Guides ยท 2026-06-24

How auto-scheduling builds a fair rota for your team

It's the part of the week most charge nurses dread. The spreadsheet is open, everyone's wishes are in your head, and you're trying to fit them all together without breaking a rest rule or leaving Saturday short. Sisu Shift can do that first draft for you, and keep it fair.

You still decide. The app just stops you starting from a blank grid. Your team marks the shifts they want, the app builds a rota that fits the rules, and you review it before anyone sees it.

The round, step by step

Auto-scheduling runs as a "round." A round is just one scheduling cycle for one stretch of dates. Here's how one goes:

  1. You open a round. Pick the start and end dates for the rota, and a deadline for preferences. Your team gets the prompt to fill theirs in.
  2. Everyone marks their shifts. On each day, each person taps a shift to mark it want, can, or cannot. "Want" means please give me this, "cannot" means please don't.
  3. You tap generate. The app reads everyone's preferences and the team's rules, then drafts a full rota.
  4. You review it. See the whole schedule, by day or by nurse, before anything is saved. If it isn't right, you discard it and try again.
  5. You publish. Happy with it? Publish, and the shifts land in everyone's calendar.

What's doing the work

Behind the generate button is a solver. That's software that looks at every shift, every person, and every rule at the same time, and finds an arrangement that fits. A spreadsheet makes you place one shift, then check it didn't break another. The solver weighs them all at once.

The rules it won't break

Some rules are hard. The app will not hand you a draft that breaks them:

  • Rest between shifts, so nobody is rostered back to back without enough of a gap.
  • Weekly hours, so the draft doesn't push anyone into overtime.
  • How many days in a row someone can work.
  • Approved time off, which stays off.
  • No double shifts on one day, and never more people on than a slot needs.

These caps follow Finnish working-time rules, and they're set per team. So a unit with its own agreement can match its own numbers.

The wishes it tries to honour

Other things aren't pass-or-fail. They're wishes the app tries to balance:

  • The shifts people said they want.
  • An even spread, so the total isn't piled on one person.
  • Weekend fairness, so the same nurse isn't always working Saturday.
  • Not stacking too many nights on one person in a row.

When two wishes pull against each other, the app leans toward the fair split. And if it ever has to override a "cannot" to keep a shift covered, it tells you, so you can have that conversation with the person yourself.

You stay in charge

Nothing is final until you publish. The draft is a starting point, not a verdict. You can move a shift, hand one to someone else, or discard the whole thing and generate again. The app does the heavy fitting. You make the call.

Try it with your team's next rota. Download Sisu Shift.