Updated 2026-10-19 · 2 min read
At many veterinary clinics the team shares out the hours: one week the vet consults in the morning and the next in the afternoon, so there's always someone in and nobody is always stuck with the late shift. It's fair, but someone has to redo the rota every Monday, and the day it's forgotten, the appointment goes to someone who isn't there.
How it's set up, just once
In Team, on the Shifts tab, you create the shifts with their hours (for example, «Morning» from 9:00 to 14:00 and «Afternoon» from 16:00 to 20:30), say every how many weeks the cycle repeats and who's on mornings this week, and mark which shift each person does each week. Whoever doesn't rotate keeps their usual hours.
One-off changes are noted with their date: two vets swapping shifts, someone doing a full day. Before saving you see the next eight weeks, person by person: it's exactly what ClaudIA will offer.
What changes on its own every week
| Rota redone by hand | Rotating shifts | |
|---|---|---|
| The times the assistant offers | Those of whatever rota was entered, even last week's | Only the hours of each vet's shift that week |
| The calendar | You have to check the rota to know who's in | It shades out what isn't each person's |
| A shift swap between colleagues | The rota is redone and undone the next day | A one-day change, with its date |
| Holidays and absences | One more exception to remember | They take priority over the shift |
What isn't lost
Each person's weekly hours stay saved: if one day you switch shifts off, everyone goes back to their usual hours without setting anything up. Times reserved for emergencies keep working the same way. And ClaudIA reads the shifts when offering every appointment, at eleven at night too, and in the week nobody looked at the rota.
Questions clinics ask
How do I organise the vets' morning and afternoon shifts without changing the rota every week? With rotating shifts: you create the shifts once, say every how many weeks the cycle repeats and which shift each person does each week. The calendar and the times the assistant offers change on their own.
What happens if two vets swap shifts for a day? It's noted as a one-day change, with its date, one for each of them. That day the change applies and the next day the rotation returns.
Do holidays take priority over the shift? Yes. An absence always takes priority over the shift, so nobody gets appointments on a day they're not in.