Maintaining a safe workplace starts with ensuring the right people are on-site at the right time.
By integrating Duties such as First Aiders, Fire Wardens, and Health & Safety Officers directly into your Rota and Time & Attendance module, you move beyond simple scheduling to proactive compliance management.
Please note: Rota and time & attendance duties are available only if your Breathe account has the Health & Safety module enabled.
Key benefits
🛡️ Safer coverage by design – Duty badges on the rota show who covers each critical role every day, so you don’t have to rely on memory or paper lists.
🚦Configurable duty requirements – Set minimum numbers of first aiders, key holders, fire wardens, etc. per location and day, with a simple traffic-light view of whether you’re covered.
🔄 Duty-aware shift swaps and drops – Keep flexibility for employees, while automatically routing risky trades to managers when they would break coverage instead of auto-approving them.
🔗 Seamless with Breathe Health & Safety – Duties sync automatically from the H&S module into RTA, so rota decisions are always based on up-to-date responsibilities without extra data entry.
📝 Evidence for audits and incidents – Use historical rotas and duty coverage to demonstrate you scheduled the right people in the right place at the right time.
Getting started
Before you will be able to see Duties in the rota, time and attendance module, make sure these important steps have been taken...
Health & Safety is enabled in Breathe HR under: Settings → Modules → Additional modules.
You’ve assigned duties to employees in your account. A list of duties available to show on an employee's profile is:
First aider
Fire warden
Mental health first aider
Health & safety officer
Key holder
You can assign duties to your people by heading to their More Tab, selecting their Permissions menu option and pressing the edit icon.
RTA is enabled for your account and locations as usual.
Once these are in place, duties will sync automatically from HR into RTA.
How duties sync from HR into RTA
When Health & Safety and RTA are both turned on:
Employee duties are treated as HR source data and sync one-way HR → RTA.
Changes to an employee’s duties in HR (additions or removals) are reflected in RTA within a few minutes.
If you turn off the Health & Safety module, all duty-related information is hidden from the rota & duties will no longer appear on shifts.
You cannot edit duty assignments directly in RTA; always make changes in HR and let them sync through.
Viewing duties on the rota
Once synced, duties appear directly in the rota:
Each employee card on the rota shows duty badges for the responsibilities they hold (for example, a cross for First Aider, a key icon for Key Holder).
Hovering over a duty badge shows the name of the duty...
This gives managers an at-a-glance view of who can cover Health & Safety roles when building or editing a rota.
Setting duty requirements for a location
To help you plan safe coverage, you can configure duty requirements per location and day.
Who can do this?
Users with permission to edit rotas/rota settings for that location.
Steps
Go to Configure → RTA Settings → Rota settings → Select Duties
Choose the location tab you want to configure.
Find the duty and day of the week and press the Configure icon.
In the configuration screen, add one or more time periods for that duty:
From / To: The times of day the duty must be covered.No. people: The minimum number of people with that duty you need during that period.
Click Add time period to add it to the table, then Save to apply your changes.
You can edit or delete existing requirements at any time from the same screen by pressing the bin icon.
Understanding the Duty Coverage Panel
When you’re building or reviewing a rota, RTA shows a Coverage Panel summarising how well you meet your configured duty requirements for each day.
For each duty (e.g. First Aider, Key Holder) you’ll see:
The requirement: “First Aider: 1 required”.
The number of scheduled employees who hold that duty on that day/time.
A colour-coded status:
Green ✅ – requirement met or exceeded.Amber/Red ⚠️ – requirement not met.
If you try to publish a rota with unmet duty requirements, RTA will show a clear warning explaining which duties are short; however, it will allow you to publish anyway by pressing ignore, so you stay in control of operational decisions...
Press the arrow icon to uncover the duty details, and press cancel to go back and add shifts for people with those duties to your rota before you publish it.
How duties affect shift swaps and drops
If your account uses shift swaps or shift drops/offers, RTA checks duties during trades whenever:
Health & Safety is enabled,
Duties and Shift Requirements are configured for that site/day.
For every trade, RTA:
Evaluates duty coverage for the affected site/date (and time window) using:
Everyone rostered that day
Their duties from HR
Your configured duty requirements
Classifies the trade as either:
Coverage met – requirements stay satisfied after the trade, or
Coverage not met – at least one duty falls below the required minimum.
If coverage is met
Existing swap rules apply as normal – e.g. auto-approval can still be used where enabled.
If coverage is not met
RTA will bypass auto-approval, even if it’s turned on, and send the request to a manager for review with a clear duty warning.
In the approval screen, managers see:
A warning banner explaining which duty will be short (e.g. “Approving this change will leave Main Office on Mon 10 March without the required First Aider (0/1 required)”).
A mini coverage summary for affected duties (e.g. “First Aider: 0/1 required (red)”).
The manager can choose to Approve anyway or Reject the trade.
This keeps employees’ flexibility while preventing risky changes from slipping through unnoticed.
FAQ's
Here is a list of frequently asked questions with direct, simple answers:
Q: What are "Duties" in the system?
A: They are key Health & Safety roles (like First Aider or Fire Warden) synced from your HR module to help manage safe shift coverage.
Q: Why can't I see Duties in my Rota?
A: You must have the Health & Safety module enabled in your Breathe settings and have assigned specific duties to employees in their HR profiles.
Q: Can I update an employee’s duty directly in RTA?
A: No. Duties sync one-way from HR to RTA. Any changes must be made in the employee's HR record.
Q: How do I know if I have enough coverage on a shift?
A: The Rota features a Coverage Panel with a traffic-light system: Green means you've met your requirements, while Amber/Red means you are short-staffed for that duty.
Q: Can I still publish a rota if a duty requirement isn't met?
A, Yes. The system will show a warning to ensure you are aware of the gap, but it will allow you to publish the rota anyway.
Q: How do duties affect automatic shift swaps?
A: If a shift swap would result in a lack of required coverage (e.g., no First Aider on site), the system will block auto-approval and send the request to a manager for manual review.
Q: What happens if I turn off the Health & Safety module?
A: All duty-related icons, requirements, and warnings will be hidden from the Rota interface immediately.
Q: How do I set the required number of staff for a specific role?
A: Go to Configure → RTA Settings → Rota settings → Select Duties, select a duty, a day of the week and enter the time periods and minimum number of people required for that site.
We're here to help
Any questions? Contact support by using the messaging feature at the bottom right of your screen 💬