How to publish an already-approved Excel shift plan

An operations manager has already agreed the October shift plan in Excel. What should the roster administrator do next? The job is not to rebuild those shifts in a different scheduler. It is to confirm that the approved file, selected period and people survive import, then publish a worker-facing version that matches the decision. Approval may have happened by email, meeting or an organisation’s own system; a successful upload does not establish that it happened.

Consider a fictional rail maintenance project at Marlow Yard. The planner, Alana, finalises a workbook for 5–18 October. The authorised manager approves that period, but the workbook also contains a speculative week beginning 19 October. Publishing every visible date would turn a proposal into an apparent instruction. Alana should hand over both the approved file and the boundary of approval, not simply a filename containing “final”.

Make the approval handoff explicit

Before opening RosterField, ask the planner or approver for the following:

Handoff item	Question the publisher can actually answer
Project and work period	Which project and inclusive dates were approved?
Source revision	Which saved CSV/XLSX file contains that decision?
Named approval	Who may confirm the plan is ready to communicate?
Open exceptions	Are any people, shifts or work locations still provisional?
Distribution instruction	Who should get the project link, and by what channel?

Store the approval record in the team’s normal document or correspondence system. Do not put private approval emails, employee contact lists or pay notes into a worker-facing sheet. If a row is awaiting approval, resolve it with the source owner before publication rather than treating the import preview as authority to make a staffing decision. A workbook’s modification time is useful context, but it is not proof of sign-off.

Bring the approved scope into the import

In the signed-in app, select the correct project and upload the approved CSV or XLSX. If a workbook has multiple sheets, choose the roster sheet for this release. Review how names, employment numbers, dates and shift cells were read. Check the first and last approved days and a few assignments agreed at the handoff: for example, fictional worker Priya Sen on the 5th, Joel Tran on the 11th and the night crew on the 18th. Compare the preview with the agreed source, not with your memory of an earlier file.

An import issue can expose a real source problem. Missing employment numbers can exclude people; duplicate numbers require a deliberate source-record choice. An unfamiliar code should be explained by the planner, not silently translated by the publisher. If a formula result is missing, fix and save the workbook upstream. Review the updated preview after resolving conflicts. The publisher can stop the release, but should not invent unapproved shift changes to make the preview look tidy.

If the preview includes dates after the approved fortnight, revisit the source and scope. If the import format or available selection does not safely isolate the approved period, prepare a separate approved export with the source owner and check it again. Do not assume a draft future column is harmless just because its cells are mostly empty.

Release the reference, then close the loop

Once the reviewed roster matches the approved decision, publish it as the current project version. Record the source revision, approved window, who authorised release and when it was published in your normal release record. The signed-in project has roster history, but that alone cannot prove who approved each shift or whether recipients read a message.

Workers can use the project link or QR code to search the published roster by name without an individual login. Distribute that link by the agreed route; it is a shareable project access point, not a private invitation to one person. For a substantive last-minute change, obtain a new decision, update the source, review a replacement and publish again. Follow site communication procedures as well if someone may already be travelling or on shift.

This sequence helps preserve responsibilities: the planner owns the proposed shifts, the approver owns the staffing decision, and the publisher owns faithful release of that decision. RosterField complements the Excel planning process; it does not approve fatigue, qualifications, pay or site access. For workbook preparation see the upload checklist; for formal gatekeeping use the release sign-off checklist.

Questions people ask

Can I publish just the approved fortnight if the workbook includes draft weeks?

Only if the reviewed source and selected period clearly exclude the draft assignments. Confirm the first and last dates against the approval record. If you cannot safely isolate them during import, ask the planner for a separately saved approved export, then review that export before publication. A blank future column is not proof that the whole future period was authorised.

What if the manager approves a change after I have uploaded the file?

Check whether that approval changes a shift, person, period or location in the source. If it does, obtain the revised approved file and review a fresh import; the earlier preview represents the earlier saved plan. Record the new approval and publish the checked replacement, then contact affected workers under the project’s change process.