The Rota 2.0: Bespoke Scheduling for UK Social Care

The Vision

Aspirations Support provides supported living and community outreach services across Bristol. Behind the scenes, that means a lot of scheduling: getting the right staff to the right people, across multiple homes.

For years, Aspirations used its own rota app, which we’d been supporting. It had served them well, but was ready for a rebuild.

Off-the-shelf tools couldn’t handle the complexity of their scheduling, so Aspirations chose a bespoke solution built around how their team actually works.

The result is “The Rota 2.0”.

The Challenge

Scheduling in supported living is more than filling shifts. Each person supported has contracted hours at 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3. Staff know some homes far better than others. Leave, sleep-ins and bank holidays all change how a week adds up.

Staff also need a simple way to see their shifts and pick up extra work.

Aspirations knew exactly how their teams worked. Our challenge was turning that knowledge into a modern platform that could grow with them, without spending months on specifications before development began.

From Workshop to Working Software

We started with a Discovery Sprint, working closely with Aspirations to understand their existing platform, find the biggest pain points and agree what mattered most.

From there, things moved quickly. Development started in late February 2025 and the first release went live on 6 March. Four more releases followed between March and June.

The Rota 2.0 brings everything into one place:

• A live rota for every home: Copy a week, assign in bulk and publish in one go, with changes showing instantly for every manager.
• The right person for the home: Staff are rated green, amber or red for each home, so managers can see who knows it best.
• Problems spotted early: Warnings flag leave, double bookings and shifts at another home less than two hours apart.
• Tools for care staff: Personal rotas, notifications and requests for open shifts. Managers see any clashes before they approve.
• Better visibility: Reports track contracted hours, leave sleep-ins and on-calls out of the totals, tag bank holidays automatically and export to CSV.
• An easier transition: Staff and leave history moved across, and calendar subscriptions put shifts straight into staff calendars.

Built to Keep Improving

One of the biggest advantages of The Rota 2.0 is that Aspirations own the software. They aren’t limited by an off-the-shelf product or waiting for a provider to add the features they need.

Since launch, we’ve kept improving it. Bulk shift assignment now shows a summary of every warning before anything is saved, and the whole platform has moved onto the latest version of Rails.

As Aspirations’ needs change, the software can change with them, with a development team on hand that already understands how they work.

For us, it’s been one of our most rewarding projects: building software that helps the people who support others every day.