FAQ
Asked and answered
Everything schedulers and doctors have asked so far. If yours is missing, the contact page reaches a human.
Adopting
Can we keep our spreadsheet?
Yes. Medrota imports your existing workbooks to backfill history and exports every month back in the exact format your department already reads: same columns, same colours, bold sessions, D marks, the footer notes. The noticeboard never has to know.
How long does setup take?
An afternoon for the department itself: staff with their flags, night groups, the post template, holidays and the two cycle anchors. Importing the archive is an upload per month with a dry-run check on each.
Our rules are not identical to the ones described. Can they change?
The daily post template, working hours, weekend behaviour per post, holidays, capability lists, night-group membership and the request window day are all data you edit. The construction logic encodes the common shape: rotations, a base week, premium marking, open sessions.
What does it cost?
Founding departments run free while the first cohort onboards, then one flat rate per department with everything included. The pricing page has the reasoning.
The engine
What if the engine gets something wrong?
You overrule it. Every cell is editable with warnings rather than refusals, your edits lock so regeneration cannot trample them, and the generation report shows exactly which requests were honored, partial or declined and why. The engine drafts; the scheduler decides.
How do the night groups and senior rotation carry over?
From anchors: you tell Medrota once which group owned which week and which senior held SR call, and every future month continues both cycles. The anchors are editable when the department restructures.
How are D1 and D2 applied?
Per person per week: the sixth distinct working day is marked D1 and the seventh D2, matching the premium rules. Hours beyond the 40-hour base become bold paid sessions, preferring the shifts departments actually pay premiums on: holidays, weekends, nights and the late tier.
Is generation random?
No. A draft is deterministic for its inputs and seed. Regenerating with the same inputs gives the same answer; changing the seed explores a different balance, and locked cells stay put either way.
Day to day
Do doctors need another password?
No. The scheduler adds a doctor with their email; they sign in through a one-time emailed link that lasts 20 minutes and starts a 30-day session on their phone.
What happens when someone calls in sick mid-month?
They report the absence against their shift. The scheduler is notified, the seat is flagged, and one click reopens it as a claimable session or reassigns it. Everything lands in the audit log.
How do trades work?
A doctor proposes a give-up or a swap. For swaps the counterpart accepts first. Nothing changes on the rota until the scheduler approves, and then both cells update together.
Who can claim an open session?
Anyone eligible: capability is checked for restricted posts and the claim is refused if it would overlap a shift they already hold. First eligible claim wins; the scheduler is notified and can revert.
Can two schedulers work at once?
Yes. Cell edits are versioned, so a stale write is rejected with a refresh instead of silently overwriting the other person's change.