FS-DOC-03Operations
Process Runbook / SOP
Staff Scheduling and Rostering
[YourCompany.com] · Operations Department · Prepared by FullSpec · [Today's Date]
This runbook is your operating guide for the automated Staff Scheduling and Rostering process. It tells you exactly what the automation handles each week, what you need to do (and when), how to respond if something goes wrong, and who to call for support. FullSpec has built and configured the full end-to-end workflow. Your team's role is limited to a single approval step each roster cycle. Keep this document accessible to whoever holds the Operations Manager role.
01Process overview
Each week, when a new scheduling period opens, the automation fires automatically. It sends availability requests to all active staff via Gmail, logs every response into a central Google Sheet, and triggers the Roster Drafting Agent to build a compliant draft schedule. Any conflicts or rule breaches are posted to the manager's Slack channel for review. Once the manager approves the draft, the roster is published to Deputy, staff receive personalised shift notifications via Slack and Gmail, and confirmed hours are exported to Xero at pay-period close. The manager's only task is to review and approve the flagged draft before it goes live. Everything else runs without manual input.
Process name
Staff Scheduling and Rostering
Trigger
Recurring weekly timer fires at the start of each scheduling period
Final output
Published Deputy roster, personalised staff shift notifications, and Xero timesheet entries ready for payroll
Agents running
Availability Collection Agent, Roster Drafting Agent, Roster Publication and Payroll Agent
Tools involved
Gmail, Google Sheets, Deputy, Slack, Xero, Google Calendar
Weekly volume
Approximately 4 roster cycles per month covering 8 to 25 staff
Human checkpoint
Manager reviews and approves the draft roster in Google Sheets or Deputy before publication
Process owner
Operations Manager
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FS-DOC-03Operations
02Step-by-step: what happens and who acts
What you actually need to do: Your only required action each roster cycle is to open the Slack notification, review the draft roster and any flagged conflicts, and mark the roster as approved in Google Sheets or Deputy. Everything before and after that step is handled by the automation.
Step
What happens
Who acts
Type
1
The weekly scheduling timer fires. The automation platform opens the new roster window and begins the availability collection sequence. No action is needed from anyone on your team.
Automation
Automated
2
The Availability Collection Agent sends a personalised availability request email via Gmail to every active staff member. The email includes a link to the availability form for the upcoming week.
Automation
Automated
3
Staff submit their availability via the form. Responses are written automatically to the central Google Sheet, one row per staff member. Any staff member who has not responded within 24 hours receives a single automated follow-up reminder via Gmail.
Automation
Automated
4
Once the availability sheet is marked complete, the Roster Drafting Agent reads the availability data and the week's shift demand requirements from Google Sheets. It allocates staff to shifts in compliance with award rules and overtime thresholds, then prepares a draft roster.
Automation
Automated
5
If the draft contains any unresolvable gaps, overtime flags, or award rule breaches, a conflict summary is posted to the manager's Slack channel. The message clearly lists each issue requiring a decision. If there are no conflicts, the draft is ready for straightforward approval.
Automation
Automated
6
You review the draft roster in Google Sheets or Deputy. You address any flagged conflicts, make any adjustments needed, and mark the roster as approved. This step typically takes around 20 minutes. This is your only required action each cycle.
Operations Manager
Human
7
The Roster Publication and Payroll Agent detects your approval and publishes the finalised roster to Deputy, creating or updating each staff member's shifts for the week.
Automation
Automated
8
Each staff member receives a personalised Slack message and a Gmail summary confirming their shifts for the upcoming week. Notifications are sent immediately after the roster is published.
Automation
Automated
9
At pay-period close, the agent exports confirmed shift hours from Deputy to Xero as timesheet entries. The entries are ready for payroll processing without any manual re-entry.
Automation
Automated
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FS-DOC-03Operations
03Handling exceptions
Situation
What the system does
What you do
A staff member does not submit availability, even after the automated reminder
The Availability Collection Agent marks that staff member's row in Google Sheets as no response received and flags the gap in the conflict summary posted to Slack. The roster drafting proceeds using the remaining availability data.
Contact the staff member directly to confirm their availability. If they provide it, update the Google Sheet manually before approving the draft. If they remain unavailable, treat the shift as unfilled and recruit cover through your normal process.
The availability form collects a duplicate or garbled submission from a staff member
If two rows exist for the same staff member, the system flags the duplicate in the Google Sheet and excludes the later entry. The conflict summary in Slack will note the duplicate so you are aware.
Open the Google Sheet, review both entries, and delete or correct the incorrect row. Re-trigger the drafting step by contacting FullSpec support if the draft has already been generated with the wrong data.
The Roster Drafting Agent cannot fill a shift because no available staff member meets the award or overtime constraints
The agent marks the shift as unresolvable and includes it in the Slack conflict summary with the specific reason, for example minimum rest period not met or maximum weekly hours already reached for all available staff.
Review the flagged shift in the conflict summary. Options include offering the shift to a casual or part-time staff member outside the current pool, adjusting the shift length, or splitting the shift. Make the change in Google Sheets or Deputy before approving.
You do not act on the draft roster within the expected review window
The automation does not publish the roster automatically without your approval. After a configurable period with no approval action, a follow-up Slack message is sent to you reminding you the draft is awaiting sign-off. The roster remains unpublished until you act.
Open the draft as soon as possible. Staff will not receive shift notifications until you approve. If you need to delay approval, communicate shift details to affected staff manually to avoid confusion.
Deputy is unavailable when the agent attempts to publish the approved roster
The agent retries publication up to three times over a 30-minute window. If all retries fail, an error alert is posted to your Slack channel with details of the failure and the time it occurred.
Check the Deputy status page for reported outages. Once Deputy is back online, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com to trigger a manual re-run of the publication step. Do not attempt to re-publish shifts manually in Deputy without confirming with FullSpec that the agent run has been reset.
The Xero payroll export fails at pay-period close
If the export to Xero fails, an error notification is sent to Slack. The automation logs the confirmed hours in Google Sheets as a fallback record. No timesheet entries will appear in Xero until the issue is resolved.
Check the Google Sheet for the confirmed hours log. Contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com to diagnose the Xero connection. As a manual fallback, the hours in the Google Sheet can be entered directly into Xero if the pay run cannot wait for the automated re-attempt.
04Who to contact and when
Fill in the rows below once your team is confirmed. The FullSpec rows are fixed and do not need to be changed. Share this completed table with anyone who covers the Operations Manager role during leave or handover periods.
Role
Name
How to reach them
Process owner (Operations Manager)
[Your name]
[Your email / phone]
Backup approver (if manager is unavailable)
[Your name]
[Rep email / phone]
Business owner
[Your name]
[Your email / phone]
FullSpec builder (technical issues, re-runs, configuration changes)
FullSpec Team
support@gofullspec.com
FullSpec support (general queries, errors, agent behaviour questions)
FullSpec Support
support@gofullspec.com
For any automation error, unexpected agent behaviour, or failed tool connection, contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com before making manual changes to Deputy, Google Sheets, or Xero. Manual changes made while an agent run is in progress can cause data conflicts that are difficult to reverse.
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FS-DOC-03Operations
05Ongoing maintenance
Whenever a staff member joins or leaves
Update the active staff list in Google Sheets to add or remove the person. This ensures availability requests are sent to the correct people and the Roster Drafting Agent does not allocate shifts to former staff. Notify FullSpec if a new staff member has award conditions that differ from the existing configuration.
Operations Manager
Whenever award rules, overtime thresholds, or shift patterns change
Do not adjust the agent configuration yourself. Contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com with the updated rules in writing. The FullSpec team will update the constraint logic in the Roster Drafting Agent and confirm the change has been validated before the next roster cycle.
Operations Manager + FullSpec
Whenever the availability form or notification template needs updating
Send the updated wording or form structure to FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com. Availability form changes in particular can affect how the agent parses responses, so do not edit the live form directly without FullSpec reviewing the impact first.
Operations Manager + FullSpec
Monthly spot-check
Pick one completed roster cycle from the past month. Verify that the published Deputy roster matches the approved Google Sheet draft, that staff notifications were sent, and that Xero timesheet entries match the Deputy records. Log any discrepancies and report them to FullSpec.
Operations Manager
Monthly error-log review
Check the Slack channel used for agent alerts and review any error or conflict notifications from the past month. Confirm that all flagged issues were resolved. If any errors recurred more than once, contact FullSpec to investigate the root cause.
Operations Manager
Quarterly volume review
If your roster size has grown beyond 25 staff, your shift patterns have changed significantly, or your scheduling period frequency has changed, notify FullSpec. The agent configuration, API rate limits, and Google Sheet structure may need to be adjusted to handle the increased volume reliably.
Operations Manager + FullSpec
The most common maintenance issue for this process is the active staff list falling out of date. If a departed staff member remains in the list, the availability agent sends them a request. If a new staff member is missing from the list, they receive no request and their availability is not captured, leaving a gap in the draft roster. Review the staff list in Google Sheets whenever a team change occurs, not only at quarterly review.
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