Documentation

This document contains information on how to use the RotaNG web interface.

Table of contents

Rotation Member

Am I oncall

The frontpage at (https://rota-ng.appspot.com) shows your next oncall shifts for your rotations. Following the link show upcoming shifts.

Shift swap

Following a rotation link from the frontpage will take you to the list of current shifts.

From that list you can add yourself to a shift, remove yourself from a shift (if it does not take the number of oncallers under the rotation limit), and swap yourself in for someone else. Filling in a comment is mandatory when changing the shift.

The common way to do a shift swap would be.

  • Find someone else to take you shift.
  • Ask that someone to go to (https://rota-ng.appspot.com) and switch themselves for you in the shift.

If you can't find a replacement, reach out to the rotation owner.

What about using the calendar to swap shifts

  • RotaNG supports the legacy shift swaps using the shared calendar.
  • It can take up to an hour before the calendar information is synced in to RotaNG.
  • This is expected to be deprecated Q1 2019. Different to rotation.py RotaNG does not use Google Calendar as storage. Datastore is used to store all shifts and configurations, Calendar is just a UI to the database. Syncing Calendar -> RotaNG adds complexity and lag to the service.

OOO

You‘ll not be considered for those dates when shifts are scheduled. Already scheduled shifts will be unaffected , you’ll have to swap with someone for those.

Rotation Owner

Create new rotation

Copy existing

  • Follow link Manage Rotations and click Modify for one of your existing rotations.
  • Change the rotation name to the name of the new rotation.
  • Modify and submit with the new changes.

New from scratch

Configuration Options

  • Rotation Name

    Used for calendar events.

    Changing this field on an existin rotation creates a copy.

  • Description

    Describes the rotation. Also used for the summary of calendar events. See the Email templates for more information about how to fill out this field.

  • Calendar

    This should contain the id of the team shared calendar.

    Eg. google.com_d3itj7r696lolrs39d0to7rtjc@group.calendar.google.com

    To give the rotation service the rights to read/modify the team calendar you need to share the calendar with the rota service account. rota-ng@appspot.gserviceaccount.com.

  • Owners

    A comma separated list of rotation owners.

    Note: This will be changed to use mdb groups in the future.

  • Expiration

    This specifies when to automatically schedule new shifts. Setting this to 0 gives no automatic shifts will be scheduled.

    Note: Nothing will be scheduled before the rotation is enabled

  • Shifts To Schedule

    Defines how many shifts to be scheduled when Expired.

  • Email Subject Template

    The subject of the emails sent from the rotation service to upcoming oncallers.

    This uses Go templates to generated the final message.

    The structures used to feed the template looks like this.

    type Info struct {
  RotaName    string
  ShiftConfig ShiftConfig
  ShiftEntry  ShiftEntry
  Member      Member
  MemberURL   string
}

type ShiftConfig struct {
  // StartTime represents the start-time of the first shift.
  // Only the Time of day is considered.
  // Defaults to 00:00 PDT.
  StartTime time.Time
  // Length sets the number of days a shift lasts.
  Length int
  // Skip defines a number of days with no oncalls.
  Skip int
  // Shifts represents the shifts over a 24hour period.
  Shifts []Shift
  // ShiftMembers specifides number of members per shift.
  ShiftMembers int
  // Generator used to schedule new shifts.
  Generator string
}

type ShiftEntry struct {
  // Name of the Shift this entry belongs to.
  Name string
  // OnCall are the members on-call for this shift.
  OnCall    []ShiftMember
  StartTime time.Time
  EndTime   time.Time
  // Comment is an optional comment where the rota algo
  // can add some extra information.
  Comment string
  // EvtID can be used to match an event to a calendar event.
  EvtID string
}

type Member struct {
  Name        string
  Email       string
  TZ          time.Location
  OOO         []OOO
  Preferences []Preference
}

    This gives that you can have any information from the Info struct inserted in your message.

    Eg.

    Upcoming On-call shift for rotation: {{.RotaName}} {{.ShiftEntry.StartTime.In .Member.TZ}}  to  {{.ShiftEntry.EndTime.In .Member.TZ}}

    Will produce:

    Upcoming On-call shift for rotation: Name of rota 2006-04-05 17:00:00 -0700 PDT to 2006-04-06 17:00:00 -0700 PDT

    For a member with a US Pacific TZ.

    Note: The current %s format replacement will not work. You could replace the %s with {{.RotaName}} for something similar.

  • Email Body Template

    See Email Subject Template.

  • Email Days Before Notify

    Number of days before an on-call shift to send mails out.

    Note: No mails will be produced until the rotation is enabled.

  • Members

    Manage members of the rotation.

  • Shift StartTime

    Specifies the start in MTV time of the first shift.

  • Length

    Number of days a shift spans.

  • Skip

    Skip in the shift schedule. Eg. if you rotation is weekdays only you'd set this to Length/Skip: 5/2

  • ShiftMembers

    Number of members to schedule per shift.

  • Generator

    What generator to use when scheduling new shifts.

Manage shifts

  • Follow link Manage Rotations and click Shifts for one of your existing rotations.

History

Toggles list of previous shifts.

Current

Shows upcoming shifts. As an owner you can modify shifts here. Rules for how many should be scheduled for a shift are overridden.

Generate

Schedules new shifts. Leaving the StartTime empty will continue scheduling from last current shift. If ShiftsToSchedule is left empty the configuration setting will be used.