Online vs desktop employee scheduling software
Why would you choose an online (web application) to do employee scheduling? There are a number of different scheduling software packages available. They fall into one of two different categories, online or desktop applications. Online employee scheduling programs (like Web Work Schedules) have several benefits over desktop applications.
If you choose a desktop application, you have to decide where you will install it. Do you install it at your computer at work, your personal computer? Can you install it on both, or do you need to buy two copies to use it on two computers? If more than one person creates schedules, do they both have access to the same computer to create schedules. If it is only installed on a computer at work, then you have to be at work to make any change, no matter how small it is. How do your employees view the schedule? Do you print it out and post it at work? Hopefully you would be able to email it out to your employees. Access to the software is not an issue with Web Work Schedules. As long as you have an internet connection, you, and all of your employees, can access the software.
How often do you backup your computer? There are two kinds of people who use computers, those who have lost data and those who will lose data. With a desktop solution, you are responsible for backing up your data. If your hard drive crashes, and you don't have a back up, you will lose all of your data. With Web Work Schedules we back up your data every day so you will never lose any data.
With a desktop solution, you still have the same amount of paperwork to deal with. You will still have a bulletin board full of time off requests, notes about changes to availability, etc. You will have to take these requests and enter them into the desktop application. This is avoided in Web Work Schedules by allowing your employees to make these requests directly in the application. This saves you time by reducing the amount of work you have to do.
Desktop applications are typically updated once a year. To get the bug fixes or new features, you have to buy the new version of the software. One of the reasons for this is that a lot of testing should be done to ensure that it works on every possible combination of computers available. Not all software companies test as well as they should and some software just will not work on your machine because of a conflict with some other program. With Web Work Schedules we can publish our updates much faster. Our users will get immediate access to the new features and bug fixes as soon as they are finished. Part of that is due to the nature of web applications. The software is installed on our servers which we have full control over. We don't have to worry about it conflicting with any other software since it is installed on our servers. We have to make sure it works with your web browser, but this is a much smaller set of tests to perform compared to desktop applications.
Web Work Schedules is a better solution for your employee scheduling needs than a desktop application.
Posted at 12:50PM Oct 02, 2007 by Chris in General |
New Release
A new release was made this morning with some general UI improvements along with two new features.
Before on an employee there was a single notes field to add notes about the employee. Now there is an employee folder. This allows you add as many notes about the employee as you want. This allows you to create a permanent paper trail about the employee.
The second feature is the employee availability feature. This allows you to restrict what hours an employee is available to work, say only Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. You can see each employee's availability when you are creating a schedule by clicking on his/her name. You will get a warning if you try to schedule an employee when he is not available. You can override this warning and still create the schedule. In the end, you as the manager have the final say in the schedule, and we don't want to prevent you from doing what you need to do. We will warn you that you are trying to create a schedule that violates the rules you have defined (availability, maximum hours, time off requests.) We understand that there will be cases where an employee will work a day that he typically does not, and we don't force you to change your rules for the exception.
Posted at 01:48PM Sep 20, 2007 by Chris in New Releases |
What are the best/worst excuses you have heard for calling in sick
This will be a regular topic that I thought might brighten your day. Every one has heard the excuses for why someone will not be able to come to work today. Email me at chris@webworkschedules.com or leave your favorite excuse that you have heard (or used) in the comments and I will periodically post a list of the best excuses. Here is a few to get things started
- I had to take my dog to the vet because his toe fell off!
- My neighbor stole my car
- I have a flat tire and don't know how to change it, I have to wait for my dad to get off work
- The dog ate my car keys. We're going to hitchhike to the vet.
- A tree fell on my car
Posted at 12:35PM Sep 14, 2007 by Chris in Excuses |
Welcome to Web Work Schedules
Welcome to Web Work Schedules. It is our goal to be the best scheduling software available. We are achieving our goal by focusing on a single aspect, employee scheduling. We are not trying to be everything to everyone. This laser sharp focus will enable us to continue to make improvements and respond to our users needs and requests. So let us know what you think about our product and how we can improve it to better solve your scheduling needs.
Posted at 10:27AM Sep 06, 2007 by Chris in General |