We've made RotaBee easy to use by dividing it into separate areas, each of which does a different job.

You start by telling RotaBee how your ward works in the Settings screen. You'll define each type of shift in this screen.

In the Staff screen, you'll put in details of each member of staff. You'll enter their names and contact details, grade, PIN, work preferences... in short, you'll tell RotaBee everything it needs to know to help you create your Off-Duty - everything you have to bear in mind when you're doing the job using a pencil and paper. And because we use a secure server, you can be sure that these details will be kept private.

In the Workload screen, you'll tell RotaBee all it needs to know about the skill mix you need in the ward - how many staff, what grade, when they are needed, and so on. RotaBee will use this information to help you to create a balanced Off-Duty rota.

Phew! Well, RotaBee is now set up to use. Of course, you can return to any of the above screens at any time to change your set-up - for example, to add a new member of staff. But most of the time you'll be using the main RotaBee screen: Rotabuild.

The Rotabuild screen

The RotaBuild screen uses a two-week view to show you each member of staff. When you go into the screen, you'll load requests that have been entered by your staff, either using their own login or by the ward administrator. You can accept or decline these requests. Also, any fixed shifts or rotas are automatically loaded - though you can make changes to these if you need to.

Once you've dealt with requests, you use the shift selector to allocate shifts to your staff. As you do this, RotaBee will keep track of the hours worked by each staff member and the skill mix for each shift. Handy pop-up features help you to keep track of which shifts your staff worked in previous weeks, each person's preferences, etc. A "traffic light" at the top of each day's column will warn you if you are under staffed, or if you have the wrong skill mix - and RotaBee will show you what you need to do to fix the problem.

If you need to see more detail, Rotabuild can use different views to see one day, six hours, or just one person. And once you've created the Off-Duty, you can return to Rotabuild at any time to make changes.

Finally, the Reports screen will help you to produce neat print-outs for your hospital's administrators.

You can see that the RotaBee system hasn't taken any control away from you. The idea of clicking a single button to produce a fair, balanced rota is, of course, just fantasy, and we don't pretend that RotaBee will do that. But we seriously think that all the help that RotaBee gives you will cut the time you spend organising your Off-Duty in half - and the ward sisters who've tried it so far will agree!

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