Full module reference: tactical rostering → and sector planning →
Lifecycles · The operational day
The published roster says who is on duty. The day itself decides who stands where
Strategic rostering (see /lifecycles/roster-month) answers who works. The operational day is where that answer meets real airspace, real positions and whatever the shift actually throws at it. This page follows one working day through SkyRoster's tactical layer, from the demand plan drawn up last week to the handover at the far end.
Stage 1 of 6 · Before the shift starts
The day's demand was decided last week, in fifteen-minute slices
A Sector Opening is the day's plan: a sector configuration assigned to every quarter-hour of the 24-hour day, 96 slots in total. verified This, not the published roster's own manpower requirements, is what decides which working positions the tactical layer offers today. Strategic rostering and tactical rostering are deliberately two separate systems, joined only through this sector opening.
The first time a supervisor opens a published roster's tactical view, a short dialog asks for the sector opening to staff against and a time interval, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, which must not exceed any working position's own maximum duration. That choice is saved with the roster; reopening it later skips the dialog.
Stage 2 of 6 · Filling positions
Auto-fill from a standing doctrine, then a person corrects what is left
Allocate Preferred
Bulk-fills positions for one interval, or every interval, from a Preferred Allocation, a saved plan of which position each shift type should hold across the day. This is where a unit encodes "the Morning shift's third controller always goes on Executive ACC" once, instead of re-deciding it every session.
Manual, cell by cell
A supervisor clicks an open cell to get an assignment popover listing open demand slots, formatted by sector configuration, position and qualification, for example [SC1][EXE][ACC]. An assignment can be pinned or locked so a later bulk action leaves it alone.
Stage 3 of 6 · Someone calls in sick
A gap opens mid-shift, and the same eligibility machinery that built the roster fills it
A controller reports sick. A Leave request goes in, through the phone or on their behalf, and moves through whatever approval chain that leave type carries, in some units that is a single auto-approving step. While a supervisor has the Workbench open, the app polls every five seconds for approvals happening elsewhere, so the moment that leave clears, the gap shows up without a manual refresh.
From there it is a staffing decision, not a software one: reassign from the Backup Pool if one exists for this roster, or raise a Work Request against the vacated position, calling someone in on what would otherwise be their day off. See a request, end to end for exactly how that request resolves, including how the extra hours it creates get classified.
Stage 4 of 6 · A shift extension
Stretching a shift you already have, rather than creating a whole new one
Sometimes the gap is at the edge of a shift, not in the middle of the day, someone is asked to start earlier or stay later. A Shift Extension Request stretches the boundary of an existing assignment instead of standing up a separate one, bounded by tenant-wide caps on how many an employee can raise per month and how far before or after a shift it may reach. configured
The extra time is classified the same way a Work Request's is: SkyRoster checks the employee's Bank of Working Hours balance first, banking what it covers, before anything is priced as overtime, see payroll export for the full pipeline. An employee who repeatedly cancels an approved, hours-consuming extension trips a configured refusal threshold and a warning notification, an honest guard against the request being used to game the schedule.
Stage 5 of 6 · Watching coverage, not just filling gaps
Four views of the same interval, for four different questions, and a tolerance you set
Check Solution, on the tactical grid
The same check-without-changing idea as the strategic roster's own Check Solution: it scores the interval as it currently stands against every active tactical rule, so a supervisor judges quality before committing, not after.
A shortfall you decided was acceptable
A Tactical Threshold Limit table sets how much staffing shortfall is tolerable, as a percentage or a headcount, tracked separately for night and day, because night operations often run leaner than daytime traffic can. configured
Position View shows required-versus-allocated by position, sector and qualification; Occupancy View shows working, unused and present headcount over the period; Resource View is where the assigning actually happens; Summary View totals worked hours per qualification and position once the interval is saved. Full detail on all four at tactical rostering →.
Stage 6 of 6 · The handover
The shift ends. The next mandatory period already knows it is starting
A mandatory period, the system's formal statement of "this employee is expected here from X to Y," rolls over automatically as the day's plan changes, an office shift with a lunch break splits into two windows around it, a night shift's window is corrected onto the right roster day. Rescheduling a period still in the future is silent. Rescheduling one already underway or already past needs a supervisor's explicit sign-off, because that window is evidence, absences and payroll figures were already computed against it. Full mechanism at attendance →.
A controller never opens the tactical workbench, that view stays with the head of unit or the organisation manager throughout. What they see on their own phone is a read-only day: which position, which sector, whether they were on it as instructor, trainee or support, and any break or leave overlay, colour-coded to match the desktop roster. That is their handover.
What this layer does not do
Read this before you assume more than it claims
Bring a day that went sideways.
A working session walks a real shift, sick call and all, through the sector opening, the position allocation and the handover, so you see exactly where the gap would have been caught.
Who else will ask, and what they will want