Employee scheduling software: Difference between revisions

Employee scheduling software automates the process of creating and maintaining a schedule. Such software will usually track vacation time, sick time, compensation time, and alert when there are conflicts.^[1] As scheduling data is accumulated over time, it may be extracted for payroll or to analyze past activity. Although the software may not make optimization decisions, it does manage and coordinate the tasks.

This software may be a part of an ERP package or a module of such packages, which is effective for an operations department. Today’s employee scheduling software often includes mobile applications.^[2][3][4]

A theoretical underpinning of an employee scheduling problem can be represented as the Nurse scheduling problem, which is NP-hard. The theoretical complexity of the problem is a significant factor in the development of various software solutions.

Although software won't necessarily improve business practices by itself, it does automate typically tedious business administration. Some even calculate factors such as approved employee requests, hours of availability, business hours, business needs, shift trades, etc. and automatically create a work schedule that fits as many constraints as possible and the software typically manages the task of automation and data collection. By providing large amounts of data to management, management teams can form opinions and create actionable plans. Some of the typical features are listed below:

• Gantt chart ^[5]
• Reduce unproductive workforce due to over scheduling^[6]
• Use weather forecasts to predict staffing needs^[6]
• Allow employees to swap shifts.^[7]
• Conflict management, e.g. blocking double bookings ^[8]
• Interface to payroll software e.g. SAP ^[9]
• Ability to easily identify unassigned shifts.^[10]
• Ability to create reports for invoicing and payroll.^[11]

Some examples of specific employee scheduling software packages are:

• Asana
• Ceiton workflow system
• Ganttic
• ScheduleBase ^[12]
• Scheduleit ^[13]
• Visual Planning ^[14]
• Zoomshift

• Field Service Management
• Gantt chart
• Schedule
• Schedule (workplace)
• Workforce management