Rota
The rota shows driver availability. Round planning uses it to avoid assigning unavailable drivers and to apply cover arrangements.
The calendar
Section titled “The calendar”Open Rota for a monthly calendar with one row per driver. Shift colours identify patterns; labelled entries show holidays, sickness, other time off and cover. Pending requests have a dashed outline.
Select a day to view details, book time off or arrange cover. Drag across a driver’s row to select several days.
The summary shows today’s available drivers, absences, pending requests and cover.
Shift patterns
Section titled “Shift patterns”Create reusable patterns under Shift patterns. Set working days, hours and an optional break. Patterns can repeat over one to four weeks.
Assign a pattern on the Drivers tab. For multi-week patterns, choose the Monday when week one begins.
Planning uses the shift start, end and break. Without a pattern, existing individual hours or business defaults apply. A driver without a pattern is treated as available unless time off is recorded.
If a driver’s rounds usually run outside their shift, Bottle Brain says so, and Update the rota brings you here. Bottle never changes a shift pattern itself.
Holiday and sickness
Section titled “Holiday and sickness”Set business defaults in Business settings → Working hours, on the Holiday and Sickness lines. Select Edit on a line to change it:
- Holiday: the yearly allowance in days or weeks, when the holiday year starts, whether requests need approval, and how much carries over.
- Sickness: paid sick days a year, or no limit, when sickness is counted from, and whether it needs approval.
When allowance is entered in weeks, Bottle calculates days from the driver’s pattern. Check that the settings match your employment arrangements.
Over the allowance
Section titled “Over the allowance”Time off beyond the configured allowance can still be recorded. Excess days are labelled unpaid and require approval.
Set individual overrides on the Drivers tab. Blank overrides use business defaults.
Only scheduled working days count towards leave. Closed days do not reduce holiday allowance. The first or last day can be a half day.
Requests
Section titled “Requests”Drivers request time off from their own rota. Requests needing approval appear under Requests, showing days requested, the remaining allowance and overlapping absences.
Approving time off updates the driver’s balance and planning availability. Office users can also record leave directly.
Notifications go to the relevant office users and driver. Control them under Notifications → Time off. Pending requests also appear on Your day.
The notification and email for a request open Requests with that request in view and briefly highlighted. If it has been answered in the meantime, the page says so.
Cancelling time off
Section titled “Cancelling time off”What happens depends on who cancels and whether the time off is booked:
- A driver withdrawing a request still waiting for approval: it goes straight away, because nothing was booked.
- A driver cancelling time off that is booked, whether approved or booked without approval, such as reported sickness: this becomes a cancellation request. The time off stays booked, keeps the driver off the rota and still counts against their allowance until an owner or admin approves the cancellation.
- An owner or admin cancelling from the office: it goes straight away. Select the day on the calendar and choose Cancel this time off.
Cancellation requests appear under Requests alongside time-off requests, marked Asked to cancel. Choose Approve cancelling to take the time off away, or Keep it booked to leave it as it is. The driver is told either way, by email, in the app and on their phone, under the same Time off notification settings. Cancellation requests also count towards the pending requests on the summary and on Your day.
This stops booked holiday from being cancelled and then taken anyway.
Bank holidays and closed days
Section titled “Bank holidays and closed days”Open Business settings → Delivery and, under Days you’re closed, choose your UK region and whether you deliver on bank holidays. Bank-holiday dates are refreshed from GOV.UK.
Press Add a closed day for any other closure dates, such as a stocktake.
On closed days:
- Automatic planning does not create rounds.
- Time off does not reduce holiday allowance.
- Scheduled deliveries move to the next open day.
- Manually choosing the date on an order shows a warning.
What a driver sees
Section titled “What a driver sees”Drivers see their own shifts, leave balances, sickness totals and pending requests. They cannot see other drivers’ sickness information.
They can request time off from a day, a selected date range or Ask for time off. Before it starts, they can Withdraw a request that is still waiting, or Ask to cancel time off that is booked. While the office decides, the entry shows Cancellation asked for, waiting for a yes. Once time off has started, changes need the office.
Select a day to assign cover for an absent driver or a particular delivery territory.
The covering driver receives the assigned territory for that day and counts as working even if their normal pattern says otherwise. Covering one territory does not give them every waiting order.
On the Rounds page
Section titled “On the Rounds page”Driver rows show availability and cover. Automatic planning skips drivers on holiday, off sick or not working.
A driver who is simply off shift can still be assigned manually if they are available to help.
For an overview of rota management in Bottle, see Rota management on the Bottle website.