What does this help guide cover?
What is the Roster Agent?
The Roster Agent is an AI-powered tool that builds your weekly roster for you. Tell it which location and week to roster, and it will study your staff's regular hours, past scheduling patterns, leave and availability, demand signals, and budget targets to propose a complete roster plan for you to review before anything is saved.
You can request changes, chat with it after the build, or continue editing the roster manually as you normally would.
Note: The AI Roster Agent is not yet available to all accounts. If you don't see the Roster Agent option in your roster and want to use this feature, please contact support@tanda.co.
Accessing the Roster Agent
To open the Roster Agent, navigate to Time & Attendance > Rosters and select the location and week you want to roster. You will see the Roster Agent button in the top bar of the roster. Click this to open the sidebar panel.
From the sidebar, you can:
Start a new roster build for the selected week
View or continue previous roster agent sessions
Chat with the agent about your existing roster
How It Works
The Roster Agent works in several steps:
Review pending approvals: Before starting, the sidebar will show you banners for any outstanding leave or availability requests for the selected week, with a direct link to action them. It is recommended to approve or decline these before building so the agent has accurate data.
Choose a source: Select how you want the roster to be seeded: from Regular Hours of Work, a roster template, a specific week to copy, or a roster pattern. You can combine multiple sources.
Add custom instructions (optional): You can type any specific instructions for the agent, such as "Keep costs below $X" or "Don't roster Sam on Mondays this week."
The plan: Once you click Build Roster, the agent gathers your roster data, staff availability, past patterns, demand signals, and budget targets. It then proposes a complete roster plan in a summary that you can read and review.
Review and approve: Read through the plan summary. You can approve it, reject it, or ask for changes. The agent will not create any shifts until you approve.
Creating the shifts: Once approved, the agent creates all the shifts on the roster, runs validation checks, and gives you a summary of what was built.
Fine-tune (optional): After the build, you can chat with the agent to make adjustments, or continue editing the roster manually in the usual way.
Roster Agent Settings
You can also configure standing instructions that the Roster Agent will follow automatically on every session, without needing to re-type them each time.
To set them up, open the Roster Agent sidebar and click the settings cog.
You can write:
Organisation-wide instructions: Applied to every session across all locations
Location-specific instructions: Override or extend the org-wide rules for a particular location
Custom Event instructions: Set specific instructions for the Roster Agent when creating a Custom Event (e.g., "For weddings we need double the usual staff")
If you want these rules to be enforced as hard validations (not just Roster Agent guidance), you can set them up as Natural Language Validation Rules instead.
What the Agent Considers
When building your roster, the agent takes into account:
Regular Hours of Work: Each employee's contracted weekly hours and Regular Hours of Work are used as the starting point for the build
Past roster patterns: What has been rostered in previous weeks for each team and location (looking back up to 52 weeks)
Availability and leave: Approved availability windows and approved leave requests that fall within the week
Public holidays and events: Public holidays and any custom events (such as blackout dates or peak periods) configured in your account
Budgets: Budgeted hours, wage percentages, and SPLH (Sales Per Labour Hour) targets where configured
Roster validations: The same rules and compliance checks that apply when manually creating shifts, including award rules and any custom roster validations you have set up
New and returning staff: The agent will flag any staff who are being rostered for the first time or returning after a long absence, so you can decide how to handle them before approving the plan
Weather: When weather is relevant to your standing instructions (e.g. "expect a rush if it rains"), the agent checks the forecast for the rostered week and factors it in
Choosing a Source
When starting a new roster build, you can choose how the agent seeds the initial set of shifts. The available options are:
Source | When to use it |
Regular Hours of Work | Best for most situations. The agent uses each employee's set regular hours as the starting point, then adjusts from there. |
Roster template | Use an existing template as the base. You can select one or more templates. |
Copy from a previous week | Start from a specific past week's roster. Good for repeating schedules. |
Roster pattern | Use one or more configured roster patterns as the base. |
You can also choose whether to clear any existing shifts in the week before the agent builds, or keep them and have the agent work around them.
Budget Awareness
If your account has labour budgets configured (budgeted hours, wage %, or SPLH targets), the agent will check its proposed roster against those targets after building. If the roster is over budget, the agent will automatically attempt to adjust it to bring costs back in line before presenting the plan for your approval.
The plan summary will show you the budget status so you can see whether the proposed roster is within your targets before you approve.
If you want to give the agent a specific cost or hours target for a build, you can also include this in your custom instructions when starting a session.
Making Adjustments After the Build
Once the agent has built the roster, you can continue chatting with it from the sidebar to make further changes. For example:
"Move the 8am shift on Tuesday from Jordan to Alex"
"Add a 2-hour close shift to the bar team on Friday"
"How many hours are scheduled across the kitchen team this week?"
"Remove all shifts on Sunday for casual staff"
"Stagger the kitchen team's breaks so no two cooks are on break at the same time"
You can also chat with the agent about a roster you have already built manually. Open the Roster Agent sidebar from any week that has shifts, and use the chat box at the bottom to ask questions or request changes.
Example Use Cases
Build a standard week from scratch:
Select Regular Hours of Work as the source and let the agent build a roster based on each employee's set hours. Review the plan and approve.
Roster a high-demand week:
Use custom instructions like "We have a large event on Saturday, we need extra coverage in the morning" to guide the agent when building from a template or regular hours.
Quickly copy and adjust a previous week:
Select a previous week as the source. The agent will carry across the shifts and flag any conflicts (leave approvals, availability changes) in the plan before you approve.
Check and adjust an existing roster:
Open the agent sidebar on a week you have already rostered. Ask "Are there any compliance issues with this week's roster?" or "Who is working the most hours this week?" to get a quick summary before publishing.
Apply guidance:
Use the standing instructions settings to write rules like "Roster new employees with a senior staff member" or "Don't roster Sam on Mondays." The agent will follow these in every session automatically.
Adjust for an upcoming event:
Add instructions directly to a roster event (e.g. a local festival) like "Expect 40% more foot traffic — add an extra person to front-of-house." The agent will apply these whenever it builds a roster that overlaps with that event.
FAQs and Troubleshooting
Will the agent publish the roster automatically?
Will the agent publish the roster automatically?
No. The agent creates shifts on the roster but does not publish them. You will still need to review and publish the roster as normal when you are ready to notify staff.
Can the agent create shifts for any employee?
Can the agent create shifts for any employee?
The agent only creates shifts for employees in the location and teams within the scope of the session. It will also not create shifts for employees on approved leave during the rostered period.
What happens if a shift the agent creates breaches a roster validation?
What happens if a shift the agent creates breaches a roster validation?
The agent runs the same roster validation checks that apply when creating shifts manually. If any shifts have validation issues, the agent will flag them in its summary after the build. You can ask the agent to fix specific issues in the post-build chat, or resolve them manually on the roster.
Can I stop the agent mid-build?
Can I stop the agent mid-build?
Yes, you can cancel a session at any time while the agent is building. If the agent has already created shifts before you cancel, those shifts will remain on the roster and you can edit or delete them manually.
Does the agent take into account my award rules and compliance settings?
Does the agent take into account my award rules and compliance settings?
Yes. The agent uses the same compliance rules and award checks as the rest of Tanda. Any roster validations, NL rules, or custom award configurations in your account will be checked during and after the build.