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Rotas · Leave · Attendance

Calm control for your team’s rotas. Plan with clarity

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Plan the week, handle changes in seconds

Rotas

Drag shifts onto a weekly or monthly grid with hours and cost in view. Everything stays a draft until you publish, then staff see their week on their phone and can claim open shifts.

See rotas

Inside the workspace

  • Weekly rota
  • Monthly rota
  • Open shifts
  • Copy week
  • Draft to publish
  • Labour cost per day
  • Leave ledger
  • Sickness and TOIL
  • Availability patterns
  • 20-second QR clock-in
  • Monthly attendance sheet
  • Payroll lock
  • Scheduled vs actual
  • CSV export
  • API
  • Signed webhooks
  • Multi-location
  • Pay rates
  • Weekly-hour limits

Who is it for?

Any employer that runs shifts, at one site or many. Managers plan the week, staff check it on their phones, and everyone clocks in at the workplace.

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Rotas

How do shifts get planned?

Managers build the week in a grid and publish it. Staff see published shifts on their phones and can claim the open ones.

Drag and drop on a weekly or monthly grid

Move shifts between people and days. Role stripes show who is doing what. Hours and labour cost update per day, per employee and per week.

ShiftForest rota week view with open shifts, and published and draft shifts for each person (demo data)

Draft first, then publish

Saving or editing a shift leaves it as a draft. Staff only see it once you publish, and they can acknowledge it.

Week 45 with 19 published and 22 draft shifts, a published and a draft shift, and a Publish 22 button (demo data)

Open shifts staff can claim

Leave a shift unassigned and employees can pick it up. Drop and swap requests need a manager’s approval.

Rota with an open Front of house shift above the shifts of two managers (demo data)

Copy last week

Copy a week forward, then change what is different. Export any week to CSV.

Rota toolbar with the copy menu open: Copy current week to next week, and Export this rota (demo data)

Overlaps, leave clashes and long weeks get flagged

A shift that overlaps another or lands on approved leave fails validation. Weekly-hours warnings show who is over their limit.

Weekly hours for each employee against their limit, with Sophie Chen 5 hours over and Mia Patel 6 hours over (demo data)

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Leave and availability

How does leave work?

Employees request time off. Managers review the impact on approved balances and check the rota for clashes. Calendar coverage and contractual deductions are shown separately.

One ledger per person

Holiday, sickness, TOIL and additional leave, with monthly totals and what is left. Export to CSV when payroll asks.

Leave ledger with each employee’s allowance, days used and remaining, a column per month and 2 pending requests (demo data)

Request, approve or deny

Requests reach the manager as a pending notification. One decision, recorded against the ledger.

Request leave form on a phone: holiday from Mon 9 Nov to Wed 11 Nov, 3 of 22 remaining days, and a Send request button (demo data)

Availability, month by month

Employees mark themselves available or unavailable, all day or for set hours, and can repeat a weekday pattern. Managers see it while planning.

Mia Patel’s availability calendar with Saturdays and Sundays unavailable all day, repeating (demo data)

Clashes are caught at approval

Leave cannot be approved over a scheduled shift. Move the shift first.

Conflict with a scheduled shiftFri 18 Sept · 09:00–17:00 · Riverside Café
Illustration

Staff do it from their phone

Employees open ShiftForest in their phone’s browser to check shifts and request leave. There is nothing to install.

ShiftForest on a phone: today’s published shift with a Clock in on site button, leave left and the week’s shifts (demo data)

See leaveBook a demo

Attendance

How does clock-in stop buddy punching?

A tablet at the workplace shows a QR code that changes every 20 seconds. Staff scan it with their own phone, on the workplace Wi-Fi. The server records the time.

A QR code that expires every 20 seconds

The workplace terminal shows a code signed on the server. A photo of it sent to a friend is useless a few seconds later.

Clock-in QR code inside a countdown ring with 16 seconds remaining; it refreshes every 20 seconds (illustrative code)Clock-in screen on a phone: QR verified at Riverside Café, server time 08:56, the 09:00 to 17:00 shift and a Clock in button (demo data)

20 s

A new code every 20 seconds, signed server-side.

Only on your workplace Wi-Fi

The phone has to be on your workplace Wi-Fi. A scan from anywhere else is refused.

Terminal instructions: Workplace Wi-Fi required, then connect to workplace Wi-Fi, scan the live QR, choose and confirm

Server time, not phone time

Timestamps come from the server. Late arrivals and breaks are recorded against the scheduled shift.

Timesheet rows with clock-in, clock-out and break times, the second one marked 4 min late (demo data)

Corrections are marked as corrections

A manager can fix a missed clock-out. The record says it was adjusted by hand.

In 09:00QR verified
Out 17:02Manual adjustment
Illustration

A PIN terminal for sites without the QR check

The older terminal takes a six-digit PIN and locks after five failed attempts. Sites that enforce the Wi-Fi check use the QR code instead.

Once

Each QR code can be used once per person. A reused code is rejected.

A monthly sheet you approve and lock

Scheduled next to recorded, for every person. Approve the records, then lock the payroll period. Manual edits are blocked once the period is locked.

Alex Morgan’s November timesheet with scheduled and recorded times, QR verified checks and an Approve 4 records button (demo data)

Who is in, right now

The dashboard shows who is late, clocked in, on break and clocked out today.

Dashboard showing who is at work with shift progress rings, one person on a break and one late, and members’ status (demo data)

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Will it work with what we already use?

Yes. Export anything to CSV, or connect your own systems through the API.

API and integrations

Integration settings with the API address, a Create key form and a shift webhook form (demo data)

Switching from RotaCloud?

We import your shifts, workers, locations and roles for you, with their IDs preserved. Create a new API key and point your integrations at api.shiftforest.com.

How switching works

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Is our data safe?

Every row belongs to one company, and the database enforces that, not just the app.

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  • Each company’s data is separated in the database itself
  • Employees never see colleagues’ pay
  • Managers only see their own locations
  • Approvals and clock-ins are checked on our servers, not in the browser
  • API keys are stored hashed
  • HTTPS everywhere

Getting started

How fast can we be live?

Three steps. The only hardware is a tablet for the clock-in terminal.

    • Add locations and people, or we import them from RotaCloud for you
    • Set pay rates and weekly hour limits
    • We set up logins for your managers and staff
    • Build the week, copy it forward, publish
    • Staff see their shifts on their phones and claim open ones
    • Leave requests arrive in the app, not by text
    • A tablet on the wall shows the 20-second QR code
    • The first monthly attendance sheet is approved and locked
    • Hours and cost reports by location and role
Day 1: people and locations in.

Book a demo

How do we get a demo?

Tell us how big the team is. We will show you ShiftForest set up for a team like yours.

Compare plans and worker capacity

  • Weekly rota
  • Monthly rota
  • Open shifts
  • Copy week
  • Draft to publish
  • Labour cost per day
  • Leave ledger
  • Sickness and TOIL
  • Availability patterns
  • 20-second QR clock-in
  • Monthly attendance sheet
  • Payroll lock
  • Scheduled vs actual
  • CSV export
  • API
  • Signed webhooks
  • Multi-location
  • Pay rates
  • Weekly-hour limits