Publishing & access / Field notes
Publishing a FIFO swing roster from an Excel workbook
Keep the established FIFO planning workbook, but check travel, swing boundaries and the roster version workers will actually consult.
FIFO planning is rarely a simple list of Monday-to-Friday shifts. A swing can include flight-in, flight-out, day and night coverage, breaks, training and leave. A workforce may be spread across site, camp, airport and home locations. When the plan lives in Excel, the publishing question is not “can software invent the rotation?” but “can the right reviewed version reach the people who need it?”
Separate the planning workbook from the workforce reference
Keep the workbook that planners already maintain. Before an upload, name the project and the date window the publication covers. A team might change a flight day without changing the rest of the swing; workers should not have to compare several forwarded spreadsheets to find that revision. A controlled current publication gives a defined place to check, while previous uploads remain in roster history for administrators.
This does not make RosterField a travel booking or fatigue-management system. Flight labels in a roster are status values, not confirmed reservations. Site rules, fatigue checks, award interpretation and travel notifications remain your organisation’s responsibility.
Review the swing boundary
Pick three known dates: the last day of the previous swing, the first day onsite and the outgoing travel day. Compare them with the import preview. If the workbook uses 03/04/2026, ensure the day/month order matches the source. A misread date can move an entire travel sequence to another month while the individual status labels still look plausible.
Check the date window as well. An Excel plan may contain a historical handover section plus a new swing and a draft future rotation. Publishing the wrong range can omit the incoming crew even if the file imported successfully. The review shows which dates and entries are included; treat those counts as operational checks, not merely technical statistics.
Make status meanings explicit
Use labels consistently in the source workbook. “Flight in”, “flight out”, “RDO”, leave and training must not collapse silently into an ordinary shift. Unfamiliar non-empty labels default to cleaned source text and require confirmation. A blank mapping retains the label; intentionally remove an unwanted value with a blank source-cell correction or a corrected workbook. Refresh the preview after any change.
Employment numbers are equally important. Two people may share a surname; a person may appear in both a mobilisation list and a shift list. Resolve repeated identifiers with the roster owner. Matrix records can use physical source-position identifiers when numbers are absent, but shift lists require employee identifiers. Check excluded records and totals. Personnel remain separate within each upload rather than being merged across files.
Publish and communicate the reference
After the preview reflects the approved plan, publish the version for the correct project. Share the project roster link or QR code through an approved channel and explain that people with the link can search by name without signing in. Treat the project link and displayed roster as shareable with its recipients; do not paste worker numbers or actual roster records into a public example.
When a swing changes, update the workbook, review a new upload and publish again. Tell people where to find the current version rather than relying on an old attachment. If your operation needs automatic flight notices, fatigue rules or payroll calculations, evaluate those needs separately; the roster publishing step cannot replace them.
See the guide to Australian date formats and the publication checklist for a repeatable review before each swing.
Questions people ask
Does a roster status such as “flight in” book travel?
No. It is a value from the source plan that the administrator must understand and review. Travel booking, notification and fatigue compliance belong to separate processes.
When should we publish a changed swing?
After the roster owner confirms the revised workbook and an administrator checks the correct people, statuses and dates. Communicate urgent changes directly as well; a new publication alone cannot confirm that a worker saw it.