What to Look for in Online Scheduling Software

Online scheduling software can be a powerful ally in the quest to keep your employees organized, efficient, and productive. But it comes in all shapes and sizes with all manner of features. So, what built-in tools should you look for?

In this article, we discuss some of the most useful features of online scheduling software that can make your work life — and the work lives of your team — much easier.

What to look for in online scheduling software

Basic staff scheduling software that you install on one computer in your office often includes foundational features such as employee organization, shift management, drag-and-drop scheduling, and integration with other business software (just to name a few).

Online scheduling software, on the other hand, often includes those foundational features as well as more advanced tools and abilities that can simplify the way you and your team work.

Below are some advanced features to look for.

Employee self-service

The employee self-service feature allows employees to interact with the program in more substantial ways than just reading the results of your work.

These ways may include:

• Swapping shifts (more on this later)
• Finding their own substitutes
• Self-scheduling
• Submitting time-off requests
• Communicating with you
• Communicating with their teammates

For example, Sling gives you the ability to open up your staff rota to “outside” editing so that your employees can then schedule themselves for various shifts throughout the week.

If that sounds a bit scary — letting the natives run wild — keep in mind that you can still exercise control of the process by setting guidelines for who can work when, assigning an experienced employee as the core of the shift, and reserving the right to make changes.

Done right, employee self-service can help you find ways to reduce your workload significantly so you can focus more on building your business.

Mobile accessibility

Another feature of online scheduling software that can improve your team’s workflow is mobile accessibility.

Many advanced online scheduling apps (like Sling) are based in the cloud, so you can use them anywhere you have internet access on Windows, iOS, and Android devices of all kinds. This allows you and your team members to stay in sync no matter what device you and they use.

This lies in sharp contrast to posting a paper copy of the schedule in the break room, handing out paper copies, or emailing the calendar to your entire team — all of which are subject to loss, error, forgetfulness, or the simple fact that one employee doesn’t regularly check their email.

The best way to provide easy access to your schedule for your entire team, day or night and in the office or out, is to store it in the cloud.

Employees can simply log on from their mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer to find out when they work next, submit their name to work a shift, find substitutes, swap shifts, and communicate with you and their coworkers.

Shift swapping

We’ve mentioned it several times already, but shift swapping is a unique — and extremely useful — feature that deserves a bit more discussion.

With shift swapping, you make the schedule accessible in such a way that your team members can choose the shifts and time slots they want to work rather than you doing it all from start to finish.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create a draft schedule and fill in one or two shift leaders (who don’t change)
2. Post the draft schedule available in the cloud
3. Set various permissions to allow or restrict changes
4. Employees can choose the shifts they want to work and swap with their coworkers
5. Lock and edit the draft schedule online
6. Finalize the schedule and make it available for all to see

With enough advance notice and a properly trained team, you can eliminate a lot of the time and effort that goes into building a work schedule, contribute to the morale and work-life balance of your employees, and make your job easier from start to finish.

Geofencing

Geofencing is a component of some advanced online scheduling software that allows you to set boundaries around locations and then control what that software will do when a device crosses those boundaries.

With Sling, for example, you can set a specific radius around your restaurant locations and then set the software to:

• Only allow employees to start tracking time when they’re within that radius
• Automatically stop tracking time when the employee exceeds that radius
• Send notifications (to the employee and yourself) when they’re in the wrong location
• Remind employees to clock in or out depending on the parameters you set

This extremely powerful feature can help you manage any number of locations (even when you’re not there), eliminate time theft, simplify no-show tracking, and organize mobile and remote employees.

Time clock integration

Online scheduling software often comes with an integrated time clock that makes it easy to track each team member’s full workday and their individual time on task.

Advanced apps, for example, support time tracking so well that you can forget about hand-recorded data, manual entry, incomplete forms, and the reams of paper you had to deal with under other clock-in/clock-out systems.

Sling takes it a step further and allows you to turn any phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer into a time clock. With that flexibility, you can set up a single point of entry or give employees the ability to start and stop their time (or track time on task) from anywhere.

Whatever type of team you manage, online scheduling software with an integrated time clock can help you simplify the way you and your employees track time while on the job.

Scalability

You don’t want to be confined by your online scheduling software, so any app you choose should grow with your business.

There are few things worse than having to roll out and learn a brand new software suite at the same time that you’re hiring more team members and responding to growth in your market.

Choosing the right program from the beginning — one that has scalability built in — will make it easy when it comes time to expand service to more employees or add new tools that your business didn’t need when it first started out.

Security

With so many aspects of business moving online, data security has become a hot-button topic in recent years. In the past, you could lock your filing cabinets and be reasonably sure that your sensitive information was safe.

But as teams morph and evolve according to your business needs, your employees may need to access that information at all hours of the day from a variety of locations.

This is entirely possible with the mobile accessibility we discussed earlier but, at the same time, also moves data security to the top of your to-do list.

Advanced software typically includes strong security and encryption to keep your business files, tools, documents, and data private while still allowing your team to access them anywhere, anytime with just a few taps or clicks.

Advanced online scheduling software for all businesses

Advanced online scheduling software can work for all types of businesses — large and small — and can simplify even the most complicated employee work arrangement so you can sit down, get things organized, and move on to more pressing matters.

Sling combines all the tools you need to optimize your workforce, control labor costs, stay on budget, and communicate with your team.

All of Sling’s cloud-based features — from schedule creation to time clock to payroll calculations — make it easy for you to:

• Create the best schedule possible
• Distribute it with ease
• Make changes
• Allow employee self-service
• Juggle time-off requests
• Harness the power of geofencing
• Manage multiple locations
• And much more

Sling even provides suggestions and warnings when you’ve double-booked a team member or created a conflict in another part of your schedule.

For more free resources to help you manage your business better, organize and schedule your team, and track and calculate labor costs, visit GetSling.com today.

This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for specific advice.

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