One of the unique aspects of Shiftboard is our ability to work and excel with clients from very different industries. From small businesses of ten workers to hospitals scheduling thousands of individuals, people come to Shiftboard looking for an efficient way to manage their scheduling. We see this diverse client pool as a strength – a symbiotic relationship dynamically beneficial for all parties involved.

Shiftboard does not operate on a one way street. Our clients provide us a wealth of intellectual power and perspective to improve our product. We provide schedulers with a service, they use it and respond, and we incorporate their feedback.  Recently we received enough input regarding a certain feature that we escalated it on the development list. When assigning a shift, you can now assign it to multiple individuals in the same step. Clicking ‘Pick Multiple’ will give you a list of workers who can take the shift. Simply toggle multiple members and click “assign”. Don’t worry, the options to individually assign, bulk assign, auto assign, check availability and enforce seniority still exist.

Our developers are sharp, but our clients’ insight is invaluable. Please keep us in the loop. Share your ideas and suggestions, we are all ears and your thoughts are heard.

- Alison

The world is integrating, fast. At the macro level, economies are increasingly interlinked, their confidence and health retreating or rising with the flux of global financial and political tides. Our personal lives are more and more interconnected, allowing us to communicate and synchronize via a range of media. Integration between the applications and tools at our disposal helps to make us savvier and more versatile in an ever changing world.

Recognizing that Shiftboard is not the only calendaring system our clients use, we have rolled out an iCal integration feature. Now with any iCal compatible calendaring, such as Google Calendar or Outlook, you can synchronize your Shiftboard schedule to your other calendars. By selecting to Publish iCal/Google Outlook, your Shiftboard schedule and any changes you make will syndicate with the other iCal compatible systems associated with your account’s email. When you make a change in your Shiftboard calendar, you will also see that change in your Google Calendar.

We live in a rapidly evolving and fickle world. With the help of Shiftboard, you can now diversify and weave together your calendaring, making you a more adaptable agent in a sea of change.

- Alison

Many of our clients have employees who are working multiple jobs. Juggling two different schedules, with your worker as the liaison, can be frustrating for all parties involved. Volunteer and non-profit groups often face a similar dilemma. While two weeks down the road a volunteer’s schedule is a white canvas waiting for shifts to be etched in, prior obligations and unaccounted for circumstances inevitably leave schedulers scrambling to fill shifts.

Scheduling shouldn't be a stunt...

Plan ahead by utilizing Shiftboard’s Availability tool. Users (or their managers) can choose certain days of the week, at certain hours, and then specify busy or available. For random, spur of the moment events, you can select Specific Availability, and choose which days you will be available or unavailable. If you want to be really stringent, you can default your site so that members’ unaccounted availability times will be considered busy, thereby excluding them from being scheduled except for those times they have actually entered as available.

Constantly updating a calendar to accommodate ever changing priorities and schedules can be a real headache. So take a scheduler’s aspirin, use Availability, and give your workers an incentive to think more than a few days down the proverbial calendar road. Rest easy schedulers – those you see, are those available.

- Alison

Wouldn’t it be nice if once a schedule was made, cosmic forces would conveniently align and you wouldn’t have to change it, for whatever reason? Dream on schedulers, dream on. If you’re scheduling college students, your schedule is beholden to the professor, who on a whim, decides to throw in an extra essay. If you’re working outdoor events, crowds can be dampened by inclement weather — or buoyed by the summer rays.  Being able to communicate quickly to specific groups is paramount to making sure the correct workers show up, and that they show up prepared for the task.

Updates to our SMS/TXT feature make it easier than ever to communicate schedule changes to your workers.  Until recently workers had to add their SMS/TXT email address to Shiftboard.  This caused quite a bit of confusion, as most users don’t know they have an SMS/TXT email address, let alone what theirs actually is.  We did our research and now track each provider and their SMS/TXT email address.  Users (or their managers) simply select the correct service provider (Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) and enter the cell number.

The number of text messages being sent through Shiftboard has exploded thanks to this recent update. Thousands of workers are staying connected 24/7 via text messaging.  Users always control which messages they wish to receive and can make updates to their preferences at anytime.  Text messaging is just one additional way Shiftboard makes online scheduling and communication an excellent match for many different types of organizations. To find an organization similar to yours, check out our Case Studies.

- Alison

There was a day, not so long ago, when most business software was bought from the likes of SAP or Oracle or Siebel Systems.  It came on a disk that needed to be installed on a server with a whole lot of customization by some very high priced consultants.  Sit back, take a deep breath, relax, and take a walk down memory lane with me.

Let’s just say, for example, a CIO of a big manufacturing or services business led a committee that decided to buy SAP as an ERP system.  He and his team commit the company to a 7 figure purchase price and 2-3x that again in consulting fees.  Something like a year passes, and this company is rolling out SAP.  Finally going live.

What do you think that CIO says to a couple of operations-types from the warehouse or manufacturing floor who knock on his door and complain that the screens are quite busy and complex, that the work-flows are unintuitive, that they can’t figure out what to do even with the user manual (roughly the size of phone book) right in front of them?  He tells them to pack sand, only not so nicely.  He says, “Suck it up and figure it out.  We just spent $7 million on this package.  Either that, or try not to let the door slam your gluteus maximus on the way out.”

The times they are a changin’

I remember as a CRM sales guy in the late 1990s Siebel Systems touting 135 screens in their marketing literature.

Oh, what a great software concept – confuse the crap out of your user community.  Can you imagine any software-as-a-service (SaaS) company marketing like that today? It wouldn’t just be slitting the company’s throat.  It would be the VP of Marketing filling entire office building with jet fuel and then grabbing a smoke.

What has changed?  Seven million handcuffs were removed, that’s what.  The massive upfront lock-in costs are gone in SaaS.  The business buyers pay as they go, a month at a time.  The software has to perform its function well, very quickly, and it has to be extremely intuitive.  If it’s not, the user community really does hit the road.  They vote with their feet, and fast.

Online scheduling driven by the user base

A couple of years ago, I was preparing to meet Shiftboard’s founder, Bryan, for the first time.  I was doing my homework on the online scheduling market which was new to me.  I have studied a fair number of markets in my day, and I figured I had the big picture of this one.

Somewhere in the first 15 minutes of that meeting, Bryan says, “Most scheduling software is built from the scheduler out.  But Shiftboard was built first and foremost for the users, the workers checking schedules and picking up shifts, in other words designed from the worker in.  Because in online scheduling software over the next decade, the users will ultimately have the biggest collective say in what software is used.”  I was off my game.  That nugget of information got under my skin.  I thought about it a lot over the next couple of days.  I met him a couple of more times, talked to some customers, laid awake at night chewing on it.

Here was the product manager of the future, not the past.  Here was a guy who designed the product around ease of use above all things.  It didn’t take me too long.  I decided to get on the train . . . pushed all my chips to the middle of the table . . . because I knew from more than a decade in the business that his kind of software product design was where the whole software industry was going.

See what you think about our online scheduling software – literally tens of thousands of users who have logged in for the very first time and figured out what to do without a lick of training.  There ain’t no 135 screens, I can promise you that.

– Rob E

“I need to post a shift and include a PDF or Word document so my employees can have more information on their assignment”.  Done.  Shiftboard’s online scheduling software allows scheduling managers to include additional information for a particular shift or assignment.  You can upload and store documents on your Shiftboard site and then attach these to shifts the calendar.

This process works great for one of our “handyman” service customers.

The employee’s login, and clearly view their assigned shifts in green.  They can pick up additional shifts in red.  For each shift they view the start and end time, the location (with a Google map attached), and whatever additional information is relevant for the job.  This Handyman client attaches invoices for their employees to print out and bring to the clients home.

Other Shiftboard customers are using the upload and attach tools to post waivers, directions, forms, driving routes, etc.  Just like the Shiftboard calendar these files can be viewed from any web browser.  Employees can view and print the documents from anywhere and aren’t required to stop by the office.  This saves time and keeps business running smoothly.

The rule “no texting at work” doesn’t apply to Shiftboard users.  Managers can easily message their employees via text through Shiftboard’s system.

Imagine you are an event management scheduler and just had to reschedule the start time of 15 shifts from 5:00 pm to 4:30 pm.  The text feature allows you to instantly reach and message all affected workers.  Most people don’t have continuous access to the Internet, but most everybody does keep their cell phone with them 24/7.

Texts are received quicker and are much more likely to be read then emails.  A nurse-scheduling manager can text all qualified RN’s who aren’t currently working to try and fill a last minute shift.  After a manager posts a new schedule they can text their employees to let them know it is ready.

Your employees will love you for letting them have immediate access to their schedules and you will feel confident knowing your workers can be messaged in a method that is rapidly becoming the most preferred method of communication.

Keeping track of all your employees licensing and credentialing information can be a nightmare.  Far more frightening is how easy it is for these very important dates to pass without notice.

Expiration Reminders

Shiftboard’s 30-day expiration reminder tracks your employee’s credentials.  A license and expiration date can be associated with any employee.  Examples include First Aid & CPR, a driver’s license, malpractice insurance, professional license, etc. The list goes on and on.

An expiration reminder message is sent to both the user and the system administrator when there are only 30 days left on the certificate.  These simple reminders relieve a lot of stress and ensure your employees are properly certified so they can perform their jobs correctly.  This tool will also keep your business out of the legal trouble involved with expired certifications.  Phew!

-Alison J.

http://www.shiftboard.com

]]> http://www.shiftboard.com/blog/2009/08/30-day-expiration-reminder/feed/ 0 http://www.shiftboard.com/blog/2009/08/clock-in-clock-out/ http://www.shiftboard.com/blog/2009/08/clock-in-clock-out/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:34:16 +0000 Alison http://blog.shiftboard.com/?p=947

Pay employees for the time that they actually work, not the time they are scheduled to work.  Sounds like a good idea, right?  In just a few clicks employee’s clock-in and clock-out online via Shiftboard. Lunches and breaks are easily tracked. Managers can view their employees work history to look for trends; showing up late, leaving early, etc.  This tool can work from any computer or be set up to only work from a computer(s) at specific locations.

If enabled, a Shiftboard team manager can clock an employee in or out.   They can also view a real-time list of all clocked in workers.  If an employee forgets to use the Timeclock system they submit an online Timecard of hours worked.  These timesheets are approved by a manager and then processed and downloaded for payroll/accounting.  You can sort and filter timesheets by client (external) or department (internal) for reporting. With Shiftboard’s electronic timesheet submission you will do away with the mess of paper and faxing. Clock in, clock out – it’s that easy!

-Alison J.

Customers definitely don’t have time to enter the same repeating shift over and over again on the calendar.  With Shiftboard, managers can post a repeating shift by date, time, day, week, etc.  This means you can post the same shift through the end of the week, month, or year.

A delivery customer can post a shift for the 1^st and 3^rd Wednesday of each month and only needs to enter the information once. The same goes for a theater needing ushers each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7:00 PM through the end of 2009.  Once the scheduler clicks “Set Coverage” all the shifts go straight to the calendar for viewing. The scheduler also has the option to keep these shifts hidden until it is the correct time for them to go live.

I love showing this part of our software because it is always an immediate jaw dropper.  Potential customers instantly recognize the value. “WOW, that’s cool” and “I can actually do that?” are common responses.

-Alison J