Guides
Rota software for hospitality
Hospitality rotas are the hardest kind: opening hours that stretch past midnight, demand that swings by the day, part-timers with changing availability, and the ever-present close-then-open shift pair. Darouta is built for exactly this shape of scheduling.
Draft the week from the floor
Work the grid with spreadsheet keyboard shortcuts and mark every remaining empty cell as off in one click — or, on the Pro plan, type shifts in plain English: “Alice 9-5 on Monday”. Darouta works on your phone and installs like an app, so the Friday-night fix happens at the bar, not in the back office on Monday.
The close-then-open trap, caught early
The classic hospitality violation is closing at 1am and opening at 9am — less than the 11 hours of rest between working days that UK workers are entitled to under gov.uk’s rest-breaks guidance, alongside the uninterrupted 20-minute break when a day exceeds 6 hours. Darouta’s Labour Law Guardrails flag insufficient daily rest, missing breaks, and weekly-hours risks while you schedule — before the rota goes out, not after the complaint. These automated checks are operational guidance, not legal advice.
One group, many sites
On the Pro plan the structure mirrors the operation: venues for each site, departments for Kitchen, Bar, and Floor, and collaborator permissions so each manager sees only their own patch while the owner keeps the overview. Pricing stays per employee — £2 per employee per month with a 30-day free trial — so opening another site doesn’t change the pricing model. More in the multi-venue guide.
Publishing that survives staff turnover
Hospitality teams change fast, so Darouta never depends on staff installing or registering anything: the published rota is a live link that opens on any phone, and on the Pro plan PDF attachments ride along on publish emails, with mid-week changes republished to only the people affected.
Start with your own rota
Try the playground with up to 10 employees and no account, or start free with a single venue of up to 50 staff.