Two limits show up in almost every scheduling policy: the most hours one person works in a day, and the most days they work in a row. Both protect people, and both take away options. We measured how much on one cafe, changing one limit at a time.
The roster builder's built-in invented example: a seven-person cafe, 32 shifts, 235 hours to cover, a 40-hour overtime line and a 10-hour rest gap. Only the limit shown changed between runs; the rest is the tool's defaults. Each row is a fresh build.
| Most hours in a day | Shifts left open | Hours covered of 235 | Payroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| No cap | 3 | 216 | $3,622 |
| 12 hours | 3 | 216 | $3,622 |
| 10 hours | 3 | 216 | $3,622 |
| 9 hours | 4 | 209 | $3,505 |
| 8 hours | 4 | 209 | $3,505 |
| 6 hours | 27 | 15 | $261 |
A cap of 10 or more changes nothing here: nobody was working past 10 hours. At 9 and 8 hours, a person can no longer take a lunch shift and a closing shift on the same day (3 + 8 hours), and one more shift goes empty. A cap below the length of your longest shift (6 hours against 8-hour shifts) rules out almost every shift: that is a typing mistake to look for, not a policy.
| Most days in a row | Shifts left open | Hours covered of 235 | Payroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 days (default) | 3 | 216 | $3,622 |
| 5 days | 4 | 218 | $3,658 |
| 4 days | 5 | 220 | $3,690 |
| 3 days | 7 | 204 | $3,402 |
The default of six cost nothing. Tightening it to five leaves one more shift open and pays $36 more, because the work moves to people with fewer hours banked. At three days the week loses seven shifts. Hours covered can even rise (220 at four days) while shifts go empty, because the builder gives up the short shifts first, so count open shifts as well as hours. Payroll falls at three days only because the open shifts are unpaid. The effect depends on crew size: with more people the same limit costs less.
"No long days" cannot be checked; "no more than 10 hours in a day" can.
The daily cap bites when a short mid-day shift is stacked on a closing shift. Count those pairs.
A person with 40 hours spread over six days is closer to the days-in-a-row limit than one working five longer days. Count from the previous week's last shifts too.
It depends on where you operate and on your own policy; some places require a day of rest in a set period for some workers. Check the rules that apply to you. The roster builder lets you set the most days in a row and will not schedule past it.
Set the daily hour cap before you build. The roster builder then refuses to give anyone more than that many hours in a day, so a person cannot take a lunch shift and a closing shift that together pass the cap, and it reports any shift that goes open as a result.