Purpose
A roster period is a defined block of time, during which staff schedules are planned, approved, and published. It provides a structured framework for managing shifts, leave, and staffing levels to ensure safe and effective service delivery. When administering your roster on a day-to-day basis, you may need to create a new roster period. This could be for a new rotation, or because your required pattern is changing etc. This guide covers the steps to create a new roster period.
Creating a New Roster Period
- Open your roster, click the roster ellipsis at the top to open the roster menu, and select 'New Roster Period'.
- Complete the first stage of the form by entering a name and the start/end dates for your new roster period. Click ‘Next’.
Top Tip! Ensure your roster periods are concurrent. The system will prevent you from creating a new roster period if there’s a gap between the end of the previous period and the start of the new one.
Top Tip! You can choose to end the current roster period early. If any dates overlap, you’ll be notified.
- Next, choose a rota pattern. You can do this in one of 3 ways:
- Continue with the existing pattern – Select ‘New or Existing Rota’, then tick ‘Use Existing’.
- Choose a new NHS At Work rota pattern - Select ‘Rota Library’, then find and tick the pattern to be used.
- Import a new pattern – Select ‘New or Existing Rota’, tick the ‘Upload’ checkbox, click ‘Choose file’ and find your rota pattern, then click ‘Upload’.
Top Tip! You can only import a new pattern if it’s downloaded from the Allocate system, and if no changes have been made to the downloaded copy. If you need to make any changes, these need to be made before they are exported.
- Click 'Next' to proceed.
- Type or select the default normal working day hours, then click ‘Next’.
- Tick the medics who will be continuing into this roster period, then click ‘Submit’. If you don’t know at this point, you can click ’Skip’ and assign the appropriate medics to the rota code later - See the 'Assigning a Rota Code' guide.
Version 1.0 - Approved 24/11/2025