How IRIS Works
Your in-app AI assistant — built for healthcare rostering. It understands your streams, craft groups, rules, and staff. Plain English in; smart, explainable answers out.
Structure First, Then Shifts
IRIS doesn’t “just fill empty cells.” Before it places anyone on a roster, it already understands your department from four angles. The better your setup, the better every suggestion.
Who You’re Rostering
Roles, craft groups, and scope of practice — so every shift has the right person, not just a warm body.
Where They Work
Departments (streams) and services — so coverage matches your operational reality, not a generic template.
How Demand Behaves
Patterns across the week — Monday ≠ Friday, Fast Track ≠ Resus. IRIS knows the difference and staffs accordingly.
What Must Be Protected
Fatigue, training, leave, and contracts — so flexibility doesn’t turn into chaos or compliance risk.
The Five Levels — What You Need to Know
IRIS works through five distinct layers. Keep Levels 1–4 in good shape and Level 5 — the living roster — is where IRIS helps you build, fill, and validate.
Hard Rules vs Soft Rules
IRIS never breaks a hard rule — ever. Soft rules are optimised when possible, and when they flex, you always see why.
Always Protected
IRIS will not suggest any assignment that violates a hard rule. These are absolute. No exceptions.
- Minimum rest between shifts (e.g. 10 hours)
- Maximum consecutive days or nights
- Scope of practice — right role, right shift
- Approved leave blocks all assignment
- Regulatory and contractual constraints
Balanced and Explained
IRIS optimises soft rules when it can. If it ever needs to flex one, it shows you the reason — clearly.
- Preferred shift types (e.g. “prefer mornings”)
- Ideal weekend balance across the team
- Night shift distribution
- Personal patterns and preferences
- Fairness targets across 7 dimensions
What You Can Ask IRIS
Type in plain English from the Dashboard or The Living Roster. Use IRIS’s suggestions as a starting point — accept, modify, or reject each one.
Coverage & Roster Generation
Fairness & Compliance
Assignments & Edits
How-To (Platform)
IRIS Assists. You Decide.
IRIS never publishes or approves anything on your behalf. Every decision stays with you — IRIS just makes those decisions faster and better-informed.
🤖 IRIS Can
- Generate a complete, optimised roster in under 30 seconds
- Suggest individual assignments and gap fills
- Flag rule violations, conflicts, and coverage gaps
- Run fairness audits across 7 dimensions
- Explain every suggestion with its reasoning
- Answer questions about the roster in plain English
- Guide you through how to use any part of the platform
👤 You Keep
- Final review and approval of every suggestion
- The decision to publish the roster
- The right to override with your own reasoning
- Control over how much to rely on AI — full generation, gap-fill only, or validation only
- Clinical and operational judgement IRIS can’t have
- All governance and accountability
IRIS Is Here for You
IRIS is your personal assistant inside the app. Ask about your shifts, your leave, your hours, or how to do anything in the platform — in plain English, no commands needed.
Your Shifts & Roster
Ask what you’re working, when your next day off is, or who you’re working with — IRIS reads your live roster to answer accurately.
Your Hours & Fairness
Check how many hours, nights, or weekends you’ve worked this month — IRIS pulls it straight from your real data.
Your Leave
See what leave you have coming up, how many days you’ve used, or ask how to submit a new leave request step by step.
Swaps & Availability
Check pending swap requests, see what availability you’ve set, or ask IRIS to walk you through how to request a swap.
Five Simple Steps
Using IRIS is as simple as sending a message. Here’s how to get the most from it.
Open IRIS
Find the IRIS chat icon on your Dashboard or in the app sidebar.
Type Naturally
Ask in plain English — “What are my shifts this week?” No special commands needed.
Get a Real Answer
IRIS answers using your live data — actual shifts, leave, and availability.
Ask How-To
For “how do I…?” questions, IRIS gives step-by-step instructions that match the real app.
Check the Screen
If something doesn’t look right, go to My Shifts or Leave Planner to verify and take action.
What You Can Ask IRIS
Here are real examples — just type something like these in the chat.
Your Shifts
Your Hours & Fairness
Leave & Swaps
How-To (Platform)
What IRIS Doesn’t Do
IRIS is here to inform and guide you — but it doesn’t make changes on your behalf.
Can’t Change Your Roster
Only roster builders and admins can assign, remove, or publish shifts. IRIS explains; they decide.
Only Sees Your Data
IRIS only has access to your own shifts, leave, hours, and availability. It cannot see other staff’s private information.
Can’t Approve Requests
IRIS can’t approve leave or swap requests — but it can walk you through exactly how to submit them step by step.
What IRIS Always Stands For
Whether you’re a roster builder or a staff member, these principles never change.
Built for Healthcare
Designed for clinicians, roster builders, department heads, and workforce leaders — by people who understand healthcare rostering from the inside.
Transparent by Design
IRIS doesn’t hide complexity — it handles it responsibly. Every suggestion comes with a reason. Every exception is visible. Every decision is auditable.
Workforce Data Only
IRIS works only with workforce data. It does not store or process patient data — ever. Privacy and data boundaries are fundamental, not optional.
Fairness & Trust
Good rostering isn’t about perfection — it’s about resilience, fairness, and trust. IRIS supports that by making rules visible and decisions explainable.
I Want to… Where Do I Start?
| I want to… | Who | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Generate or fill a roster | Roster Builder | The Living Roster → Generate with IRIS, or ask IRIS in chat. |
| Check coverage or fairness | Roster Builder | Ask IRIS (“coverage gaps”, “fairness audit”) or use Fairness Intelligence. |
| See my shifts / hours / leave | Staff | Ask IRIS or go to My Shifts, Leave Planner. |
| Learn how to do something | Both | Ask IRIS — “How do I…?” — and it will walk you through step by step. |
| Request leave or a shift swap | Staff | Leave Planner or Shift Deck. Ask IRIS to explain the steps. |
| Approve leave or swaps | Roster Builder | Leave Planner, Shift Deck. Ask IRIS to explain the approval process. |
| Validate the roster before publishing | Roster Builder | Ask IRIS “any rule violations?” or use Roster Health. |
| Sync my roster to my phone calendar | Staff | Ask IRIS “How do I sync to Google Calendar?” for step-by-step instructions. |
Try IRIS for Yourself
See how IRIS works in a live environment — or book a guided demo with our team.