Optimising rosters for access on mobile phones

Improve accessibility & readability for one of the most requested content on Med App

Ben Rowland avatar
Written by Ben Rowland
Updated over a week ago

One of the most common requests by clinicians is improved access to rosters on their mobile devices. Poor accessibility isn't only frustrating but leads to confusion and mistakes when scheduling shifts.

Key reasons to making rosters mobile accessible on Med App

Admin teams

Clinicians

Better rosters improve retention rates of clinicians

Easily find the latest source of truth without wading through an inbox

Updates are instantly communicated via mobile push notifications

Swaps happen regularly, it's difficult and time consuming to track changes

Files are easily uploaded, maintained with version changes

Rosters are only 3 clicks away

Improves clinical engagement on Med App

Remove barriers of work computer only access

What's the best file format to use?

Below compares the different file formats currently available on Med App to upload rosters.

Zoomed in

Excel

PDF Portrait

Strengths

  • Excellent zooming

  • Clinicians can highlight 'their' row

  • Freeze tabs / column

  • Multi tabs / sheets

Strength

  • Best viewing for a mobile phone’s natural orientation

  • Does not require downloading to view on android devices

Weakness

  • Android (non apple) users will need to download spreadsheet

  • Having different file versions after downloading could be confusing

  • Freezing tabs can take a lot of screen space

Weakness

  • Cannot highlight rows to easily find individuals

  • Spreadsheets are separated into pages

Comparing file formats - Zoomed Out

Maximise viewing on mobile screens for PDFs

If you're using PDF file formats, important to change 'margins' to narrow when saving. (See below). This will save the image as close to the edge as possible to the page.

Steps to exporting an Excel roster as a PDF

When exporting your roster to change it to an optimised PDF document for viewing on mobile follow these steps.

  • Print roster

  • Page size should be A4

  • Margins should be set to Narrow

  • Save as PDF

Uploading Rosters

After choosing the file format and optimising your roster follow these steps

  1. Uploaded it to Med App under Rosters & Rotations category

  2. Create a heading

  3. Appropriately name your roster

    1. Name/Department followed by the date uploaded dd//mm//yy

    2. If updating the roster modify the date

  4. Communicate that a new roster is available

Download a roster template

If you like our roster template you can download it here

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