Each area has its own Rota settings for clock-in, budget and staffing rules. Open the area's Rota, then choose Settings. Only a area moderator can change these; everyone else sees a read-only lock screen.
Many controls offer Use organisation default — leave them on that to inherit the realm-wide value, or pick On / Off to set a specific rule for this person. Press Save settings when done.
Clock-in & location
Require staff to be on-site to clock in — turns on a geofence. Enter the Site latitude and Site longitude (or tap Use my current location) and the Allowed distance from that point (metres).
Require a photo at clock-in — On, Off, or inherit the organisation default.
Lateness grace (minutes) — how late a clock-in can be before it's flagged; blank inherits the default.
Earliest clock-in (minutes before the shift starts; 0 = no limit) — blocks clocking in too early.
Round worked time to (minutes) and Rounding direction — for tidier timesheets.
Budget
Weekly labour budget cap (£) and Daily labour budget (£) — spend caps for this area, shown against the live cost bar.
Let non-admin staff on this area see labour costs — reveals cost figures to ordinary members.
Staffing
Funded/commissioned hours per week — the contracted hours, used in coverage and revenue figures.
Required support ratio — e.g. 1:1 or 2:1.
Require staff to match the shift's skills and Require staff to have valid certificates — On, Off, or inherit.
Required competencies
Tick the skills and certificates a carer must hold to be scheduled for this person. When skill matching or valid certificates is on, carers without these (or with an expired certificate) can't be scheduled here. The list comes from your Skill types catalogue — add them in Settings → Staff Rota → Skills & training first if it's empty.
Preferred & excluded carers
Set continuity of care. Preferred carers are surfaced first in cover broadcasts and flagged in the builder — they aren't forced. Excluded carers are hard-blocked: they can't be assigned, clock in, pick up cover or be swapped onto this person's shifts. Saving an exclusion also removes that carer from any upcoming shifts for this person. Use exclusions for safeguarding or a documented incompatibility.
Shift requests
Decide whether Swaps, Drops and Cover pickups need a manager's approval for this person, or inherit the organisation default.
Funding (admins only)
Admins see a Funding card: pick the Funder / commissioner and an optional Charge rate override (£/hr). Leave the override blank to use the funder's default rate. This drives the revenue forecast. Manage funders and rates on the Funders page.
- 1Open the area's Rota, then choose Settings.
- 2Under Clock-in & location, set the geofence, photo, lateness and rounding rules (or leave them inheriting the organisation default).
- 3Set the Weekly and Daily labour budget caps under Budget.
- 4Enter the Funded/commissioned hours per week and Required support ratio under Staffing.
- 5Tick the Required competencies a carer must hold for this person.
- 6Add any Preferred carers and, if needed, Excluded carers.
- 7Choose whether shift requests need approval for this person.
- 8If you're an admin, set the Funder / commissioner and any charge-rate override.
- 9Press Save settings.
- Leave a control on **Use organisation default** wherever you don't need a special rule — it keeps the realm-wide setting and updates automatically if you change the default later.
- Excluded always wins: if a carer is in both the preferred and excluded lists, they're blocked.
- Tap **Use my current location** while standing at the site to fill in the geofence coordinates accurately.