Choosing rota software for a UK vet practice, criterion by criterion.

Watch out for the word “scheduling”.

Many “vet scheduling” tools actually manage client appointments (diary, reminders). That’s something else: here we mean the staff rota, who works when and who is on call. Check it on the first call.

Criterion 1: who builds the month.

Some tools help you place each person by hand; others propose the whole month, on-call included. Ask them to build your hardest month in front of you: leave, five Saturdays, a sick week.

Criterion 2: fairness, measured over time.

“Fair distribution” means nothing without a number. Ask how it is measured, per person, and whether the tool remembers previous months: nights, Saturdays, bank holidays.

Criterion 3: each person’s rules, and when they give way.

Days off, fixed days, limits, rest after on-call: are they hard rules or mere preferences? What happens when two rules conflict? A good tool explains it rather than quietly producing an impossible rota.

Criterion 4: working time law, without magic promises.

Be wary of “compliant automatically”. The Working Time Regulations 1998 set 11 hours’ daily rest, weekly rest, breaks and a 48-hour average. Ask what applies by default and what has to be set up, and have your rules checked by your adviser. Summary in our working time guide.

Criterion 5: vets and vet nurses in the same month.

Two teams with different needs, but one set of cover. If the tool only plans vets, the vet nurse rota will live elsewhere, and afternoons with three nurses and one vet will come back.

Criterion 6: records, separately.

In Great Britain, records must be adequate to show compliance with the 48-hour average and the night limits, kept for 2 years; since 1 January 2024, daily hours need not be recorded if compliance can be shown another way (regulation 9). A rota (the plan) is not a record of what happened. If a tool also clocks staff in, ask how: the ICO ordered Serco Leisure to stop using facial recognition and fingerprints for attendance in 2024. More in our guide to recording hours.

Criterion 7: life after publishing, and price.

Swaps between colleagues, last-minute leave, a published rota that doesn’t change behind anyone’s back. And price: per person or per practice, with or without a minimum term, and whether you can see it working on your real rota.

Djed, against this list.

We make Djed: read this as a vendor’s answer, and check it on your own rota.

• Builds the month: days and on-call together, vets and vet nurses as separate teams, by day or by shift. You correct by hand, and duties you pin are kept.
• Measures fairness: an index per person, weekends counted separately, twelve months of on-call memory.
• Applies the rules you set: hard or preferences, with an explanation when two rules clash. It doesn’t work out the law on its own.
• Prices: Solo €49 and Clinic €119 a month per practice, excl. VAT, in euros in the UK as in Ireland; Group on request. See pricing in detail.

What Djed doesn’t do today, so you know where it stops:

• it doesn’t keep working time records or clock-in data in the UK, and doesn’t run payroll;
• it doesn’t connect to your practice management system;
• two teams only, vets and vet nurses: reception and admin aren’t planned separately;
• it doesn’t record call-outs during on-call;
• it works in days: the 11 hours, weekly rest and the 48-hour average aren’t checked, the rest days you set are what counts;
• the app is in French for now.

If one of these is a dealbreaker, a full HR suite is probably a better fit. If not, the simplest test is your own rota: see what Djed does.

Sources and date checked.

• Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833), regulations 4 to 12. Northern Ireland has its own regulations, the Working Time Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016, with the same limits.
• ICO, enforcement notices to Serco Leisure (February 2024).

Texts checked on 5 October 2026. This guide is not legal advice: for your own situation, speak to your HR or employment adviser.