Smart Scheduler

Hotpot's Smart Scheduler manages on-call so you don't have to.

Hotpot manages your on-schedule, so you don't have to spend time trading shifts, planning holidays, or scrambling when you realize you're on call during a vacation you planned months ago. How does it work?

Traditional tools

Traditional on-call tools work by building a round-robin schedule. Say your team consists of four people: Adam, Becca, Cy, and Denzel. The schedule will look something like this:

• Adam: Week 1

• Becca: Week 2

• Cy: Week 3

• Denzel: Week 4

• Adam: Week 5

• Becca: Week 6

… and so forth, into perpetuity. This is predictable! Anyone who wants to make plans can look at the schedule, pick a time when they aren't on-call, book a flight, or make other plans. But life isn't this linear, and people change their schedules. If Cy has something come up and needs to get out of week 3, he must swap with someone else, and… well, the schedule gets broken fast. Suddenly, we're all scrambling to check our plans.

Thankfully, Hotpot avoids this problem altogether.

Tell Hotpot when you can't

If you tell Hotpot when you can't be on-call, Hotpot will protect that time and ensure you are only on-call when you can be on-call. This means the team can plan vacations, make plans, and even carve out small periods when they need to do important tasks.

Hotpot maintains a known schedule 1 month into the future. This gives the team plenty of notice if something comes up and allows maximum flexibility.

Note that this and other schedule settings can be modified if you prefer!

Hotpot constantly monitors your schedule. As soon as a stint ends, Hotpot builds the next stint, searching for the best person to satisfy the schedule's needs that week. If any problems arise, the team is immediately notified to resolve the issue.

Choosing who is on-call

Hotpot uses a sophisticated, parametric bidding system to choose the best person to be on-call. The factors considered are time spent on-call, most recent on-call stint, and various subtle factors like recent vacations, and more!

Common questions

Is the scheduler fair?

It tries very hard to be.

The schedule aims to be fair within the requirements set by the schedule. Philosophically, the Smart Scheduler prefers small changes to large changes. For example, if someone is on-call two stints in a row, the scheduler will try very hard not to schedule them again for a while. This may not be possible if others are not available. Thankfully, Hotpot is very concerned about health!