---
title: "Schedule staff for the week"
description: "Build the weekly staff schedule, copy last week's shifts, check next week's ratios, and catch anyone booked into two rooms at once."
type: guide
updated: 2026-10-11
canonical_url: https://help.nestlicare.com/owners/staff/staff-scheduling
roles: ["super_admin", "center_admin"]
platforms: [web]
---
The **Schedule** (under **Staff & Time → Schedule**) is where you build the weekly staff schedule: who works which room, and when.

<VideoEmbed
  src="staff-explained"
  title="Staff and time, explained: the schedule, timesheets and time off (narrated, 3 minutes)"
  captions={false}
/>

## Build the week

1. Go to **Staff & Time → Schedule**.
2. Pick the center with the center picker, and the week with **Previous** and **Next**.
3. The page opens on **Week → Simple**: one row per staff member, one column per day.
4. Click **Copy last week** to repeat last week's shifts on the same weekdays, with the same times, rooms and staff. Shifts already on this week are kept.
5. Click **Add Schedule** to add or change a shift from any view.
6. Staff can see shifts as soon as you add them. When the week looks right, click **Notify staff** to tell everyone it's ready.

### Other layouts

Switch between **Day** and **Week**, and between **Simple** and **Advanced**:

- **Week → Advanced** shows rooms, ratios, children and weekly hours.
- **Day → Advanced** has a time axis. Drag people from the available-staff panel onto a room to schedule them.
- **Day** view has **Today** and **Print** buttons, and the arrows move one day at a time.

## Double-bookings are flagged, not blocked

If you schedule someone into two rooms whose times overlap, the shift is still created, but it is marked. The chip on the board carries a warning, and hovering it says the person cannot be in both places. You also get a warning at the moment you create it.

This matters because a genuine split shift and a double-booking draw identically on the board: one person in two rooms, one after the other, looks the same as one person in two rooms at the same time. Only the second one inflates their hours and credits them to two rooms in your ratios, which is a licensing problem.

The flag appears on existing shifts too, not just new ones, so a double-booking already sitting in next week's schedule surfaces the first time you look.

<Callout kind="info" title="Why we warn instead of refusing">
Sometimes an overlap is deliberate: a fifteen-minute handover, or one person covering two rooms through a quiet hour. You know your building. What you cannot do is spot it by eye, so we point at it and leave the decision to you.
</Callout>

## Check next week's ratios, half an hour at a time

In **Week** view, the **Ratio check** above the grid opens on **next week**, while there is still time to move somebody. It walks every room through the center's open hours in half-hour steps and compares the children expected with the staff scheduled.

- The summary line says either that every room is covered, or how many short spots there are.
- Each short spot names the room, the day and the times, and how many more staff it needs, for example *Sunshine Room, Wed 3:30 to 6:00 PM, 1 more staff needed*. Click it to open that day in the schedule.
- **Show each half hour** draws a strip per room per day. Red is short, amber means more children than the room holds, and grey means no children are expected.
- Use the arrows to check other weeks.

How it counts:

- **Children** come from each child's weekly schedule (the days they attend), across the center's opening hours. Half-day children count in their half only: mornings until noon, afternoons from noon.
- **Staff** count only for the times on their shift, and only when the shift covers the whole half hour. Someone leaving at 3:45 does not cover 3:30 to 4:00. Approved leave takes them off; pending leave does not.
- A shift with no room counts in the person's home room. Shifts marked as admin or training count in no room.
- Home-room teachers with **no shift** that day are not counted. The panel lists them so you can add their shift.
- Rooms that are [linked to share staff](/owners/centers/link-rooms-that-share-staff) are checked together, using the limits you set for the link.
- A room with no children-per-staff number set is skipped, and the panel says which.
- Times are the center's own time zone, wherever you are looking from.

## Leave shows up on the board

Anyone with approved leave shows as on leave on the roster for those days, so you can see the gap before you try to fill the shift. You can also log leave from here with the **Staff Leave** button, while you are looking at the week it affects. See [Approve staff leave requests](/owners/staff/leave-requests).

## Home room vs scheduled shifts

A staff member's **home room** (set on their staff record) is the room they start in by default. It doesn't limit which children they can see. The Schedule is about **shifts**: which room they're covering at a given time. The two work together, so a teacher can have a home room and still be scheduled to cover another room for an afternoon.

## Troubleshooting

**Staff don't see their schedule.** Check they're active staff at the right center, and that they're looking at the right week. There is no draft state to release — a shift is visible to the person working it as soon as you add it. **Notify staff** sends a push telling them to look; it does not control what they can see.

**Someone isn't in the available panel.** Check that they're active staff at the selected center.

**Someone's week shows far more hours than they work.** Look for an overlap warning on their shifts. Two overlapping shifts on one day count twice.

**I can't schedule anyone into a center.** Check whether the center is archived. Archived centers accept no new shifts. See [Archive or delete a center](/owners/centers/archive-or-delete-a-center).

Related: [See your schedule](/teachers/timesheets/see-your-schedule) (what staff see), [Assign staff to a room](/owners/staff/assign-to-a-room).