J D Wetherspoon · myschedule Platform
Smart scheduling, every time, for one of the UK’s largest pub chains
mySchedule is the workforce management system (WMS) used across more than 800 J D Wetherspoon pubs. Managers use it to build and manage rotas, track time and attendance and handle annual leave and time-off requests, with data feeding straight into payroll.
8+
Years, ongoing partnership
Faster
Weekly rota shutdown, with pay data sent straight to payroll
100%
Of rotas checked against working time and SOP rules before publishing
AI
Recommended rotas built from sales, weather and events data
Overview
J D Wetherspoon is one of the UK’s largest pub chains, with a major digital presence spanning its pub, hotel, investor, franchising and recruitment sites. Filter has worked with J D Wetherspoon for more than 8 years and has been its embedded engineering partner for the past 2, working on key platform and custom development projects.
Released in 2023, mySchedule is a bespoke WMS built by Filter to replace an off-the-shelf package, designed specifically around running pubs ‘The Wetherspoon Way’. Used by pub managers across the chain, it manages the full rota lifecycle: forecasting demand, building shift schedules, publishing rotas to staff and tracking time and attendance, including clock-ins from the Shift Clock app. Rotas publish directly to the myJDW app, so staff can see their schedule and clock in and out, while shift and pay data feeds into JDW’s third-party payroll system.
mySchedule also builds compliance into scheduling. Before publishing, every rota is checked against validation rules for the country the pub is in, covering the Working Time Regulations and the standard operating procedures (SOPs) set by J D Wetherspoon. Depending on how serious a breach is, publication is either blocked or flagged for acknowledgement before it can go ahead. This adds an extra layer of protection against legal and operational risk.
To reduce managers’ workload, Filter is building intelligent labour forecasting into the platform. It combines historic rota and sales data with factors such as weather and local events to predict demand. Together with staff availability rules, this generates a recommended rota for each shift, giving managers a starting point to refine rather than building from scratch every time.
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Dynamic labour forecasting and rota management
Managers can build and publish rotas directly in the platform, with staff receiving automatic alerts to notify them of any shift changes.
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Payroll exports
At the end of each pay period, the platform generates a payroll file with hours worked, roles and absence data for JDW’s third-party payroll system.
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Operational compliance
Field-based operations managers can monitor rota efficiency and compliance through easy-to-read dashboards and exception reporting.
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Buddy access
Area managers can cover for colleagues on leave, with temporary access to the absent manager’s pubs so nothing is missed.
Built on a modern, reliable stack
mySchedule is built on trusted technologies and frameworks to provide a consistent and reliable platform experience.
Laravel powers the underlying infrastructure and API integrations.
Next.js delivers a modern, easy-to-use interface.
AWS hosts the infrastructure with monitoring, disaster recovery and scalability built in.
A dedicated WordPress content management layer lets non-technical staff make updates quickly and easily
Results
mySchedule gives gives managers and senior leadership at J D Wetherspoon a single, consistent and optimised way to manage the workforce and drive cost efficiencies in pubs across the country. Easy-to-use demand forecasting and scheduling let managers work quickly and plan well ahead. Built-in machine learning continually improves its recommendations using live data and external sources, helping match staffing levels to actual demand and reducing the risk of under or overstaffing.