Forthcoming improvements to the new mobile apps

11th November 2026

Context of changes made to mobile apps

Thank you to everyone who has sent us feedback so far on the new CLWRota, Medirota and Overview mobile apps. Your experience has shaped our services since CLWRota was first designed in 2006, so please continue to share your opinions with us as we release further updates. Email us at support@rotamap.net or give us a call so we can help you directly.

In 2011, we released the CLWRota mobile app. Since then, we incrementally added major new features such as Bids, Extra claims and Exception reporting; however, the old app wasn't originally built to accommodate them. Phones and app design have moved on since 2011: larger screens, new ways of navigating, and accessibility features built into every phone. We have rebuilt the app to be in a position to add new functionality in the future, with features such as on-call requests and self-rostering being planned.

Feedback

We hoped the interface update would maintain familiarity with the previous version, while also offering something refreshed. However, your feedback on the first release has highlighted clear changes were needed. We're now working on improvements and fixes, which will:

  • Show more of your week at a glance
  • Emphasise the right information
  • Make the people assigned to each session easier to see and differentiate between their roles
  • Soften the shift colours
  • Reduce the steps needed to get from My rota to other views (iOS)
  • Reduce slowness on iOS

Your feedback has also given us ideas for features the old app couldn't support, such as a condensed home view and favourites for views other than 'My rota'.

Upcoming releases

Our first Android update has been released today (Wednesday 11/11/26, version 9.0.3), which:

  • Emphasises the right information:
    • Day, location and people headers are bolder
    • Day, location and people headers have darker backgrounds
    • 'Today' label highlighted more clearly with high contrast black pill styling
    • When opening the app, automatically focus on today's assignments
    • Add Bank Holiday and audit day headers to 'By person' and 'By location' rotas
  • Fits more of the rota on the screen:
    • Make 'Nothing rostered' less prominent by including it in the same row as the date text.
  • Improves login experience:
    • Two-factor authentication (2FA) was incorrectly forcing one-time passcode re-entry (OTP) on every login. This is now only prompted every 28 days
    • Adds help text added to the login screen to explain how to find your department if it is not listed

Our mobile app API has also been updated today (Wednesday 11/11/26) to ensure the password reset process works consistently for all iOS and Android users.

The next update (version 9.0.4) aims to be released for both iOS and Android phones on Monday 16/11/26. This includes the above changes for iOS as well as the following changes:

  • Decreased colour saturation of shift labels, to help make assignment information more prominent
  • iOS bugfix (NZ/AUS only): Leave requests made in the morning change to UK time
  • iOS bugfix: Reduce height of sessions and location/person titles
  • iOS bugfix: Improve speed of loading rotas, resulting from the app not reloading cached rota information
  • Android/iOS bugfix: Some rota markers displaying incorrectly

Future updates will include:

  • Allowing iOS users to WhatsApp colleagues directly from the app
  • Differentiate between staff roles more easily

There are also parts of the new app which haven't changed from the old app, including:

  • The relative text size of people assigned to the rota
  • Department-controlled settings or configuration, such as location and group names
  • Swiping left or right to change day or week
  • Assignments split across sessions (am, pm, eve, night)
  • The surgeon and specialty text being larger than the people assigned

It is possible that due to other visual changes on the app, some elements look different from before in relation to each other. However, feedback on these aspects of the app has provided valuable insight into what is most important to clinicians. We're continuing to review all incoming feedback to inform the future development of the mobile apps as part of our plan to continually improve them.

FAQ

Why is my text larger?

Because the app now respects several accessibility settings on your device, if text appears too large in the app, this may be because of your device's configuration.

  • On iPhones, visit 'Settings > Accessibility > Per-App Settings > Add App > [CLWRota/Medirota] > Display & Text Size'
  • On Android phones, visit 'Settings > Display size and Text' to review the global font size for your phone, which the app will respect
How do I navigate between days and weeks?

As before, to navigate between days or weeks (depending on your view) swipe either left or right - left to go back, and right to go forward.

To jump to a particular date, tap the date across the top bar to open the calendar, after which you can pick a date to be taken to that day or week depending on your view.

Can you tell me the minimum OS requirement for the new app?
  • iOS 18 and above
  • Android 14 and above
How do I get to the different rota views?

Go to the top-left menu and select the relevant rota view. The list of groups is accessed by tapping 'Location/activity groups' or 'People groups'.

Support

If you would like to discuss these changes, or require any assistance then please do not hesitate to contact us at support@rotamap.net or by calling us on 020 7631 1555.

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