On-call roster
Whose weekend is it to hold the phone?
When a small team shares after-hours cover, the hard part is keeping the weekends fair and making sure everyone knows who has the phone. FairTurns keeps that roster, months ahead, where the whole team can see it.
Free, with no limit on people or dates. No card.
Burst pipes don’t wait for Monday
Paperbark manages 340 rentals, and tenants have a number to ring when a hot water system floods the laundry on a Sunday. Five property managers share that phone. For years the weekend went to whoever didn’t have plans, which meant Kim, who never says no, did nine of the first twelve. The Friday afternoon question, “who’s got it this weekend?”, took longer than handing the phone over.
On-call in a small team is mostly about fairness you can point to. Nobody minds their turn when they can see it is their turn, and that the person who had last weekend isn’t on again next weekend.
FairTurns is the roster side of that: who holds the phone on which night, worked out by turns and written down months ahead. The calls themselves still come through your phone system as they do now.
How a small team shares on-call with FairTurns
Weekends handed out by turns
Each weekend goes to whoever has had the fewest weekends. The Turns booked chart shows where everyone sits, so the conversation is about numbers, not feelings.
One person for the weekend
Add the weekend as one date on the Saturday, named “Weekend on call, Sat–Sun”, so one person holds both days. Split it into two dates if your team prefers.
Weeknights and weekends counted apart
Weeknight after-hours and weekend cover are separate teams, so Fill counts them separately and a hard weekend isn’t traded for an easy Tuesday.
No double cover
Fill won’t put someone on call at a time they’re already rostered elsewhere in the organisation.
Leave planned in
Holidays go in as Away for a stretch, months ahead, and Fill gives those weekends to someone else.
One link with the rota
Share the public roster with the office so whoever answers the main line on Monday knows who was on.
Set it up
- 01
Make the teams
Create the office as an organisation, with teams called Weeknights and Weekend on call.
- 02
One person each
Give each team one position, Phone, with a headcount of 1.
- 03
Add the people who share it
Invite everyone on the on-call list and put each person on the teams they cover.
- 04
Set the nights
Click Monday, set 5:00 pm till 9:00 pm, choose “Every week on Monday”, and add the other nights and the weekend days.
- 05
Fill six months
Press Fill for the next 6 months so people can plan holidays around their weekends.
When you want it to run itself
Pro emails each person a reminder before their on-call turn, so Friday’s hand-over isn’t a surprise, and the full roster to the team on the day you choose. If someone gets sick, they reply “I can’t make it” and the next person in line is put on and asked. Emails go to people who have accepted an invitation.
A$1 a month per organisation, paid 1 to 5 years at a time. See Pro and pricing
Good to know
- FairTurns is a roster, not a paging or alerting system. It records who holds the phone; it doesn’t route calls, wake anyone up or escalate.
- Each date starts on one day and can run past midnight, up to 24 hours, such as 5:00 pm till 7:00 am. It shows on the evening it starts.
- People don’t pick their own weekends. The roster puts them on, and they mark the weekends they’re away.
- Roster at least three months ahead. On-call is the duty people most need to plan holidays around.
Questions
Can one person hold on-call for a whole week?
Yes. Add a weekly date on the hand-over day, name the team “On call this week”, and Fill gives each week to whoever has had the fewest. The date shows who has the phone until the next hand-over.
Will FairTurns call or page the person on call?
Your phone system or answering service still handles the call itself. FairTurns tells everyone, ahead of time, whose turn it is, and on Pro reminds that person by email before their turn.
How do we stop the same person always doing long weekends?
Give long weekends their own team, add each one as a one-off date, and Fill counts them separately from ordinary weekends, giving each to whoever has had the fewest.
Someone has joined the on-call list. Do we redo the roster?
Add them and run Redistribute. It moves as few people as it can and shows everyone who gains or loses a date before it changes anything.
Does on-call cost extra?
It is free. Pro, A$1 a month for the organisation, adds the reminder emails and automatic cover when someone can’t make it.
Free templates and guides
On-call roster template
Who’s first and second on call each night and weekend, with handover times and a phone column.
Rotating roster explained
What a rotating roster is, the two kinds of rotation, and the weekly, fortnightly and monthly patterns most groups use.
Redistribute
Someone leaves or joins mid-season? Share the dates out again and see every change first.
Similar rosters
Duty rosters
Rotating duties like duty officer, lock-up or first aid, handed out by turns and visible to the whole office.
Departments and teams
One calendar for every team in the organisation, each in its own colour, with team leads running their own.
Small business roster
A free, simple staff roster for a small business: who’s on, when, shared with the team on one link.