InstaMaps
For home care coordinators

The rota you already keep, with the week on a map

Coordinators run the week on a grid in a spreadsheet and carry the geography in their head. Keep the grid. Add one formula and every visit is on a live map coloured by carer, so the 6am sick call and the new referral stop being a phone round.

See what is inside
Free · Google Sheets · no new software · client rows stay in your sheet

Where the rota grid runs out

The grid has no distance
A staff-by-day rota says who and when. How far between calls, and whether it is the same town, is checked from memory.
The 6am sick call
One carer off means 30 to 60 minutes rebuilding their run from a mental list and a phone round, before the first AM call.
The referral question
"Can we take this client?" needs the patch, the window, the carer's skills and the added travel. Nobody can answer it fast.
Scheduling software is a project
Full rostering systems take months, cost per carer, and still export to a spreadsheet for the team leaders.

Your grid, one formula

The template is a normal rota sheet. Row 1 holds the map link. Every other row is a visit.

ClientAddressDayWindowCarerNeedsTown
Client A12 Church St, RipleyMonAM 07:00–10:45AmaraFemale carerRipley
Client C45 Bridge St, BelperMonLunch 11:00–14:30BenDouble-upBelper
Client E22 Dale Rd, MatlockMonTea 15:00–18:30ChloeDementia trainedMatlock
=INSTAMAP(A5:H16, "Week rota", "Carer")colours pins by the Carer column ·=TOWN(B6)fills the town from the address

From rota to map in under a minute

1
Keep your grid
Download the rota template, or add the columns to the sheet you already run: client, address, day, window, carer, needs.
2
One formula
=INSTAMAP(A5:H16, "Week rota", "Carer") puts the week on a live map with pins coloured by carer. The town fills itself from the address.
3
Ask the map
Filter to a carer, a day, a window or a town. See a run, a patch, or the visits nobody is assigned to yet.
4
Find cover from who is near
The carers block holds home bases, drives or walks, and skills. A ranked cover suggestion and a referral-fit check are in early access.
Speaks the rota's language

Call windows, tolerances and travel norms are columns and checks, not settings buried in a system. The sample uses the common pattern; change them to yours.

AM 07:00 – 10:45Lunch 11:00 – 14:30Tea 15:00 – 18:30PM 18:30 – 22:00
ScheduledEn routeDoneIssue

Travel norms to check against: drivers 30 minutes between calls ideally and never over 50, walkers 20, same or neighbouring town, at least 5 minutes between calls.

What coordinators use it for

Build the week on a map
Sort visits by town, drag the same-patch calls onto the same carer, and see the outlier visit that wrecks a run before it does.
Cover a sick day
Filter to the absent carer. Every visit that needs cover is on screen with its window, and the carers block shows who is near and whether they drive or walk.
Check a referral
Paste one address into a spare row. Town and minutes from the office fill in, and the map shows which carers already have visits nearby in that window.
Travel time check
Drivers ideally 30 minutes between calls and never over 50, walkers 20. Spot the breaches on the map on Monday, not in the missed-call review on Friday.
The shape of the job

A branch with 50 clients and 25 carers runs 200 or more visits a week. Coordinators spend 8 to 12 hours a week on the rota, and a sick call at 6am costs the best part of an hour. Every hard question in that hour is "who is near, and allowed?". That is a map question.

Why coordinators pick this

Nothing to migrate
It is your sheet. Team leaders keep the grid they know; the map is one more cell.
Client data stays put
Rows live in your sheet. Maps are private unless shared. Only size and shape numbers are kept about a map.
Free for a branch
The template, formulas and live map are free at branch scale. No per-carer pricing.

Coordinator FAQs

Do we have to move off our spreadsheet rota?
No. The template is the same grid, with a map link in one cell. If you already have a rota sheet, add a Carer column and the formula and it works on yours.
How does it help with a carer off sick?
Open the rota map, filter to that carer and day, and every visit needing cover is on screen with its window. The carers block shows who lives near each one. A ranked suggestion that checks gender, training and travel norms is in early access.
Does it know about call windows and tolerances?
The window is a column, so the map filters and the sheet sorts by it. Set your own windows and tolerance in the cells; anything in the cell works.
Is client data safe?
Client rows stay in your sheet. A map is private unless you share its link. The only things kept about a map are its size and shape as numbers (row count, area, spacing). Nothing about an individual client is stored beyond the map you made.
What does it cost?
The template, the formulas and the live map are free for a branch-sized rota. Team features such as live sync and alert emails are part of InstaMaps Pro.
Does it work in Excel?
The map formulas run in Google Sheets. Import your Excel rota with File → Import, or keep Excel as the master and paste the week into the template.

Put the week on the map

Download the rota template, install the free add-on once, and the map link appears in the sheet.

Install the add-on