Rotas

Open Rotas from your account menu (or search for it with ⌘K). Everyone gets the same five tabs; what you can do on them depends on your role.

Owners and managers open on Rota; everyone else opens on My shifts. Telesales and analysts can read the rota and ask for their own time off too.

The team rota

Pick the site (when the practice has more than one) and switch between Week and Month. Move with the arrows, jump with the calendar button (it shows week numbers), and come back with Today. People are grouped by profession — Dentists, Hygienists, Nurses — and then by role, each with their photo and the hours and shifts they work in the period; the corner of the table opens the Week summary (or the month's). The search button finds a person by name.

Each shift is a card in its role's colour with its times, its unpaid break and, when it has one, a note. Time off shows as a tile — Away if you don't decide time off. A day off on the rota is hatched grey, and a closure shows as Closed. Owners and managers can also show, from the view menu, when people said they can't work.

Tools has Print rota and Keyboard shortcuts: ← and → move a week (or month), T goes to today, W and M switch the view, and / searches.

The rota lists the people who work at the site. With one location everyone is placed there automatically; with several, choose each person's sites under Settings → Team.

Change one day

Click a day in someone's row. Set the day's shifts, breaks and blocked time, or choose Day off. Each shift can carry a Note (optional) — up to 200 characters, such as "Cover for Sam". Only owners and managers and the person whose shift it is see a note, and it moves with the shift when it is swapped, given up or moved. Back to the regular week undoes a one-day change. A past day can be corrected the same way; the correction is recorded in the activity log.

Move or copy a shift

Drag a shift card onto another person or day at the same site to move it; hold Shift as you drop it to copy it instead. Its break, blocked time and note go with it. From the day editor, Move or copy does the same with a person and a date. Only a shift that hasn't started can be moved, and only to a time that is still ahead, on a day the site is open, for someone who is free then and not on time off.

Copy a week

Tools → Copy week copies the week you are looking at onto the weeks you pick, for everyone on this site's rota: their days in those weeks become this week's, days off included. Days up to today and closed days are left as they were, and so is a day whose times a clock change skips — the dialog lists every day it left alone. Each person gets one notification however many weeks you copy.

Change a regular week

Click a person's name. Their regular week is the week that repeats: tick the days they work, set the times, and add breaks or blocked time. Choose when the new week Starts from — today or later — and whether it Repeats every week, or every 2, 3 or 4 weeks. Weeks before that date keep the hours they had, and one-day changes stay in place.

When a change leaves booked appointments outside someone's new hours, Smileline tells you how many. They stay booked — move them in the diary.

Zones

A zone keeps part of a clinician's diary for chosen appointment types, for example "Emergencies, weekdays 14:00–15:00". In a clinician's regular week, add a row and choose Zone: give it a name, a colour and the appointment types it keeps its time for (at least one). It repeats like the rest of their week and shows on the diary as labelled shading.

Online booking, Find a time, gap filling and the AI receptionist never offer a zone's time to other types; the zone's own types can still be booked anywhere free. Staff can book another type into a zone from the diary after a warning. Zones are for clinicians' rotas only, and changing them needs the same access as the rest of the rota. Changing one day's hours keeps that day's zones.

To take a member of staff off a site completely, open their regular week and choose Take off this site's rota (press it twice to confirm). Their shifts at that site, past ones included, no longer show. Only then can the site be removed from their Settings → Team sites.

Swaps, drops and open shifts

Shifts move between people at the same site, whole — the break inside a shift moves with it. Booked appointments never move: when a change leaves some outside someone's working time, Smileline tells you how many, and they stay booked.

• Give up a shift. On My shifts, choose Give up on a shift that hasn't started. Once an owner or manager approves, it leaves your rota and becomes an open shift for people in your role at that site.
• Swap a shift. Choose Swap and pick a colleague's shift at the same site in the next two weeks — anyone with a Smileline login, since they need to accept it. They get a notification and choose Accept swap or Say no; once they accept, an owner or manager approves and the two shifts change hands.
• Take an open shift. Open shifts show in the Open shifts row at the top of the rota, and on My shifts when you can take one. Choose Take: the first person to take it has it, and it goes on their rota.

Your waiting requests are under My shift changes on My shifts, where you can Cancel one. Owners and managers decide them with Shift changes on the Rota tab: Approve or Decline. A swap is ready to decide once the colleague has accepted it. If someone's rota changed after they asked, the request says so and can only be declined — they can ask again.

Owners and managers can also Post open shift: pick the date, the times, an optional break and note, and Who can take it — one or more roles, or anyone at the site. A + in an empty day of the Open shifts row posts one for that day. Everyone who can take it gets a notification. Cancel under an open shift takes it down. A given-up shift's note stays private until someone takes it.

Nobody can take a shift that has already started, or one that falls in their approved time off or in time they already work at any site. When someone leaves the practice, their waiting requests are cancelled.

When you can't work

The Availability tab shows the times you can't work on a month calendar. Choose + on a day for All day or between two times, with a note; tick Every weekday to repeat it each week, until a date if you like. Repeating pattern sets a whole week at once from a start date. Owners and managers can pick anyone under Whose availability. They see these times on the rota and are warned when a change gives you work in them — the change still goes ahead. Only you and owners and managers see them.

Your calendar

Calendar feed, beside the tabs, gives you a private link that Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook subscribes to: your shifts at every site, from the last 90 days to a year ahead, and your approved time off, shown as Time off without saying what kind. Choose Make my link, then Add to Google Calendar or Add to Apple Calendar — in Outlook, add a calendar from the web and paste the link. Calendar apps check for changes on their own schedule, so a change can take a while to appear there.

Clocking in and out

Clock in when you start work and out when you finish: on My shifts, from Clock in / out in your account menu, from Clock in the Desk's side bar, or in the phone app. If you work at more than one site, pick the site first. Smileline records the time itself; you can't type it in.

If you forget to clock out, the next time you open the clock it says so. Choose Clock out now, or enter when you really finished and choose Save finish time. You can't clock in again until the open entry is closed. The unpaid break from your rota is taken off each entry automatically.

Clocking needs a Smileline login. Clinicians who never sign in have no timesheet.

Timesheets

The Timesheets tab shows one week at a time, Monday to Sunday. Use Previous, This week and Next to move between weeks. For each person it shows the hours planned on the rota (less unpaid breaks and approved time off), the hours clocked, and the difference. Open a person to see each day's planned shifts, their entries, and whether they were late in or left early.

Owners and managers can also:

• Add entry for hours someone worked without clocking — someone who has since left included. Leave the break empty to use the rota's.
• Edit an entry to correct its times, site or break — this is also how you close an entry someone forgot to clock out of. Entries still open from any week are listed under Still clocked in.
• Void an entry made by mistake. It stays on the timesheet, struck out, and counts nowhere.
• Approve a week once it's over and nobody is still clocked in that week. Approving freezes the planned and clocked hours. A week's entries can't change while it's approved; Reopen it to make changes.
• Download CSV for the week: one row per entry, with the site, the times, the break and the paid hours, ready for payroll.

Hours worked overnight count in the week they started. Timesheets stay when someone leaves the practice; if they delete their Smileline account, their hours stay under Former team member.

Time off

Anyone can Request time off for themselves: holiday, sickness, training, study, compassionate, parental, carer's or unpaid leave, or anything else, with a note. Only holiday uses the allowance. Pick the first and last day; choose pm on the first day if it is only an afternoon, or am on the last day if it is only a morning. Midday is the middle of that person's working hours that day. See who else is off lists colleagues away on those days. Owners and managers Approve or Decline each request — the number waiting shows on the tab — and can book time off for someone else, which is approved at once.

• The person it is about, or a manager, can Cancel an absence. The reason is required and stays with it.
• Two absences for the same person cannot overlap.
• If you don't decide time off, a colleague's absence shows as Away — you see when, never why.
• The person it is about gets a notification when their request is decided, or when a manager books time off for them.

An approved absence for a clinician is busy time: online booking, the AI receptionist and the diary's Find a time offer no slots over it, and an online or AI booking against it is refused — at practices whose diary is in Dentally or Open Dental too. The chair utilisation report removes it from bookable hours. When you approve or book time off over booked appointments, Smileline tells you how many there are; they stay booked.

Holiday allowance

Owners and managers turn allowances on from Leave settings on the Time off tab: tick Track holiday allowances, choose the month the leave year Starts in, and set the Days per year everyone gets. To give someone a different number — a part-timer, or a first year that starts part-way through — type it in their row; leave the box empty to use the practice's number. Previous year and Next year move between leave years.

A holiday uses the days its person works: a whole working day is one day, part of one is half a day, and a day they don't work — a weekend, a day off on the rota, a closed day — uses nothing. Someone who isn't on the rota is counted Monday to Friday. The days are worked out when the holiday is asked for, fixed when it is approved, and shown on it; an owner or manager can correct an approved holiday with Holiday days.

• A holiday over the start of a leave year is stored as two, one in each year, so each year's days are right.
• Used counts approved holiday and Waiting counts requests; Left is the allowance less what is used.
• Holiday booked before Smileline had allowances shows as estimated; setting its days with Holiday days fixes the number.
• The leave year's month can't change while an allowance is set for anyone; clear those first.

Everyone sees their own holiday — the days left, and how many are used and waiting — on My shifts and Time off.

Off and Away

Across the app, a colleague who is off by the rota shows Off, and one on approved time off shows Away: in team chat, in the inbox's Assign to menu, and when you transfer a call. Before their shift starts, hover over Off to see when it does. Someone with no rota shows nothing.

New leads go to people on shift first. See who gets new leads.

The clinical diary

The diary reads the same rota. A clinician's hours outside their shifts are shaded, a whole day off is shaded with Off in their column header, and approved time off is hatched with Time off. Someone rostered only at another site shows as off at this one. The diary updates by itself when the rota or time off changes.

When someone leaves

When a member of staff is removed from the practice, their rota and time off up to their last day are kept: past weeks still show them, marked Left, read-only. If they are invited back later they start with a clean rota, and leave booked for after they left does not come back. If they delete their Smileline account, their past shifts stay on the rota under Former team member.

Clinicians stay on the rota until an owner or manager deactivates them or ends their assignment to a location under Settings → Practitioners — removing their login does not take them off it.

On the phone

In the mobile app, More → My shifts shows your next two weeks, your time off and the holiday you have left. You can Give up a shift there, Accept swap or Say no when a colleague asks, Take an open shift, and clock in and out. The Account screen has a Time off card: your own requests and absences, Request to ask for more — whole days, or a morning or afternoon — and Cancel on one you no longer need. Deciding requests stays on the web.