Case Study: Staff Scheduling App

The problem

About 150 staff work each event, moving between several roles and time slots. The schedule lived in a spreadsheet that had become unreadable: to find your own name you scanned everyone else's columns.

What we built

A web app built from scratch. Planners set up positions, teams and time slots and see gaps and double-bookings at a glance. Each staff member gets a personal page with their own schedule.

The result

It has run live at the organisation's events, with strong feedback from staff, and has kept improving since, mostly for team leaders.

For the planners

The whole event on one screen

How many positions are filled, who is double-booked and which teams are short, without opening a single spreadsheet tab.

Northlight Group (demo)

Admin overview: 19 of 22 positions fully staffed, one booking conflict, and staffing levels for five teams

A staff member's phone view showing where they are now, what is next, and their schedule for the day

For every staff member

Just their own day

Each person opens a page they can save to their phone's home screen. Key information sits at the top (parking, what to wear, who to call), then their own schedule in order. Tap any position for the detail.

Staff sign in with the Microsoft account they already have
Team leaders see their whole team and who is on each position
If someone is double-booked, both they and the planners see it

Northlight Group (demo)

Teams view listing each team's leaders and positions with how many staff are assigned

Why it stuck

The spreadsheet had the information. Nobody could use it.

Every fact in the new app was already in the old spreadsheet. What changed is that each person now sees only what they need, on the device they already carry. Most of this build was about presentation, which is usually where adoption is won or lost.

Built by our founder. Demo data shown, and the organisation's name is removed.

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