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Rotation tools

When are we both off?

Two officers in one house. An officer and a nurse. Two parents sharing custody. Pick both rotations and see how many days a year actually land together.

Those are the days. BlueShifts can put them on both phones, so neither of you has to work it out again.

Why the same two rotations can give wildly different answers

If the two cycles drift against each other, the total is fixed — every crew combination gets much the same number of days together, and lining them up only changes which days.

If they lock together, the crews decide everything. Two officers both on Pitman can have anywhere from no days off together to half the year, working the identical rotation. That is not a rounding error; it is the single most important thing to know before one of you bids.

What this cannot know

Leave, overtime, trades, court and callouts all move real days. This is the shape of the two patterns against each other, not a promise about your year. And if you want it on both phones rather than in your head, that is what the app is for.

Rotations that drift against each other

Where two cycles do not share a common length, the days off drift past each other and the yearly total comes out much the same whichever crews you are on. Two people on a sixteen-day cycle and a fifteen-day cycle will land on roughly sixty shared days a year, however they start.

Rotations that lock together

Where both cycles divide by seven — or share a length — they never drift apart. The crews you are each on then decide everything, and the range runs from nothing to nearly half the year.

The other tools

Know someone who should see this?

Stop working it out on paper

Save your rotation once and the year fills itself in — and the person who needs to see it can have it on their own phone.

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