Build the week once. Publish it in one go.

The roster shows a week by client and site, so you can see which posts are covered, or by person, so you can see who is doing what. Shifts nobody has been given sit in an Unassigned row until you fill them, and they can't be published empty.

Each shift carries a short note for the roster, instructions, the duties for the shift as a checklist, longer notes, and internal notes that only managers see. Staff see what they need on their phone.

• Times in 24-hour form, with overnight shifts handled
• Colours for draft, awaiting an answer, accepted, declined, on site, completed, late and missed
• Public holidays marked on the day
• For admins, the week's rostered hours, labour cost, charge to clients and margin
• A full-screen view for planning on a big monitor

Rostering mistakes are cheapest before staff hear about them. TDS Workforce Management won't give someone two shifts that overlap, won't put someone on a site whose required licences they don't hold, and won't roster someone over approved leave.

It warns, rather than blocks, when someone would get less than the minimum rest between shifts (eight hours unless you set your own), go over your weekly hours or days-in-a-row limits, or work outside the hours they usually do. Publishing skips any draft that breaks a hard rule and lists it, so the rest of the week still goes out.

When you publish, each person gets one email and one push notification listing their new shifts, not one message per shift. Changing or deleting a published shift asks first and tells the person. Clients who want it are emailed the shifts at their sites.

Staff accept or decline each shift from the app, with a reason if they decline. A decline goes straight to their manager by push and email, and the shift stays red on the roster until it's covered.

A shift nobody is on can be offered to staff: a manager's offer goes to their own team, an admin's to everyone. Each of them who is free, holds the site's licences and isn't on leave gets a push and can claim it from the app; you approve one claim and the shift is published to them. Staff can also offer one of their own shifts to a teammate, who accepts before their manager approves, and the roster's own checks run on every change.

To fill a week quickly, Fill unassigned gives each empty shift to the best suggested person with nothing to warn about. The shifts stay drafts, so you check them before anyone hears.

Your team already lives on WhatsApp, so notifications go there too. Staff who opt in get their new shifts, changes, open shifts and missed clock-in reminders on WhatsApp as well as by email and push. Managers can also share offered shifts to the team's WhatsApp group in one tap, with the day, times, site and a link to claim them.

Most rosters look like last week's. Copy a day or a week, from one site or the whole roster, to the next week, a chosen week, or each of the next one to eight weeks. Choose the days, whether to keep the same people, and what to do when someone is already booked.

Copies are always drafts. Anything that would repeat a shift already on the roster, land on an inactive site or fall in a finalised payroll month is skipped and listed with the reason.