The day plan your practice keeps in Excel today
Duty planning works one level below the shift: per person, per day, with coloured activity blocks in a time grid. Consultation, surgery, lab, reception. Target and planned hours sit right underneath, and the sheet can be printed and pinned up.
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- Drag a period, pick an activity, done
- Target, planned and the difference per person on the same sheet
- GDPR compliant, hosted in Germany
Lena H.
Tobias K.
Aylin D.
Mehmet Y.
Sophie B.
Mara W.Leave, 3 daysAylin Demir · 28–30 OctTraining, 1 dayTobias Krüger · 22 Oct
Leave, 3 daysNadia Schulz · 22–24 DecReview
Month endSeptember · Krämer payroll officeDone- Made in GermanyDeveloped and hosted in Germany
- Certified data centreISO 27001, located in Germany
- Web, app and terminalBrowser, iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows
- GDPR compliantServers in Nuremberg and Falkenstein
Who is in, and what are they doing?
A rota says who works. Practices, pharmacies and therapy businesses also need to know who has which task in which hour. That is exactly what most of them still keep in an Excel sheet with a 30-minute grid.
- Problem
Only one person knows the Excel
The sheet lives on one computer, gets printed and pinned to the wall. Anyone out of the building cannot see it, and every change creates a new version.
- Problem
Understaffing only shows up on the day
That nobody is at reception between 11 and 12, or that a treatment is planned without an assistant, does not show in the sheet. It shows when the phone rings.
- Problem
Target and planned hours drift apart
The contracted hours are in one document, the day planning in another. Whether someone reaches their hours by the end of the month is something nobody knows before the end of the month.
One sheet per day, where everything comes together
People as columns, time running from top to bottom, coloured activity blocks in between. You set the grid interval to your own rhythm, from 5 to 60 minutes. Below the grid, each person has their target, their planned time, the credit from absences and the difference between them.
One sheet instead of three documentsDay planning, attendance and the hours balance are the same data in three views, not three tables with three truths.
The week as a grid
Early, late, night and leave per person, with the weekend on wide screens.
Publish
One click and the team sees the plan in the app. Count along who has been told.
Sophie B.FFSSSTobias K.FFSSFMara W.NNSS
Jonas K.FNNNSLena H.FFUUDr. LindnerSPRSPRHBSPRSophie B.ANMANMANMANMAylin D.LABBEDOKLena H.TELANMANMSPR consultation, HB home visit, ANM reception, LAB lab, BE blood test, DOK documentation, TEL phone.
This is how the day plan comes about
From the industry template to the sheet on the wall, in three steps.
Take an industry template
MetronHR ships ready-made templates for veterinary practices, doctors' practices, dental practices, pharmacies and physiotherapy: activities with colours, qualification groups, areas, staffing rules and a fitting grid interval.
Everything stays changeable without anyone from outside having to step in
An industry template with activities and rules Template for the practiceGroups, activities, grid, rulesGroupsDoctors, medical assistants, trainees, reception, labGrid30 minutes, 08:00 to 19:30RulesDoctors require a medical assistant, reception at least 1Consultation hoursCON · Doctors, medical assistantsbillableBlood testsBT · Medical assistantsbillableReceptionREC · ReceptioninternalPlan the day
In a person's column you drag out a period, pick the activity and confirm. The block snaps to your interval. Moving, extending and copying work the same way, and a day pattern carries a whole day's structure over to further days.
A recurring day is planned once, not again every week
Drag out a period and pick an activity Day in activitiesAylin Demir · ThursdayThat day9:00hBillable6:00hConsultation hoursbillable4:45hDocumentation1:30hMaintenancebillable1:15hHandover0:45hBreak0:45hPublish, pin up, take along
One click turns the draft into the valid plan. The team sees it on the web and in the app, and the evening before MetronHR reminds them about the next day. For the wall you print the day sheet as a PDF, for the week a compact weekly sheet.
The notice on the wall stays, the paperwork behind it goes
Published day plan Day plan for Friday, 6 NovemberPublished on Thursday, 17:020810121416Dr. LindnerSPRSPRSPRSophie B.ANMANMTELLena H.BELABDOKReminder sent to all three the evening before.
What duty planning can do
Built along the Excel sheet a veterinary practice showed us, and along what was missing afterwards.
- Hours
Target, planned and the difference on the sheet
The hours question is answered while you plan, not afterwards
Per person the daily target from the working time model, the time planned from the blocks, the credit from approved absences and public holidays, and the difference between them. Without the right to see other people's hours, everyone sees only their own row.
Staffing over the dayMonday, 2 NovemberTime Doctors Medical assistant Reception 08:00 2 3 2 10:00 2 3 1 12:00 1 2 0 14:00 2 3 1 16:00 1 2 1 
Reception 12:00 to 14:00Ole Jansenrequested - Staffing
Staffing rules instead of mental arithmetic
Gaps show up before you publish
Rules such as "vets require a veterinary nurse (1)" or "reception at least 1 from 08:00 to 12:00" are checked by MetronHR across the day, and it marks the windows where the staffing does not add up.
Staffing ruleschecked while planningDoctors require a medical assistant (1)all dayactiveReception at least 1during opening hoursactiveLab, 08:00 to 12:00newDraftPeople in the lab, at least1 - Self-organisation
Hand over, express interest, take on
The swap runs through the app and through your approval
People hand a block over or register interest in a free one. The planner decides, and the plan is then updated for everyone.
Handover at receptionThursday, 5 November · 13:0006:00 to 13:00 · ReceptionAylin Demir · 3 open callbackshands over13:00 to 20:00 · ReceptionTobias KrügerCallbacks, now with TobiasMs Kaiser, prescriptionsince 10:40Mr Brandt, test resultssince 11:15Labor Nord, querysince 12:05
- Activities
Your own activities with colour and short code
The sheet reads at a glance
You create the activities yourself, with a colour, a short code and an optional link to a qualification group. If prophylaxis is assigned to somebody without that qualification, it is a hint while you plan and an open point when you publish.
- Grid
A grid interval that matches your rhythm
The plan follows the treatment rhythm, not the other way round
5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 60 minutes per grid cell, plus a day window you set freely. Blocks snap to it as you drag.
- Absences
Holiday and sickness are already in the plan
Nobody gets planned in who is not there
Approved absences and public holidays come from the same system and colour the person's column for the whole day. They count as a credit in the hours arithmetic.
- Printout
A real PDF for the wall and the file
The notice looks like a plan, not like a web page
The day sheet is produced as a vector PDF, in the orientation set on screen. There is also a compact weekly sheet that fits a whole week on one page.
- Export
Excel export to carry on calculating
Hours come out as a number, not as text
Two sheets: the plan sheet for the person who reads it, and a block sheet with one row per block for the person who calculates with it. Hours are numbers and can be summed.
For everyone who holds the day together
One person does the planning, everyone has to read it. Both live in the same system.
- Practice or pharmacy manager
The day is settled before it starts
- The plan is made in Excel in the evening, and in the morning someone is still missing where they are needed.
- Apply a day pattern, adjust the blocks, work through the staffing gaps, publish. The hours arithmetic runs alongside.
- Reception and administration
Answering without having to ask
- Who is in consultation today, who is in the lab, who takes the on-call duty? That is on a printout that is already out of date.
- The published day plan is readable for everyone, with activity and time, always up to date.
- Employee
Your own day in your pocket
- When am I on tomorrow, and doing what? The answer is on the wall back at the practice.
- Your own blocks with activity and time in the app, a reminder the evening before, handing over and taking on straight from there.
- Payroll and accountants
Figures you can actually work with
- Nothing can be summed from a printed plan, and hours typed up by hand carry errors.
- An Excel export with one row per block and hours as a number, plus the target-against-actual report from time tracking.
Security and data protection
Day planning means personal data in half-hour steps. Access is governed accordingly tightly.
- Rest periods and maximum working hours under the ArbZG are checked during planning
- Reasons for an absence are visible only to those with the permission, otherwise the column shows only that the person is away
- Without the matching permission the server does not hand out other people's hours at all
- Every change to the plan is documented traceably
- GDPR compliant, hosted on German servers
Does your business work in shifts?
When the day is not made of activities but of early, late and night shifts in rotation, shift planning is the mode to use.
Related
Where to go from here, and what waits for you there.
Frequent questions about duty planning
What practices, pharmacies and therapy businesses want to know before they start.
Question not answered here? Every step is explained in the help centre.
Send us a messageWhat is the difference from shift planning?
Shift planning works with named shifts and rotation: early, late, night, spread over weeks. Duty planning works one level below that, namely inside the day: which person has which activity from when to when. You decide per business which mode MetronHR works in.
Which businesses is duty planning made for?
For businesses whose day is divided into activities rather than shifts. Templates ship for veterinary practices, doctors' practices, dental practices, pharmacies and physiotherapy. Every template can be changed completely, and you can create your own activities, groups and rules freely.
How finely can I plan?
You set the grid interval to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 60 minutes. You also set the day window, that is from when to when the sheet runs. The templates come with sensible defaults, for example 30 minutes for a doctors' practice and 15 minutes for a pharmacy.
Are holiday, sickness and public holidays taken into account?
Yes. Approved absences and public holidays come from the same data as absence management, colour the person's column and count as a credit in the hours arithmetic. That way the difference between target and planned hours is right on holiday days too.
What do my people see?
The published day plan with all their colleagues and their activities, on the web and in the app. Drafts stay invisible. Without a special permission everyone sees hours only for themselves.
Can I print the plan and pin it up?
Yes, and that was a condition for adopting it. The day plan is produced as a real PDF, not as a browser printout, and in the orientation you set on screen. There is also a compact weekly sheet that fits a whole week on one page.
Which plan includes duty planning?
It is part of the Professional plan. During the 14-day trial you can try it out with no obligation.
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