Roster and availability
The roster records who works on which days. Newsroom uses it in two places: in the Who works when weekly overview at the top of the planning page, and as a warning when you assign an editor to an item whose deadline falls on a day they don’t work.
A roster has two parts:
- Fixed weekly roster: each employee’s regular working days, for example Monday and Tuesday all day and Thursday mornings only.
- Exceptions: deviations on a specific date or period, either Off (holiday, sick leave) or Extra shift (working outside the fixed roster). An exception always takes precedence over the fixed roster.
Planning managers and admins only. Everyone sees the weekly overview,
but the Manage roster button only appears for users with the planning
management role (planning.management) or admin. The roster is part of
editorial planning; if that feature isn’t enabled for your broadcaster, it
isn’t available.
Setting up the fixed weekly roster
Open Manage roster
Go to the planning page and click Manage roster in the Who works when block.
Click the days for each employee
The Fixed weekly roster table has a button per weekday for each employee. Each click cycles the day: not working → Full day → Morning → Afternoon → not working. Employees with unsaved changes get an asterisk after their name.
Save
Click Save. All changed employees are saved in one go.
Adding an exception (holiday, sick leave, extra shift)
Choose employee and date
Under Exceptions, choose the employee and fill in the (first) date under From.
One day, a period or a whole week
- For a single day, leave Until empty.
- For a period, such as a holiday, fill in the last day under Until. Newsroom then marks every day in that period, up to roughly two months at once.
- Whole week fills in Monday to Sunday of the week containing the chosen date.
Choose type and part of day
Choose Off or Extra shift, and whether it’s the full day, the morning or the afternoon. Optionally add a note, such as “Holiday”. Click Add.
Below the form you’ll find the exceptions for the next four months. Consecutive days with the same employee, type, part of day and note are shown together as one period. Remove deletes the whole period at once.
If you add an exception for a day that already has one for the same part of the day, the existing one is overwritten rather than duplicated.
Warning when assigning an editor
If you assign an editor to an item whose deadline falls on a day they don’t work according to the roster, you’ll see a message such as “According to the roster … is not working on …”. The assignment is still saved: you can always deviate from the roster. The weekly overview keeps showing the warning “Note: … is not working this day” for that item.