Quickstart: build your first roster

Set up your PlanMyRounds organisation, add staff and shift templates, then build and publish your first clinical roster in a few guided steps.

This guide takes you from a fresh PlanMyRounds account to your first published duty plan. Plan on about 10 minutes.

Prerequisites

• A PlanMyRounds account (sign up)
• Admin access to your organisation (only admins can create shifts and rosters)
• Your team of doctors added under Users
• An idea of the shift pattern you run (e.g. Morning OPD 08:00–17:00, Night Cover 20:00–08:00)

Steps

1. Add your team

   Go to Users in the sidebar and invite the doctors who will be on duty. For each user set:

   • Role — admin or doctor
   • Seniority — senior or junior (used by the scheduler for senior-to-junior ratios)
   • Department / pod (optional) — makes team selection faster later

   Add a few extra doctors as a buffer. It gives the engine room to balance workload fairly and absorb absences.

2. Create your custom shifts

   Go to Shifts in the sidebar. PlanMyRounds ships with default shifts, but you’ll usually want a few custom ones tailored to your department.

   Select Create New Shift and fill in:

   • Shift Name — e.g. Morning OPD, Night ICU Cover
   • Start Time and End Time (overnight shifts that cross midnight are handled automatically)
   • Required Doctors — minimum headcount per day
   • Minimum Seniors Required — seniority floor for the shift

   See Creating shifts for recovery-time overrides and other options.

3. Approve any leave for the period

   The scheduling engine only respects leave that is Approved before generation starts. Pending requests are ignored.

   Go to Leave and approve (or reject) any outstanding requests covering your roster dates. See Approval workflow.

4. Open the duty plan wizard

   Go to Duty Plans in the sidebar and select Create New Plan. The wizard walks you through four steps:

   1. Period and details — pick a Start Date and End Date (use the Next Week / Next Month quick buttons), and optionally name the plan (e.g. Cardiology — June 2026).
   2. Shift configuration — choose which shifts to include and how many doctors each one needs per day. Apply one pattern to every day, or use different patterns for weekends / specific weekdays.
   3. Team selection — pick the doctors for this plan. Filter by department or pod. A live coverage check warns you if you don’t have enough doctors for the period.
   4. Scheduling rules — set max consecutive work days, minimum rest days per week, minimum rest hours between shifts, senior-to-junior ratios, and other constraints.

   See Creating a roster for full details on each step.

5. Generate

   Select Generate. The engine runs in the background and usually produces a Draft roster within a minute. You’re taken straight to the roster detail page.

   If generation Fails, it’s usually not enough doctors, rules that are too tight, or too much approved leave in the period. Adjust inputs and retry.

6. Review and publish

   Check coverage, workload distribution, and any flagged conflicts on the draft. When you’re happy, select Publish.

   The roster goes live, becomes visible to the whole team, and a shareable link is available. See Publishing a roster.

What’s next

Handle swaps and cover

Let doctors trade duties after the roster is published.

Edit a published roster

Make manual adjustments when real-world changes happen.

Understand the rules

Learn how work, rest, and fairness constraints shape the schedule.

How shifts work

Default vs custom shifts, recovery times, and the shift library.

Need help? Email [e-mail].