Shiftboard

Avantages

This is the only scheduling software I’ve found that lets employees opt into a shift instead of filling out their availability every week. I work in a catering business so we don’t have consistent work for our servers. They all have school or other jobs to work around their schedule with us. Some of them only work with us twice a month so asking them to keep an updated calendar of their availability is unrealistic. This software lets me post all the shifts and have servers sign up for the ones they want. It’s very helpful. Shiftboard does also have the ability to let staff fill in availability and have management work off that, however.

I also appreciate that I can include notes about the shift and addresses for when we do offsites. The software also lets me divide servers into teams so that they see only the shifts they are eligible for.

Inconvénients

It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing site and takes a while to adjust to the layout, but once you get used to it, it’s fine.

The biggest issues I find is that you can’t export your sign up lists. When I have 40 events in a month, I’d like to print out a list of who signed up for what and work from there, but I have to go shift by shift, typing the results in an Excel sheet instead. Also, there isn’t a way to track who did what change in the system. When I’ve had issues in the past that may have been from a software glitch, they can’t give me an answer as to who changed what and when.

Avantages

Shiftboard allows our casual staff members access to shifts via an online portal, which is especially useful as these staff are very rarely in building (unless on-shift). Users report that it is helpful to be able to access shift scheduling through a web browser

On the rare occasion we have needed to contact support they have been very responsive and have answered our queries, and we have found it incredibly useful to be able to pull data out via CSV file for input into other systems that we run (although reporting could be further improved upon).

Adding information that lives in other systems to casual staff individual user profiles means we have been able to decommission several systems that have previously been used to handle staff shifts for our employees. Users can be added to teams and groups to make administration easier.

Inconvénients

From a user’s perspective based on feedback we’ve had, the web-based UI isn’t the most intuitive or clean-looking – I'm not sure how it fares compared to competitor systems but it could do with updating to a more modern look which would improve usability.

Another point raised when receiving feedback from users was that it can seem a bit of a steep learning curve for new staff, but we have started to provide documentation and training for internal use so this is no longer an issue for us.

Avantages

I love how the product is able to track certifications. The trade board function has saves me a lot of time and energy. The document function and linking of certification to profile type has also saves time and paper.
I really like that I can now create a schedule and not publish it until I am finished. Schedules we create are often in motion until publication. I like that staff are no longer receiving messages until the schedule is completed.

Inconvénients

To send a message to team members I can either send to 1 or broadcast to all. It would be nice if there was the ability do a check box of multiple members to whom the message could be sent. That way those who we know are neither available or in need of the information will get the message.

Avantages

Producing rotas/schedules for 500+ staff members across multiple teams is no easy challenge. Especially with complex rules and specifications for each of those teams, so the fact that shiftboard even comes close to achieving these results is impressive.

The software is simple and easy to use, particularly for the end users who'll probably appreciate this more than the management who need to implement it.

Has been running for around 5 years now with no significant issues in that time, so again really impressive.

Inconvénients

The reporting can be a little clunky and that's really the only thing that lets this down. Having said that, support staff are very receptive and willing to work with you to produce something bespoke, but feel like this is the one area that could be improved upon to make this truly fantastic.

Avantages

It has eliminated many other systems and brought them into one place. It can handle the customization that we need as we operate a less-than-normal staffing system (some seasonal staff, some permanent; some overlapping shifts, some week-long programs, etc.).

The team at Shiftboard has been very responsive to our requests and needs, which is very important.

Given time, I'm optimistic that its reporting abilities will be very useful for anticipating and hiring for future needs. Coming from a world of dozens of complex, non-communicating spreadsheets, it's great to have everything in one place!

Inconvénients

It has a steep learning curve, so be prepared to practice, experiment, and be trained.

They also have not yet implemented shift-linking, so my week-long programs all staffed by the same person can't be treated as one connected system. This means that bulk changes are difficult if we've noticed an issue, and it means that the initial shift setup is quite time consuming.

I wish that the month-long view could be customized to give me more of the information I want, or that we could view data for a 2-week stretch. It's hard to get a birds-eye view of our programming with the systems they have in place.

I'll add that we're relatively new to Shiftboard, and working out the kinks is a part of the process.