Audience
This guide is for people managers and supervisors who use Roubler to build and manage rosters and want to use Smart Roster to automatically assign unassigned shifts to suitable employees.
Description
Smart Rostering (Smart Roster) is a tool on the Roster screen that:
- Automatically assigns unassigned shifts to employees who can work at that location.
- Follows built-in rules around hours worked, maximum hours, weekends, and qualifications/licences (where configured).
Can be tuned to prioritise things like employment type, even work allocation, and additional criteria in Company Settings.
Smart Roster speeds up building rosters while still letting you review and edit shifts before publishing.
Steps
1. Before you run Smart Roster
Make sure:
You can open the Roster screen and see employees for your locations.
- You have created unassigned shifts for the period you want to fill:
- Shifts with no employee yet (date, time, position set but employee blank).
These may come from copying last week’s roster, templates, standard hours, or manually adding unassigned shifts.
Your organisation has enabled Smart Roster and configured its ranking settings (usually done by HR/Payroll or a system administrator under Company Settings → Roster → Smart Roster settings).
2. Open the roster you want to fill
- Go to Roster on the web.
- Select the location from the location selector.
- Navigate to the week or period you’re rostering.
Confirm that unassigned shifts appear on the grid for the relevant days.
3. Run Smart Roster
On the Roster toolbar (or … ellipsis menu), select Smart Roster.
- Roubler scans all unassigned shifts and applies the Smart Roster rules to pick suitable employees:
- Finds employees who can work at that location.
- Ranks them by least hours worked, then by rating, then other configured criteria.
- Checks they:
- Are not already working/ on leave 12 hours before or after the shift.
- Won’t exceed their max hours per week.
Meet any weekend rules (e.g. not working consecutive weekends, where enabled).
When Smart Roster completes, a message confirms how many shifts were successfully assigned.
Smart Roster does not publish the roster; it only fills in employees on Draft shifts. You remain in control to review and adjust.
4. Review and adjust assigned shifts
After running Smart Roster:
- Scan the roster to check:
- Coverage across days/times and positions.
- That staff are assigned where it makes operational sense.
- Manually adjust as needed:
- Move or reassign shifts.
- Edit times, positions or breaks.
Clear individual shifts if you disagree with an assignment.
If you change or add more unassigned shifts, you can run Smart Roster again; it will only act on currently unassigned shifts.
5. Publish the roster
When you’re satisfied:
- Click Publish (for the entire period or selected days).
- Confirm the publish action.
Employees will then see their shifts and may receive notifications for new/changed shifts, according to your configuration.
Troubleshooting
1. “Smart Roster says there are no unassigned shifts.”
If you see an error like “There are no unassigned shifts that need to be filled”:
- Check that you have actually created unassigned shifts (shifts with no employee).
- If all shifts already have employees, Smart Roster has nothing to do.
- Create or clear unassigned shifts for the period, then run Smart Roster again.
2. “Smart Roster skipped some shifts or didn’t assign who I expected.”
Possible reasons:
- Rules prevent assignment, for example:
- Employee would exceed max weekly hours.
- Employee is already rostered or on leave within 12 hours either side of the shift.
- The shift is a weekend and rules prevent consecutive weekends for that employee.
Employee can’t work at that location (no location access or wrong position/qualification).
Manager tips:
- Check the employee’s location access, position, and qualifications.
- Review their rostered hours and leave for the week to see why they may have been skipped.
- Manually assign the shift if your internal rules allow an exception.
3. “Smart Roster button is missing or greyed out.”
Most often this means:
- Smart Roster is disabled in Company Settings → Roster, or
Your permission group does not allow using it.
Action:
- Check with your internal Roubler/system administrator or HR/Payroll:
- Whether Smart Roster is turned on for your company.
- Whether your manager role should have access to run it.
4. “Roster after Smart Roster doesn’t match cost or coverage expectations.”
Remember that Smart Roster follows rules, not your full operational context. For example, it may:
- Spread hours evenly but not reflect individual preferences, skills beyond configured criteria, or budget nuances.
Recommended approach:
- Treat Smart Roster as a starting point, not the final answer.
- Use the Costing / BI tools on the Roster screen to check labour cost vs targets.
Manually tweak assignments or times until cost and coverage look right, then publish.
Who to contact for help
If Smart Rostering still isn’t working as expected after these steps, use internal channels:
HR / Payroll / Operations
Contact HR/Payroll/Operations for:
- Clarifying roster rules (max hours, weekend rules, preferred order of filling shifts).
- Deciding when exceptions to Smart Roster’s suggestions are acceptable.
Ensuring Smart Roster aligns with agreements and overtime rules.
Internal Roubler/system administrator or IT/support
Contact your internal Roubler admin for:
- Configuring Smart Roster settings in Company Settings → Roster → Smart roster settings (employment type vs even allocation vs additional criteria).
- Reviewing permissions if you can’t see or run Smart Roster.
Investigating cases where Smart Roster behaviour appears inconsistent with its configuration or where rosters, timesheets, and costs don’t line up.
Authorised internal admins can then decide whether to adjust configuration or escalate to Roubler/MYOB Support with specific examples (location, week, unassigned shifts, and which employees were/weren’t assigned).