Scheduling Made Simple!

ShiftPlanning has been used at our facility for one year now. We are a college campus environment. Thus, scheduling for student workers can be a great challenge due to their dropping and adding classes and potential to working multiple part-time jobs, and of course, due to the differing course load, each student takes on. In the past, we used excel in combination with a learning management system to communicate and maintain student worker scheduling. I am the scheduler for student workers in our area. We have around 8-10 student workers, give or take which part of the year we are scheduling for. We schedule our shifts in a non-linear method. We like the availability feature that ShiftPlanning has. It is a static "when I am not available" table that you or your workers can fill out. At this point I supply entries into these availability tables based on student class schedules and external employment. We do this to prevent students from falsifying availability. ShiftPlannning has a pre-generate schedule wizarding system. This allows managers to schedule weeks, or months ahead of time, based on their current availability. If you are a manager for a college campus, then you may want to consider only doing this once a month for summers, and once a semester for spring and fall. You will be changing availability frequently during the beginning of each semester, almost all summer, and also during finals week. Duplicating the schedule for each week is as easy as two or three button taps on your mouse. Once a schedule is more concrete then this is super easy. During the high volatile periods mentioned above, we highly recommend not scheduling ahead of time. Just do one or two weeks worth of scheduling and make sure to communicate to everyone that the schedule will have a high degree of change. We have also enjoyed the use of the ping feature and other notifications to communicate to students when they should be at work.

Pros

The strongest features of ShiftPlanning are the many methods for communicating when a worker is to work (general scheduling), when policy changes or other changes at work need to be quickly and easily assimilated to all employees (dashboard notifications), and when notifications need to be sent to just individuals (ping). All of this communication can be managed in ShiftPlanning. Workers can set up their cell phones to receive important notifications. Administrators can control which methods are mandatory and which communication methods are not. A worker can elect to be notified via email and/or text prior to their shift starting. Workers can access ShiftPlanning from any device since this a cloud-based service. Workers are able to make vacation requests ahead of time, even when there is nothing posted for the actual schedule yet. We would recommend a 2-week requirement for this type of request. Otherwise, student workers can request off via a trade shift or drop-shift option, if short notice is provided. All trades can be set to approval first by manager. It is super easy to setup different worker types by area, or by responsibilities. Thus, if you are budgeting out hours between different areas (positions) then you can easily view the subtotal for each while scheduling who should work when. It also gives you a clear distinction in schedule mode as to who can actually work during the designated times you are generating (i.e. 10 AM ' 12 PM, 1 PM ' 2 PM').

Cons

The only concern that we have is with tweaking the trade shift and trade drop feature. Workers who are shown as available for the entire shift don't have the option to select parts of a shift that they are actually available for. Important meetings or events outside of work cannot always be accounted for using the availability feature. The only way this can be done is to not use a static schedule and go to making a policy for weekly updates. Then making it the student worker's responsibility to maintain their own work availability. In our case, we want to stay with a static scheduling system to help reduce the sense of a changing hectic work schedule for our student workers. Thus, students will benefit by having the ability to select from a portion of a shift trade rather than having only the option to pick up all or none of the shift being made available.

this program saved my business

We spent so much time just getting schedules done and then something would happen - some one is sick or their grandmother died - Then there was all the communication getting employees with the right skills to cover the shift -. I went looking for a scheduling software and got so much more. We use the dashboard and email features every day to keep staff aware of changes. Our business depends on everybody knowing 100s of ever changing details. We use the email and training functions to keep the staff current with policy changes, to learn new systems and to refresh knowledge when things seem to be slacking. Being able to send emails to specific groups let us communicate sensitive information securely to those who need to know. I recommend this to everyone I know who has to manage any size business.

Pros

Communication - quick and flexible. most of my 20 somethings have a phone, rarely use email and rely on apps for everything. The phone app still needs some work but it has been the end of excuses about schedules
the bulletin board keeps everyone communicating not just us to them but they communicate with each other.

Cons

Searching forward and back by months is awkward - google has the same issue with their calendars. I often need to go from a day view now to a day view months away. the path isn't intuitive

Time Saver

I manage a work study staff of 30+ students at a small college. Their work study job is not their first priority so availability, priorities, and their schedules are always changing. It's really nice to have a software to manage much of the administrative side of things. I upload the availability, spend an initial investment creating the schedule. If I have done my job correctly things pretty much run themselves throughout the rest of the semester.

Pros

Ease of updating availability for employees. Clearly seeing how many people can cover what shift. Ability for employees to drop, add, or trade shifts without me micro managing. Creating multiple classification of jobs to organize the different roles in the work place. Reporting makes it easy to submit to payroll.

Cons

The billing is a bit confusing. They bill based off of per user per month. With breaks and a rotating staff I often end up challenging the original bill I get. Customer service has always been good and responds quickly and makes changes.

Easy Shift Planning and Scheduling

I enjoy using Humanity. It makes scheduling and planning very simple due to their great user interface. I can quickly check any upcoming shifts, and plan accordingly. I would recommend this shift planning service to anyone who needs one.

Pros

Humanity is a very easy to use program. To start off, the time availability function is very useful in scheduling. I was able to go day-by-day and show my hours of availability. This assures that you will not get scheduled on times you are not available.

Humanity also has a great layout that is simple and easy to use. It shows your upcoming shifts for the next Week, Two Weeks, and Month depending on your selection. It is a great way to visualize upcoming shifts.

Lastly, the shift trading function is invaluable. You can either drop a shift, which means that another employee has the option to pick it up, or trade. When you trade, Humanity automatically swaps your shifts. It is very easy to use and has great functionality.

Cons

One of my only qualms with Humanity is logging in. Often during log-in, it requires me to input my password a second or third time. I have a long password so this can get very infuriating at times when I know I input my password correctly. Other than than, Humanity has been a great program for me to use.

ShiftPlanning

While ShiftPlanning is a great product, with most of the features I need, it was a bit confusing as to which settings to use and how to set them up. I am tech-savvy and it took about a month to understand the steps to get to a certain result. Tech Support was invaluable with their quick response and help. I use it 100% now, and wonder now how we got along without it. Such a timesaver!

Pros

It's invaluable in time-keeping and creating shifts. The report function is fantastic for timekeeping and payroll. There are work-arounds to get to where you need to be, with the help of Tech Support.
The mobile app for the staff is easy to use.

Cons

The desktop version is not user-friendly at first. Once you figure out the concept and how it works, and with time, you get to know the ins/outs. While I am tech savvy, I was confused about where to start with the set-up, which settings to use, and how to set up those settings for our company. The set-up was a disappointment to me in that you need a lot of time to understand how to do the different settings. I had to keep bugging Tech Support to help me with it.
The tutorials are great, but the User Manual needs a lot of work.

Nothing we've tried is more visually helpful in staffing a 24/7 operation than Humanity.

The visual design of ShiftPlanning and its filters do a LOT to help us staff 3 floors of distinctly different functions, all of which have different staffing needs. It also gives us a huge advantage in working ahead on the schedule and tools for averting scheduling 'crises'.

Pros

Visually, we can see who is where. We are never short a staff member in our areas of essential service due to oversight. The filters make it easy to ensure we have the right people in the right roles.
Training modules have made it helpful to ensure everyone is on the same page for certain crucial information.
Most of all, our large roster of on-call staff are easily able to pick up shifts and populate our schedule gaps in real time. Availability tools make it easy for them to be more transparent, and add a level of accountability which has been helpful for management.

Cons

Some of the default settings have been difficult to figure out or work around. If I open up a shift for, say, 3 on-call staffers to fill, but then need to change the hours on one, it can end up changing all three. What started as a convenient short cut becomes a messy fix. That said, customer service and live chat go a long way in fixing sticky problems quickly.

Good, User friendly program with Excellent support!

Pros

As User and not an Administrator, I would say that what I like best about this software is that it is user friendly. It makes picking up shifts for my job easy. And I like that I get notifications when there is availability.
When I schedule myself a for a shift and I have had to drop a shift when something comes up or I accidentially pick a shift that I cannot work. I can immediately notify my supervisors, and it will make the shift available to others to pick up.
I love that management can communicate with us and tell us what is going on. We can share and download files.
This is the perfect program for the company that I currently am working with.

Cons

It has been hard to find something i really dont like about Humanity. Although I would like the ability to message my supervisor or coworkers through the app rather than email.

Great collective scheduling software

GREAT PRODUCT! I would recommend this to anyone who is short on time for scheduling. With text message and email communication, by just posting open shifts the schedule almost gets written by its self!

Pros

Mostly, I like the communication within all individuals linked to humanity makes it easy to generate weekly/monthly schedules and find accommodations for call offs. As a scheduler, being able to switch between position view and employee view, enables me to allocate shifts efficiently.

Cons

The only "con" i can really say is it does take alittle time to get use to navegating through the site.

The most ideal service I've found for companies working with contractors rather than employees

We have been using Humanity to run the work assignments for a video production business for two years. In that time the service uptime has been flawless. I have never had a time where the service did not perform or was down. Phone support is the best that I have every encountered. Not only are calls answered quickly but the techs have deep knowledge and have been able to resolve issues in a matter of minutes, allowing me to stay on scheduling tasks. *** We don't have many employees but use a lot of contractors, who don't get paid by the hour or salary. Humanity accommodates this through it's sophisticated "Work Units" feature. We assign work unit value for each job or task, allowing robust accounting for this type of relationship. My contractors like the interface and importantly, say that it makes it's notification system helpful as well. As a result, lates and failure to reports are now almost non-existent.

Pros

Robust features closely match my needs for a comprehensive, one-stop service.

Cons

Work units report doesn't allow the shift title, notes, or remote site. I have to manually merge WU and custom reports (shifts scheduled) for each employee, which is very time-consumming.

If I can add a second complaint, I really need to be able to avoid having the system label my contractors as employees.

Using trial version of ShiftPlanning and am very impressed

I am the Help Desk Manager of five employees at Monongahela Valley Hospital. My employees are on a shift rotation. Things become complicated if someone goes on leave or on vacation. ShiftPlanning was able to import my current schedule from an Excel document. This took a short time and imported most of it successfully. What it didn't import successfully, they were able to correct after fixing the format it was in. The support is great (I use mostly chat). Their chat support is fantastic. If you do not respond in a certain time frame, they email you with updates to your question/problem. I have dealt with other chat support where if you don't respond in a certain time frame, the chat is closed and you have to start over. This is where ShiftPlanning's support outranks most company's.

Pros

Automatically schedules employees with rotating shifts. Able to set rules that apply only to your organization. For example, my employees cannot be scheduled 2 shifts within 8 hours of each other and they cannot work more than five consecutive days without a day off.
The support is great. When using their chat support, if you do not respond, your session does not end. You will be sent an email with any updates on your question/problem. This is a huge plus for me as I get pulled away from my desk often.
Employees can request vacations and personal days, and can also request to swap shifts with another employee through the software. This can be set to require approval.

Cons

Not a deal breaker for me, but unable to put OFF on days an employee is not scheduled.
For Week mode, unable to remove the employee title from the schedule. Again, not a deal breaker.

Humanity

Overall, I would recommend Humanity, as it is a great option. I did wish it had more customer support and other features, such as keeping track of other employment documentation.

Pros

Humanity makes it easy for those to clock in, view their schedule, make edits, and keep track of others timesheets. It is a quick and easy option when looking for a time-keeping system for multiple employees.

Cons

I will say that if you need to block 1 person for multiple different tasks, the "Overall" view for everyone's schedule can look a bit confusing. We've also had issues of updating 1 schedule and it would change other schedules by accident.

Works exactly how a shift planning software should!

Pros

Humanity is awesome! It makes scheduling so easy. You can add employees availability, write shifts with built in breaks, and so much more. It's very user friendly and really easy to learn. Humanity also keeps track of historical data and has helpful reports to use in forecasting and budgeting.

Cons

One thing to note is that Humanity is constantly making updates. While that's not necessarily a bad thing (in fact, it's great that they continually improve), it can be a little excessive. Right when you get used to the last update, things change again, so you have to be willing to adapt a lot.