Appearance
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Duty area (zone) | Physical or logical place of duty (KS2 Playground, Dinner Hall) |
| Duty slot | A duty area + time window + requirements on a given day revision |
| Split session | Two consecutive duty slots on the same area so different people can cover each half of one clock window |
| Assignment | A person placed on a duty slot with a role (lead / support / …) |
| Grade | Staff banding with a traffic-light cover rule (available, only if seriously needed, or cannot be used) |
| Cover preference (duty tier) | How often to use a person: Often, Sometimes, Only if needed, Never |
| Weekly template | Recurring Mon–Fri pattern used to materialise days |
| Existing timetable | Setup upload of last year's duty cover: one whole-school rota, or many personal timetable files (or one zip of those files) merged into one duty roster |
| Build (materialise) | Create a day revision from the weekly template |
| Draft (proposal) | Unpublished day revision produced by the engine |
| Publish | Lock a revision as live and notify per rules |
| Only if needed (last resort) | Eligible but lowest-priority grade or person for a duty |
| Person | Rota subject in the staff directory |
| User | Login identity with a role |
| Weekly block (commitment) | Recurring teaching/cover block shown on the timetable |
| Lunch break | Contractual window when a person is not available for duty. Can be a fixed time or a short break inside a flexible window. Only assigned staff get one on the timetable. Assign groups on Setup → Staff lunches or Staff → Weekly blocks. On Timetable, Change can move one person's break for that day without rebuilding others |
| Lunch sitting | Children's lunch covered as duty times on a hall or playground post (Add another time, or Split for a handover). Not a staff lunch break and not a pupil register |
| Class cover | Covering an absent teacher's lesson so a class is supervised. Operational lesson cover uses class_cover duty slots; do not confuse with a weekly commitment block of the same name |
| Lessons need cover | Lessons on the teaching timetable whose assigned teacher is absent and no cover teacher is allocated yet. Shown on Today when teaching timetable is enabled |
| Unfilled post (hard gap) | Unfilled hard requirement on a slot |
| SSE | Server-sent events used to refresh the Today board |
| Tenant | One school’s isolated portal and data |
| Subdomain | Short name identifying a school portal (riverside in riverside.schoolrota.com, or /t/{subdomain} in local path mode) |
| Occurrence key | Stable hash identifying a duty calendar event across republishes (not assignment id) |
| Outlook write-back | Push of published duties to staff Outlook via Microsoft Graph |
| Microsoft profile photos | Cached Entra / Microsoft 365 photos shown instead of initials after portal access is set up |
| Google Calendar write-back | Push of published duties to staff Google Calendars via Workspace service account |
| Soft conflict | Warning when an assignee overlaps teaching, a commitment, or another site’s duty; does not block publish by default |
| Cover policy | Admin setting: warn-only vs block publish, chosen separately for teaching clashes, weekly block clashes, and open class-cover gaps |
| Period preset | Named start/end shortcut in Setup; duties still use time windows |
| Skill | Flag on a person (first aider, can lead duty, or a name you add). Require it on a session so every person on that post must hold it |
| Board summary | Structured plain-language recap of gaps and warnings on Today (Explain board) |
| Swap suggestions | Ranked alternative assignees when a draft slot has soft conflicts |
| Rota change request | Staff ask from My schedule to come off a duty. A duty lead approves, then the cover engine reallocates that window |
| Data export | GDPR subject-access JSON download from Staff → Edit |
| Erasure | Permanent anonymisation of a staff profile; cannot be undone |
| Staff app | Optional iOS/Android companion for My schedule, inbox, change requests, and generic duty alerts. Face ID only unlocks a completed school sign-in |
| Restart setup | Owner-only wipe of one school's rota data so the guided wizard starts again. Hidden after go-live. Other schools, billing, and invited logins stay |
| Working pattern | Per-weekday availability (full day, AM/PM, custom hours) on a staff record |
| Long-term leave | Extended unavailability (weeks/months) excluding someone from cover until ended |
| Supply booking | Date-specific availability of a supply/agency person at a site |
| Quiet hours | Tenant-configured window when non-urgent notification emails are held |
| Notification digest | Combined email of batched non-urgent alerts, sent at a scheduled time |
| Rota email | Manual or automatic PDF/Word rota send to staff (Exports, Today, or on publish) |
| Delivery log | Admin view of recent notification sends (Notifications → Recent sends) |
| Support impersonation | Operator read-only session as a tenant user for troubleshooting |
See also
- Key concepts
docs/SYSTEM_PLAN.mdAppendix A