgement | Your judgement, sometimes with a headcount view | Measured hour by hour against what you asked for |
| Automation | None | Varies: templates, copy-week, sometimes auto-scheduling | The whole week, in one press |
| Cost | Free | Per person or per site, per month, typically | Sold through a demonstration |
"Rota software" here means the category, not one product. Automation depth genuinely varies: some products offer automatic scheduling of their own, most lead with a better grid. The comparison page names names.
A spreadsheet is a perfectly good rota.
For a small team it is familiar, flexible, free, and it prints. Most businesses start here and many should stay here for a while. We publish a free staff rota template that adds the hours up, precisely because it is the right tool for a lot of weeks.
What it is good at
Showing the week. Being changed the moment you need to. Costing nothing. Being understood by everybody, including the person who has to cover a shift at short notice.
What it cannot see
Whether the person you typed in is available, on leave, trained for that job, inside their contracted hours or over a shift limit. All of that lives in your head, or in three other places.
Where the time goes
Not into typing — into checking. Every change re-opens every other decision: move one shift and the hours, the coverage and somebody's day off all have to be looked at again.
It stops being enough when
The checking takes longer than the rota, mistakes reach the floor before they reach you, or the person who holds the whole picture in their head is on holiday.
Rota software moves the admin, not the thinking.
A dedicated rota app or rota system puts the rota, the team's availability, leave requests, publishing and often timesheets in one place. That is a real improvement, and for many teams it is the whole answer. Many rota platforms primarily give managers a better environment in which to build and manage schedules; automation depth varies by product — some offer automatic scheduling, most lead with the grid.
What it centralises
The rota itself, staff availability, holiday requests and approvals, publishing and notifications, changes after publishing, and in many products clocking and timesheets.
What usually stays with you
Deciding who works when. The software shows you the constraints — or warns you after the fact — but placing the shifts so that coverage, contracts and rules all hold is still the manager's job in most products.
Best when
Publishing, requests and changes are the pain, the team is spread across sites or phones, and the manager is happy to keep building the week by hand in a better tool.
It stops being enough when
The week itself is the hard part: trading hours that move, contracted and casual hours that must both add up, training that decides who can do what. A tidier grid does not solve a scheduling problem.
Automatic generation builds the draft from your rules.
Instead of a canvas you place shifts on, an automatic rota generator takes what the week needs and what each person can do, and calculates a week that satisfies all of it at the same time. This is what RotaBot does, and it is the only one of the three levels that changes what the manager's time is spent on.
What goes in
Staffing requirements as blocks inside each day; each person's availability; approved leave; the roles they are trained for; contracted hours, caps and maximum shift length; the shifts that never move; the rules that make a shift legal.
What comes out
A whole week built against all of those rules together, with coverage measured against your own requirements and everybody's hours against their contract. When a week cannot be fully covered, RotaBot lists each uncovered stretch — the day, the role or area, the times, how many short — and the reason the solve established: nobody holds the role, on approved leave, not available, or already at a limit.
What stays yours
The rules. A shift RotaBot chooses for itself is never outside somebody's availability, on their approved leave, in a role they do not hold, or past their shift-length and days-a-week limits — and none of those is something the solver may change to make a week fit. Contracted hours are a target it is heavily penalised for missing. The review, the edits and the decision to publish are yours; nothing reaches staff until you say so.
And what it learns
The difference between the rota it generated and the one you published is kept. A fix you make across three published weeks is put to you to confirm; confirmed, it informs future solves as a preference — small enough to choose between weeks the rules already allow, never large enough to break one.
Use the simplest thing that holds your week.
- one manager holds the whole picture and it fits in their head
- the pattern barely changes week to week
- availability and leave are a conversation, not a system
- you want something today, for nothing
- publishing, requests and changes are where the time goes
- you want staff on their phones, not on a group chat
- you are happy to keep placing the shifts yourself
- timesheets and clocking matter as much as the rota
- demand changes through the day and across the week
- contracted and casual hours both have to add up
- training decides who can cover what
- the rota costs you an evening a week, or more
Level three, honestly described.
RotaBot is an automatic rota generator with the rota software around it: availability and leave held as solve inputs, publishing, timesheets, and a rota page staff open in a browser. It is not free, it needs a real setup, and it is sold through a demonstration rather than a sign-up form.
It will tell you no
Some weeks cannot be covered legally with the people you have. RotaBot names the hour and the reason rather than quietly reporting a percentage, and it never puts somebody on a shift they are not available or not trained for to make the number look better.
It does not forecast your trade
You tell it what each hour needs. It does not read your till or guess your footfall. If your staffing requirement is wrong, the rota will cover the wrong requirement perfectly.
It is not a form you fill in
Roles, people, contracts, availability and demand have to exist before there is anything to solve. That setup is real work, and the setup guide walks through every step of it so you can judge the effort before you start.
Ready to see the third level on your own week?
Tell us how your site trades and who works there, and we will show you the same week generated — gaps, reasons and all.