Tutorials

Every feature, step by step.

Short walkthroughs for everything Callwell does — from your first import to your first auto-build. Every section below has a narrated walkthrough. Prefer reading? Every step is written out too.

First look (in the app)

What it is: a 4-screen tutorial the app shows the first time you open it — skippable, and you can replay it any time by tapping the ? button in the corner of the app.

  1. Build the schedule. Add your providers and rules, then tap Auto-Build for a fair call schedule.
  2. Rules checked automatically. Every edit is checked against your rules, like no call on a day off.
  3. Swaps and time off. Providers request swaps or time off; admins approve before anything changes.
  4. Synced to Calendar. Send shifts to Apple Calendar and export to Excel, PDF or CSV.

Tip: the sections below go deeper on every one of these — this is just the 60-second version.

1. Getting started

What it does: sets up your first team, adds your roster, and decides who's actually in the call rotation.

  1. From the welcome screen, tap Create a Team and give it a name.
  2. Add each person to the roster — name, initials, and color.
  3. For each person, mark them in the call pool (they take call/shifts) or viewer only (they just see the schedule).
  4. Set your own identity as Coordinator so the app knows who's driving the schedule.
  5. Repeat for additional teams if your group covers more than one service.

Tips: only people in the call pool count toward your plan's provider cap — add viewers freely, they're always free.

2. Import your current schedule

What it does: brings your existing Excel or CSV schedule in and reads the layout for you.

  1. From Import, upload your Excel or CSV file.
  2. Callwell auto-detects the layout and paints the sheet with color-coded guesses.
  3. Tap any row or column to correct what it means: Dates, People, Shifts/Call, or Ignore.
  4. Transposed sheets (people across the top, dates down the side) and multi-row person bands are both supported — tap to remap if the auto-detect misses one.
  5. Review the People Detected list and merge any duplicates (e.g., "J. Smith" and "Smith, J.").
  6. Choose Replace (start clean) or Merge (add to what's already there) if you're re-importing.

Tips: import schedules only — never enter patient information anywhere in Callwell, including in an imported sheet.

3. Usual days off

What it does: teaches Callwell each person's standing days off so auto-build never schedules around them.

  1. Open a person's profile and go to Usual Days Off.
  2. Pick a mode: By Count (e.g., two Tuesdays off a month), By Pattern (e.g., Week 1 vs. Week 2 rotation), or By Week (specific weeks of the month).
  3. Mark each rule Required (a hard rule the engine must honor) or Flexible (the engine tries, and flags it if it can't).
  4. Save — the rule applies to every future auto-build until you change it.

Tips: use Required sparingly for true must-haves; Flexible rules keep the schedule fair without boxing the engine into a corner.

4. Auto-build

What it does: builds a fair, rule-safe month — or a whole year — in one tap.

  1. Open the month (or year) and tap Auto-build.
  2. If you've already placed some people manually, check Keep my manual placements on the build sheet.
  3. Callwell fills the rest, balancing call across everyone — including holiday equity.
  4. The hard rules you set are always enforced — including never on call on a day off, and never on call the day before a day off.
  5. Review any flagged conflicts and adjust as needed.

Tips: manual placements are pinned 📌 — auto-build always keeps them, builds around them, and still counts them toward fairness.

5. Holidays

What it does: splits the major holidays fairly across your group, automatically.

  1. Callwell seeds the 7 majors most groups observe: New Year's, MLK Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day (with observed dates), Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
  2. Go to Observed Holidays and check off only the ones your group actually observes.
  3. Unchecked holidays never come back into future builds.
  4. Add any custom holiday your group observes that isn't in the default list.
  5. Auto-build splits observed holidays fairly across the call pool over time.

Tips: set your Observed Holidays list before your first auto-build of the year — it drives holiday equity from day one.

6. Requests, swaps & approvals

What it does: lets members request time off and trade call without breaking the schedule.

  1. Members submit a request in their open window, choosing a leave type (VL, ET, EL, Out, or another type your group uses).
  2. To trade call, either provider proposes a swap.
  3. The other provider accepts or declines first, then the admin approves — Callwell re-covers the call automatically as part of the approval.
  4. Every request and swap is logged with who made it and when.

Tips: approvals are the only step that changes the live schedule — nothing moves until the admin signs off.

7. Cloud groups

What it does: keeps one schedule in sync across every phone in your group.

  1. As admin, create a cloud group — Callwell generates an invite code.
  2. Share the code with your team.
  3. Members join from the welcome screen or from Profile using the invite code.
  4. From then on, changes sync to every joined phone automatically.

Tips: Coordinator-level access on a joined device is PIN-gated, so joining a group doesn't hand out admin control by accident.

8. People & Access

What it does: controls who can see what, and who can edit what.

  1. Open People & Access and assign each person a role: Admin/Chief (full access), Editor (edits the schedule), Member (requests and swaps), or View-only.
  2. Tap a person to edit their initials and color.
  3. Set a profile passcode for anyone who needs one.
  4. Tapped the wrong profile? Cancel returns you to the profile list without changing anything.

Tips: give Editor — not Admin/Chief — to people who should help build the schedule but shouldn't manage roles or billing.

9. Backup, restore & export

What it does: protects your schedule and gets it out to Excel, PDF, or Apple Calendar.

  1. Make a one-tap backup file anytime from Settings.
  2. To restore, choose the backup file — Callwell shows a preview (teams, people, date span) before it replaces anything.
  3. Export to Excel, PDF, or CSV whenever you need a document to share.
  4. Turn on Apple Calendar sync to give every provider a live, always-current on-call calendar on their iPhone.

Tips: always check the restore preview — it's your chance to confirm you're restoring the right teams before anything is overwritten.

10. Work share (FTE)

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Video walkthrough coming soon — steps below work today.

What it does: splits shifts fairly across a shift-based department by each provider's actual work share, not a flat per-head split.

  1. Set each provider's FTE (full-time equivalent) — 1.0 for full-time, 0.5 for half-time, and so on.
  2. Auto-build targets shifts proportional to FTE, so a 0.5 FTE provider ends up with roughly half the shifts of a 1.0 FTE provider over the same period.
  3. Adjust FTE anytime a provider's status changes — the next auto-build picks it up automatically.
  4. Review the fairness summary to see actual shifts vs. target for each provider before you publish.

Tips: FTE work share and day/night shift rules apply together — a part-time provider still gets their fair share of nights, proportional to their FTE.

11. Shift rules & shift preferences

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Video walkthrough coming soon — steps below work today.

What it does: lets a shift-based department set its own day/night rules and each provider's own preferences — nothing is hardcoded to a fixed rotation.

  1. Set department-wide shift rules: required rest after a night shift, max consecutive shifts, and whether nights are balanced separately from days.
  2. Everything is customizable — Callwell does not assume a fixed 7-on/7-off (or any other) pattern. Build the rotation your department actually runs.
  3. For each provider, set individual shift preferences: preferred run length, max consecutive shifts, minimum days off between runs, and a target number of shifts per month.
  4. Auto-build honors department rules first, then optimizes for each provider's preferences as closely as fairness allows, and flags anything it can't satisfy.

Tips: if auto-build keeps flagging conflicts, check for shift preferences that fight each other (e.g., a short max-consecutive with a high target shifts/month) before assuming the rules are broken.

12. Choosing call, shifts, or both

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Video walkthrough coming soon — steps below work today.

What it does: lets each team run as a call group, a shift-based department, or both — set once at setup, changeable later.

  1. When you create a team, choose its group mode: Call, Shifts, or Both.
  2. The app's vocabulary follows your choice — a call team sees call blocks and call-fairness language; a shift team sees shift rules, FTE, and shift-fairness language.
  3. Not sure which fits? Try the two built-in demo teams — one surgical call group, one hospitalist shift department — to see both modes in action before you decide.
  4. Change a team's group mode later from Settings if your department's structure changes.

Tips: a department that covers both call and shift-based work (e.g., a section with in-house call plus scheduled shifts) can run in Both mode instead of splitting into two teams.

Still have questions?

Check the FAQ, or talk to a human — either way, we'll get you unblocked.

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