Under each day on the rota there is a strip of colour, darker where the site is usually busiest at that hour and paler where it is quiet. That is the demand band. Shifts sit on top of it, so you can see at a glance whether the people you have rostered line up with the hours the money comes in.
What it is built from
The last thirteen weeks of hourly takings from the connected till, grouped by day of the week. A Friday's band is the shape of the last thirteen Fridays. It is a picture of what usually happens, not a forecast: Friday at eight is dark because Fridays at eight have been busy.
The shading is relative to that site's own days. A dark hour at a quiet village pub and a dark hour at a city bar are each that site's peak, not the same amount of money.
Reading it
A dark stretch with nobody on it is the thing to fix first. Add a shift or extend one.
Three people over a pale stretch is money going out with nothing coming in. Shorten a shift or move a start.
A hard edge where the band goes from pale to dark from one hour to the next is a service starting. Shifts that begin on that edge leave nobody set up; start them earlier.
Using it
Drag shifts as you normally would and watch them against the band. The expected takings for the day sit in the header next to the weather, and if you can see labour cost, the rostered wages as a share of expected sales move as you go. Or ask Paddy to draft the week against the band: see Letting Paddy suggest a week.
When there is no band
The site has fewer than four weeks of takings of any kind.
Takings entered by hand are daily totals, so a site with those and no till gets an estimated band: a typical hospitality day with a lunch and a dinner hump, the same shape every day, scaled to what each weekday usually takes. It is marked as estimated wherever it is used, and it never offers quiet windows. Only a till gives the band the site's own hourly shape.
The day is inside a closure period. Closed days have no band. See The rota and closed sites.
Who sees it
Anyone who can edit the rota. The band shows shading, not figures, so it does not depend on the sales permission. The expected takings figure beside it does; a manager who cannot see sales sees the band and not the number.
The band is thirteen weeks old at one end. If the site has just changed hours, opened a garden or lost a big regular booking, the band lags. Trust the recent weeks, and give it time. And if the till stopped sending, the band keeps the old shape until takings resume, so check the connection before you read too much into it.