Shift scheduling & staff management app

How we helped small businesses simplify rota planning and reduce scheduling friction

Timline
Jan 2021 – Nov 2022
Platform
Web / Android /iOS
Role
UX / Product Design

Summary

Rota Wrangler was a web-based shift scheduling and leave-management platform built for small and medium-sized businesses struggling with manual rota planning, availability conflicts, and opaque leave processes. The product focused on clarity, speed, and fairness for both managers and staff.

The project validated strong demand for simpler scheduling tools among non-technical business owners and frontline teams. While early adoption and feedback were positive, scaling challenges around pricing sensitivity, feature expectations, and competitive pressure highlighted important lessons about market positioning, operational complexity, and product focus in crowded SaaS spaces.

‍

20

Businesses in Beta trials

320+

Rotas published

1760h+

Saved on rota creation

Research and discovery

Scheduling made easy

Customer problem. Small business owners and managers were spending disproportionate time building and adjusting rotas. Existing tools were either overly complex, expensive, or designed for enterprise-scale operations. Staff often lacked visibility into shifts and leave status, leading to confusion, last-minute changes, and mistrust.

Business problem. There was a clear opportunity to serve under-digitised SMEs with a lightweight scheduling product focused on speed and transparency rather than feature depth. The challenge was to differentiate in a crowded SaaS market while keeping onboarding, support, and pricing simple enough for cost-sensitive businesses.

Problems and constrains

  • Rota planning relied on spreadsheets, WhatsApp, or paper
  • High cognitive load when managing availability and conflicts
  • Staff lacked real-time visibility of shifts and leave approvals
  • Tight budget constraints typical of small businesses
  • Need to balance manager control with staff autonomy
  • Limited digital literacy among some managers

Research and discovery

Approcach

  • Clarity over configurability

    ‍Prioritise the most common scheduling flows instead of edge cases to reduce setup and decision fatigue.

  • Manager–staff symmetry

    ‍Design shared views so both managers and employees clearly understood shifts, changes, and approvals.

  • Progressive complexity

    ‍Start with simple rota creation and layer in availability and leave management only when needed.

The solution

Delivering against the success criteria

Simplifying rota creation. Rota Wrangler used a grid-based layout familiar from spreadsheets but enhanced with constraints, availability indicators, and inline editing. Managers could create and adjust shifts quickly without navigating complex setup flows.

Improving transparency for staff. Staff views focused on clarity rather than control. Employees could see upcoming shifts, request leave, and understand approval status without needing direct manager follow-ups, reducing back-and-forth communication.

Testing onboarding and acquisition approaches. I led first-time, at-scale experiments with Google Ads and paid social, defining audiences and testing landing-page messaging to drive self-serve onboarding. In parallel, we compared this with direct, in-person outreach to validate whether small businesses would adopt the product without human guidance. The results highlighted strong price sensitivity and showed that trust and word-of-mouth are critical for SME adoption.