Build a 2-2-3 work schedule for your crews and print the calendar.

In a 2-2-3 schedule each crew works 2 days, is off 2, works 3, is off 2, works 2 and is off 3.

14 days = 2 on + 2 off + 3 on + 2 off + 2 on + 3 off

The pattern repeats every 14 days, and a crew works 7 of them. Each shift is 12 hours, so a crew works 84 hours in a cycle, which averages 42 hours a week. No one works more than three days in a row, and no one is off for more than three.

Crew B works exactly the days crew A is off, so with two crews every single day has someone on a 12-hour shift. Crews C and D work the same dates as A and B on the other half of the clock. That is how four crews cover 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with exactly one crew on each shift.

• Each crew works 7 shifts in 14 days, 182 shifts in 52 weeks
• That is 84 hours in 14 days and 2,184 hours in 52 weeks
• With a Monday start, each crew has a full weekend off every other week

Four crews cover day and night, and fewer crews leave part of the clock empty.

The Crews buttons set how many of A, B, C and D the calendar uses. With two crews, A and B cover one 12-hour shift a day and there is no night shift. With three, crew C works the nights on the days crew A is on, so the night shift has someone on 7 of every 14 days. Four crews fill both shifts every day, and the line under the totals in the tool says how many days each shift is covered.

The Day shift starts at box sets the clock times. A 6:00 AM start gives a day shift from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM and a night shift from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM, and both are printed in the legend of the calendar.

Swapping days and nights every 14 days turns the schedule into a 28-day rotation.

There are two ways to run the crews, and both use the same days on and off. Crews that stay on one shift are on fixed days or fixed nights, the arrangement often called the Pitman schedule. Crews that swap, so that day crews become night crews after one cycle and the reverse, repeat every 28 days, and this is the rotation known as the Panama schedule. The Soon guide and the Deltek article describe both. Choose Swap every 14 days in the tool and the small cycle grid in the tool stretches to 28 days, with the dark squares showing each crew's nights.

Where the workweek starts decides whether a crew gets 20 hours of overtime or 8.

The 12-hour shifts do not divide evenly into 40-hour weeks. Federal overtime is counted by the workweek, which the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #23 calls “a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours” that “may begin on any day and at any hour of the day.” It also says “averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted,” so a 60-hour week and a 24-hour week do not cancel out.

• Workweek starts on day 1 or day 5 of the cycle: 5 shifts then 2, which is 60 and 24 hours, and 20 hours over 40 every two weeks
• Workweek starts on any of the other five days: 4 shifts then 3, or 3 then 4, which is 48 and 36 hours, and 8 hours over 40 every two weeks

The total hours are the same, 84 every two weeks, so only the day the workweek starts on changes the overtime. The Workweek starts on box in the tool sets it, and the card beside the calendar shows the hours of the two weeks for your choice. Show a single crew and the calendar adds a column with the hours of every workweek.

Print the calendar for the whole site or for one crew and pin it where people look.

Weeks to show runs from 4 weeks to a full year of 52, and the calendar uses the weekday you choose as the first column. Day crews are shown in amber and night crews in dark squares, so the two still differ on a black and white printer. Copy puts a crew's dates in plain text, and the link rebuilds the same schedule, with the same start date, crews and options, on anyone's screen. To line a schedule up with weekly plans, the week number calculator gives the ISO week for each start date, and the date calculator moves a start date by weeks.

A schedule fills every shift on paper, and it only works while the crews stay.

A 2-2-3 rota has no spare crew: when one person leaves, a shift stays empty or someone covers it with overtime. TeamPredict reads public LinkedIn signals to flag resignation risk early, so a gap in the calendar shows up as a warning while there is still time to talk.