As of 13 August 2026, AI can match staff availability to shifts.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a spreadsheet and create one staff table with a staff ID, availability, leave, skills, contracted hours, maximum hours and preferences for each person.
   2. Create a second table with each shift's date, start time, end time, location, role, required skills and minimum staffing.
   3. Add a third section containing the scheduling rules you actually use, including rest periods, breaks, overlapping-shift rules and fairness preferences.
   4. Paste the three sections into the prompt and ask the chatbot to produce the draft rota, unfilled shifts, conflicts, assumptions and per-person hours.
   5. Compare every assigned shift against the original availability and skills tables, then check overlapping shifts, hours, rest periods and minimum staffing.
   6. Ask a colleague or manager to check unresolved conflicts and assumptions, amend the source tables where needed, and regenerate the draft.
   7. Copy the approved assignments into your rota system and tell staff only after the responsible manager has confirmed the final version.

   Prompt

   Match the staff availability to the shifts below and produce a draft rota.
   
   Use only the information supplied. Do not invent availability, qualifications, preferences or working hours. Treat any blank or unclear entry as unknown and flag it instead of guessing.
   
   Priorities, in order:
   1. Do not assign anyone when they are unavailable.
   2. Assign any required skill or role for each shift.
   3. Avoid overlapping shifts for the same person.
   4. Keep assigned hours within each person's stated maximum and contracted hours where provided.
   5. Respect stated minimum rest periods and other rules where provided.
   6. Distribute shifts fairly according to the preferences and fairness rules supplied.
   
   Return:
   - A table with shift date, shift time, role, location, assigned person and assigned hours.
   - Unfilled shifts.
   - Any availability, skill, overlap, rest, hours or fairness conflicts.
   - A separate list of assumptions and information I still need to confirm.
   - A short total of hours assigned to each person.
   
   Do not approve or publish the rota. Mark it as a draft for manager checking.
   
   STAFF AVAILABILITY AND RULES:
   [Paste the staff table, including names or staff IDs, availability, skills, contracted hours, maximum hours, preferences and relevant scheduling rules]
   
   SHIFTS:
   [Paste the shift table, including date, start time, end time, location, role, required skills and minimum staffing]
   
   ADDITIONAL RULES:
   [Paste any rest, break, fairness, leave, venue or team rules]

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.