Weeksort or a spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is where most rotas start, and it is genuinely good at the grid. What it cannot do is know anything about the people whose names are in it.
What the spreadsheet costs
The rules live in your head, so every week is rebuilt from memory: who can close, who is studying, who asked for Saturday off a month ago, who legally cannot open after closing. The file objects to none of it, so a mistake is found by the person it lands on.
There is no version that is obviously the current one — only the newest copy somebody happens to have. A person who was told about a change in passing and then forgot has no way to check, and a person who was never told cannot know there was anything to check.
The same week, both ways
| What happens in a week | In a spreadsheet | In Weeksort |
|---|---|---|
| Somebody needs the current version | In a spreadsheetWhoever holds the newest file is the authority, and the printout by the till is older than the copy in the chat. | In WeeksortThere is one week. Publishing is the moment it becomes the one everybody reads, and it is the same week on every phone. |
| A person cannot work on Thursday | In a spreadsheetThey tell you, and it stays told only for as long as you remember it. | In WeeksortThey mark it themselves before the week is built, and it is on the screen while you fill the slots. |
| Somebody is not trained for the position | In a spreadsheetA grid holds names, not skills, so nothing about the cell looks wrong. | In WeeksortA position lists the qualifications it requires, and only the people who hold all of them are eligible for it. |
| The week breaks a rest rule | In a spreadsheetNothing objects. You find out when somebody opens the morning after closing. | In WeeksortWeeksort warns you before you publish, names the gap and the minimum, and still lets you decide. |
| A shift moves after everyone has seen it | In a spreadsheetYou send the file round again and hope the right people open it. | In WeeksortOnly the people whose shifts changed are told, and what they are told is what moved. |
What Weeksort does not do about it
It is not a time clock and it does not calculate pay, so the hours in it are scheduled hours and nothing more. And it does not take the week off you: every rule is a warning, every assignment is yours, and a proposal stays a proposal until you commit it.
Keep the spreadsheet anyway
Every week downloads as a spreadsheet — a wall roster of people against days, a flat list of shifts, and per-person hours — and the work-records report does the same over any range you ask for. If a spreadsheet is where your own filing wants the week, it is one download away.