Staff scheduling for healthcare and care teams

Support workers, nursing and medical practice employees arriving at homes, clinics and facilities, where you need a clear record of who attended and when. Roster Flow rosters staff and records their hours. It does not manage client plans, NDIS claims or billing.

Start free See pricing

A support worker visiting a client at home

What makes care and support work hard to roster

The problems that come up in this trade whatever software you use, and what happens here instead.

Attendance is the recordLocation and photo checks are on by default, and every edit is recorded with a reason.

Availability drives the rosterWorkers keep their own hours current, and you get warned before double booking.

Leave has to be planned aroundApproved leave shows while you build the week, so you can see who is away before you roster a client visit.

Payroll must matchApproved hours only, sent to your payroll system unchanged.

The run changes at short noticeA visit moves, a client cancels, somebody picks it up instead. Republishing notifies the workers affected, and whoever covers can clock in unrostered so the hours are not lost.

Sleepovers and broken shiftsA 10pm to 7am shift counts as the hours it is rather than being split at midnight, and a morning and an evening for the same worker are two shifts with the gap between them unpaid.

What you get out of it

The parts of the week that stop taking your evening.

A record of each shiftClock in time, distance from the address and a photo if you require one, kept with the shift. Changes are recorded with a reason.

Corrections stay accountableRequested, reviewed and recorded with the reason, rather than changed in the background.

Visa hours limits are counted as you rosterHours limits and expiry dates your staff have recorded warn you while you are still building the week.

An audit question has an answerEach clock in keeps its time, the distance from the address and a photo where you require one; approved timesheets are locked; and every correction carries who made it and why.

The roster reads as who is whereEach house or site can be its own venue, so a coordinator sees the run rather than a column of names, and four visits in a day is four shifts instead of one long block.

A typical week, as an example

WeeklyRoster against current availability, and conflicts warn you.

Each visitClock in on arrival, with the distance from the address recorded.

OngoingCorrections are requested, reviewed and recorded with a reason.

Pay periodApprove, sync, and keep the audit trail.

A care worker helping an older woman with a cup of tea

A support worker bringing groceries to an older woman at home

What it is used for in care and support work

Specific things people in this trade do with it, rather than a list of modules.

A regular week copied forward, so the same worker keeps the same clients
Two or three short visits in one day for the same person, without paying the gaps
Each house or facility as a venue, with its own address and clock in radius
Location and a photo required at clock in, on by default for this kind of work
Sleepovers and night shifts rostered as one shift that crosses midnight
Leave and sick calls with a reason attached, approved before the week is built
An audit trail that can be read months later, in the order things happened
Approved hours to payroll, with claims and plans left to the systems that hold them

The morning run that lost a worker at seven

Fourteen support workers, four houses, a morning run of eleven visits.

The morning run that lost a worker at seven: when each thing happened, what happened, and what was done
When	What happens	What you do here
6:52am	A worker calls in sick with two morning visits.	The sick call is recorded with its reason, and both shifts are marked for cover.
7:05am	Somebody who supports the same person on Thursdays is free.	The shortlist puts her in it. Continuity is a choice you can make deliberately.
7:30am	She arrives at the first address.	Clock in at the door, with the distance from the house and a photo, both required here.
1:15pm	A visit runs 25 minutes over because a GP appointment ran late.	The difference sits against that shift for a coordinator to accept, with a note.
Friday	The fortnight is closed.	Corrections, approvals and who made them are all in one trail, readable in Settings.

Two covered visits, one overrun, and a record that answers questions asked in June about March.

The jobs that stop being jobs

Where the hours in a week like this go. No stopwatch: the left column is what the work takes without it, and the right is what is left of the same task.

Each job, the way it usually goes, and what it becomes here
The job	Usually	Here
Keeping a regular pattern	Rebuilding the same week, and losing continuity when somebody forgets	Copy the week forward and change only what moved
Knowing a visit happened	A signed sheet in a folder at the house	A clock in at the door, with distance and a photo where you require one
Covering a sick call at seven in the morning	A phone tree, and a client who finds out last	A shortlist of who is free, with the shift moved and republished
Explaining a correction later	A memory, and an email nobody can find	The reason recorded on the day, with the name of whoever decided
Getting a fortnight to payroll	Transcribing sheets twice and reconciling the difference	Approve each week as it ends, then send it

What the record shows, and what stays yours

Roster Flow keeps the record. Meeting the obligation is still the workplace's job, and these are the parts of it nothing here decides for you.

What is recorded, on the day it happens

Each visit as a shift, with where and when it was clocked
The distance from the address at clock in, and the photo where one is required
Sick calls and leave with the reason given at the time
Every correction and approval, in order, with the person who made it
The rostered and the worked hours side by side, per worker and per week

What is still yours to decide

NDIS or aged care obligations, including plans, claims and client records
Worker screening, police checks and qualifications, which are not held here
What a sleepover, a broken shift or travel between clients is paid
Deciding whether a location record is enough evidence for your own auditor

What has to be kept, and for how long, is set out by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Nothing here interprets an award or certifies that a workplace complies with one.

A roster checklist for care and support work

Checks worth running before a week is published. Where a rule applies, the check is to look it up in the award or agreement that covers your staff.

Cover every shift that cannot go empty before anything else
Check the break between an afternoon shift and an early start
Look up broken shift and sleepover rules in the award that applies
Keep a shortlist of who can cover at short notice
Check visa hours limits for students before publishing
Keep records of changes with the reason, for when they are asked about

Free templates and tools for care and support work

Support worker roster templateStaff shifts across several addresses, with sleepovers noted.24/7 roster templateDay, evening and night cover for every day of the week.Shift handover templateWhat the next shift needs to know, written down in one place.Shift pattern generatorA repeating pattern spread across teams from a start date, saved as CSV.

Questions people in care and support work ask

Does it manage staff-to-child ratios or qualifications?

No, and it is important to be plain about that. Roster Flow rosters people, records the hours they work and gets those hours to payroll; it does not hold qualifications, first aid expiry, police checks or ratio rules, and it will not tell you a room is short. Those stay in whatever you use now, and the roster is the shift pattern beside them.

Can it handle sleepovers and shifts that run past midnight?

Yes. A shift from 10pm to 7am is one shift and counts as the hours it is, rather than being split at midnight or read as an enormous early start. A broken shift, which is a morning and an evening for the same person, is two shifts on the day, with the gap unpaid.

Support workers visit clients at home. How is that rostered?

Each house or site can be a venue with its own clock in radius, so the roster reads as who is where, and each visit is clocked at the door with the distance from it recorded. One worker can have four visits in a day without the travel between them being paid time.

We are audited on hours. How good is the record?

Every clock in carries its time, the distance from the site and a photo where you require one; every correction carries who made it, when and why; and approved timesheets are locked. Three roles keep the approving separate from the working. It is a defensible record of hours worked, not a compliance system for the rest of your obligations.

Many of our support workers are on visas. Does it watch the hours limit?

Staff record their status, and where there is a fortnightly hours limit Roster Flow counts the fortnight and warns you before a shift takes somebody over. The details come from your staff, so it is a reminder at the moment you are rostering rather than a VEVO check.

A carer calls in sick at 6am and a client still needs covering. What then?

The sick call is recorded the moment it happens, and you get a shortlist of people who are free and usually on time. Whoever picks it up clocks in unrostered if the roster has not caught up, and it waits for your approval rather than going missing.