Production tools: everything production can do on the timesheet link
1 min 24 sec
All demo videos
What a production contact can do on a RosterDeck timesheet link, beyond call times and sign-ins
RosterDeck gives the production contact a secure link that opens in a browser with no account, no password and no app, on a phone at unit base or on a laptop in the production office, and it holds the whole day: the payments the shoot owes, every artist on the call, the working behind every figure, catering, signed documents, exports and a plain-English assistant. This walkthrough follows one shoot day, twelve cast on Harbour Lights IV, entirely from production’s side.
Step-by-step walkthrough: what happens in this demo
Every action in this walkthrough corresponds directly to RosterDeck’s live production features. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment.
Step 1
Flag the payments the day owes
Banners at the top catch money the shoot day owes but has not recorded, and settle it in one action.
The timesheet watches for payments the day has earned but nobody has entered. Cast called at or before 06:00, or 07:00 on a Sunday or bank holiday, are owed early call travel on top of their travel allowance, and cast who attended with no travel supplement at all are flagged separately. Each banner offers Select, which filters the grid down to exactly those people, and Add, which applies the supplement to all of them after one confirmation. Every supplement is priced against the rate card the agency bound to the job, so production are never deciding an amount.
Key takeaway: Payments that used to be found at payroll are caught on the day, by the timesheet rather than by memory.
Step 2
Find anyone and sign them in
Hover a name for the artist behind it, search to pull one person out of a full unit, and sign them in on the row.
Hovering any name opens a card with that artist’s photo, how they are getting to set, and who last changed their row. Their phone and email appear there too when the agency has ticked contact details through to the link. Search by name to cut a full unit down to one person, then type the sign-in time straight onto the row: hours, overtime and the totals all follow it immediately, and an undo sits in the confirmation for a few seconds in case it was the wrong row. Cast can also be signed in individually, by role, or all at once from the bulk actions bar.
Key takeaway: Crowd coordination without a printed list, and a wrong tap is undone rather than argued about later.
Step 3
See how every figure is worked out
Every chit opens its own itemised breakdown, and so does the job total at the top of the page.
Hover a chit and it shows its full working: the basic pay with the day rate behind it, the overtime with the hours charged and the rate that was actually applied, including the split where part of it falls at the night rate, then each supplement listed under its own name, and holiday pay at the rate card’s percentage. The job total at the top of the page breaks down the same way across day rates, overtime, supplements and holiday pay, says how many of the cast it has counted so far, and moves as times are entered. Nothing on the page is a lump sum production have to take on trust.
Key takeaway: Production and the agency read the same numbers from the same rate card, so a query is settled on the day.
Step 4
Download catering and dietary requirements
A catering sheet for the kitchen, and an onset summary of the counts on screen.
Production catering gets a download of its own: a spreadsheet of every cast member on the date with their role, call time, dietary requirements and allergies, sorted by call time so the kitchen can read it in serving order. The onset catering summary shows the same picture on screen as counts, with how many cast have consented to share their dietary information, the spread of dietary preferences, and every allergy and intolerance on the date with the number of people it affects. Catering always covers the whole date, because kitchen numbers cannot be filtered down to a role.
Key takeaway: Catering gets accurate numbers straight from the cast’s own profiles instead of a headcount guess.
Step 5
Take the signed documents and their audit trail
Signed release forms and NDAs download per artist or for the whole unit, each with its audit trail.
The document column shows what each artist has signed and what is still outstanding, with the document title and the date it was signed. Click a row to take that artist’s signed PDF, or use the toolbar to take every signed document on the date, on whatever you have filtered, or on just the cast you have selected. Either way the download is a zip holding the signed PDFs and an audit trail spreadsheet, so a release form or an NDA can be evidenced on the spot without going back to the agency for it.
Key takeaway: Compliance paperwork is answered from the same page as the day itself, with the evidence attached.
Step 6
Export the cast list or the full timesheet
Four exports, from a basic call sheet list up to times, hours, overtime, supplements and totals.
Export names and call times as a basic call sheet list, add travel preferences to it, add phone and email where the agency shares contact details, or take the full timesheet with times, hours, overtime, supplements, pay and totals. Whatever is filtered or selected is what the export covers, so a single role, a single call time or one group of cast comes out on its own rather than needing to be cut down afterwards.
Key takeaway: The AD gets the list they asked for in the shape they asked for it, without an email to the agency.
Step 7
Pull the timesheet into Excel or Google Sheets
A live data link into Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, with no copying and pasting.
Where the agency has switched it on, the timesheet pulls straight into Microsoft Excel through the Data tab and From Web, or into Google Sheets with a ready-made IMPORTDATA formula that is pasted into a cell. Excel refreshes on demand, Sheets refreshes itself about once an hour, and the link reaches this one timesheet and nothing else in the agency’s system. It expires shortly after the shoot day, after which a refresh shows an error or keeps the last saved data, and anyone holding the link can read the timesheet, so it is kept private like any other link on the page.
Key takeaway: Production’s own budget or call sheet spreadsheet reads the live timesheet instead of a copy of it.
Step 8
Ask the timesheet assistant
Plain English for anything on the page, with every change confirmed before it is applied.
The assistant takes plain English. Sign people in or out by name or role, set call times, add a supplement, mark a no-show, reset a row that was entered wrongly, add a note against an artist, or submit the timesheet at wrap. It answers questions about the day as well: the overtime so far, what supplements have been added and to whom, the catering counts, and who has signed what. Anything that would change the timesheet comes back as a proposal card naming exactly what it would do, and nothing is applied until production confirm it on screen.
Key takeaway: The speed of asking for something, with the control of approving it, and no wrong instruction applied by accident.
Platform rules & operational safeguards
Built specifically around UK film, television, and commercial casting standards.
Secure link
No account for production
The whole timesheet runs on one tokenised link in any browser, with no login, password or app to install, on a phone at unit base or a laptop in the production office.
Transparent pay
Rate card behind every number
Basic pay, overtime, supplements and holiday pay are all priced against the PACT/FAA, PACT/Equity or BBC/Equity rate card set on the job, and every chit shows its own working.
On the day
Missing payments flagged
Early call travel and missing travel supplements are caught by the timesheet itself and applied to everyone they affect in one confirmed action, instead of surfacing at payroll.
Exports
Everything downloadable
Call sheet lists, the full timesheet, the catering sheet and signed documents with their audit trail all come off the same page, and the timesheet can feed a live Excel or Google Sheets file.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about how this workflow operates in RosterDeck.
No. The agency emails a secure link that opens in any browser on a phone, tablet or computer. There is no account, password or app, and the link only ever shows the one job date it was sent for.
Only if the agency allows it. Every artist’s photo and travel preference show on the hover card either way, because that is what production need to place someone on set, but phone numbers and email addresses appear, and reach the exports, only when the agency has switched contact details on for the link.
The timesheet checks as times are entered. Cast called at or before 06:00, or 07:00 on a Sunday or bank holiday, are flagged for early call travel, which is paid on top of their travel allowance, and cast who attended with no travel supplement recorded are flagged separately. Each banner selects the affected cast and applies the supplement to all of them after one confirmation.
Against the rate card the agency bound to the job. Hours past the contracted day trigger overtime at that rate card’s increments, a night call charges overtime at the night rate, and where the hours straddle both the breakdown shows how many minutes were charged at each. Hovering the chit shows the hours charged and the rate they were charged at, not just the total.
Yes. The catering sheet is an Excel download of every cast member on the date with their role, call time, dietary requirements and allergies, sorted by call time. There is also an onset summary on screen with the counts by dietary preference and allergy, and how many cast have consented to share the information. Catering always covers the whole date rather than the current filter.
Yes, where documents have been sent for that date. The document column shows who has signed and who is outstanding, an individual artist’s signed PDF downloads from their row, and the toolbar takes every signed document on the date at once. Each download is a zip containing the signed PDFs and an audit trail spreadsheet.
Yes, when the agency has switched tool connections on. Microsoft Excel reads it through the Data tab and From Web, and Google Sheets through a ready-made IMPORTDATA formula. It is a read-only feed covering that one timesheet, it expires shortly after the shoot day, and anyone with the link can read it, so it should be kept private.
No. Anything that would change the timesheet comes back as a proposal card naming exactly what it would do and to whom, and it is only applied when production press Confirm. Questions about the day, such as the overtime so far or who has signed the NDA, are answered straight away because they change nothing.
More demos
Other walkthroughs covering the rest of the platform.
One job end to end: casting, call sheets and a signed-off timesheet
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The AI assistant: casting, call times and timesheets by asking
1 min 34 sec7 steps
Invoicing: send timesheets to Xero and pay your artists
30 sec4 steps
Document signing: e-signatures for cast release forms and NDAs
52 sec4 steps
Cast approval: get your cast list signed off by production
59 sec4 steps