Publish the rota once and let it maintain itself. Describe your shifts and your team and Taskade Genesis builds a rostering app that publishes the week, collects availability in advance, lets staff request cover in one tap, and offers open shifts to everyone qualified before a gap becomes a crisis.
The Time Tracker is a live Taskade Genesis app on this page. It records hours against people, which is the foundation of a roster; press "Use this app" to clone it in about ten seconds, then add the shift records, the assignment, and the cover request flow described below.
Rostering fails in the gap between publishing and reality. The rota goes out on Thursday, three people have something come up over the weekend, and by Tuesday the manager is texting individuals one at a time. Turning cover into a request that broadcasts to the qualified pool removes the manager from the middle of every swap and fills most gaps within the hour.
What the build gives you: a shift record with date, time, role, location, and required skills. Plus staff records with availability, qualifications, and contracted hours, a published rota per week, a cover request that offers the shift to everyone qualified and free, a first-accept-wins claim, and hours totals per person so nobody quietly drifts over or under.
The same rota renders across the layouts you need:
- Calendar view for the published week, which is the version the team looks at
- Board view to move shifts through Draft, Published, Cover Needed, and Covered
- Table view for hours per person, open shifts, and unfilled roles
- Plus List, Mind Map, Gantt, and Org Chart across the rest of the 7 project views
Automations fill the gaps. A field update trigger on Cover Needed messages every qualified, available person and marks the first acceptance as the claim. A scheduled trigger publishes the rota, sends each person their own shifts, and chases anyone who has not submitted availability. A filter flags shifts still uncovered inside your warning window. Across 100+ bidirectional integrations, forms and Gmail pull availability in while SMS, Slack, and email push shifts and cover offers out. Automations run on paid plans; the Free plan includes 10 flow runs in total.
The AI agents in the app carry 34 built-in tools including persistent memory and multi-agent collaboration. The Rota agent drafts the week from your usual pattern and the availability submitted, flags shifts with no qualified person free, and spots the people picking up every cover request, which is usually the first sign of a burnout problem.
Qualifications on the shift are what makes the broadcast safe. A cover offer that goes to everyone including people who are not trained for that role creates more work than it saves, so the filter matters as much as the message. Keeping certifications and their expiry dates on the staff record means the app also warns you before someone drops out of the qualified pool.
Publishing early is the other half. A rota published two weeks out gets fewer cover requests than one published on Thursday for Monday, because people can plan around it. The app makes early publishing cheap by drafting from your usual pattern, so the only work left is the exceptions.
Clone the app, invite your team, and the rota is yours. Roles run from Owner through Viewer, so staff can claim a shift without editing anyone else's.
Learn recurring runs in Learn, field triggers in Learn, and calendar layouts in Learn. Browse live builds in the Community Gallery. Pair this with the home service visit scheduler if your staff are being scheduled onto jobs, and the room and equipment reservation prompt for the kit each shift needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do staff submit availability?
Through a simple form ahead of each rota period, and a scheduled automation chases anyone who has not. Availability lands on their record, so drafting the next rota starts from real constraints rather than guesses.
How does cover actually get filled?
The shift is offered to everyone qualified and available at once, and the first person to accept claims it. Broadcasting beats asking people one at a time, which is how most cover gaps turn into a whole evening of texting.
Can we stop someone claiming a shift they are not trained for?
Yes. Required skills sit on the shift and qualifications on the staff record, and the offer only goes to people who match. Certification expiry dates can also warn you before someone silently drops out of the pool.
Does it track hours against contracts?
Yes. Hours per person per period are a column, so you can see who is approaching their limit and who is under their contracted hours before payroll finds out for you.
Can staff see only their own shifts?
They can see the published rota and their own shifts highlighted. Roles run from Owner through Viewer, so a team member can claim cover without being able to edit the rota itself.
What about last-minute absence?
Marking a shift Cover Needed immediately triggers the broadcast, so the search starts within seconds of the phone call rather than after the manager finishes their current task.
Can we run several locations?
Yes. Location is a field on the shift, and cover offers can be limited to staff who work at that site or opened up to anyone willing to travel.
Does it help with planning the next rota?
Yes. Patterns of cover requests, unfilled shifts, and hours worked all sit in the same app, which tells you where your rota is structurally short rather than occasionally unlucky.
