RotaCloud

Pros

Being online means I can create rotas at home or work, and the app means team can access their rotas in the way that's easiest for them. I like being able to copy a shift from one day/person to another, and being able to copy a week's shift from one week to another. The reporting is good also, enabling me to do payroll easily.

Cons

A few things are bit fiddly and could be improved.
1. having to change between publish mode and rota mode. it would be better to be able to publish a week with a button, or a right click for just one shift.
2. it is cumbersome having to create holidays in a different screen. it would be better to be able to do it from within the rota screen.
3. if I'm creating a rota for next week, and then navigate away to, say the holiday screen, when I go back to the rota screen it will go back to THIS week not the week I was editing. On more than one occasion I haven't spotted that and erroneously then edited THIS week instead!
4. it would be great to be able to include paid leave in the report so that I know to include that person's day in a pay run. At the moment, I have created a role of 'paid leave' so that their holiday hours get included in their hours for that week
5. I like being able to see how many shifts a person has for that week (ie in a row) but it would also be helpful to see how many shifts are logged for each day (ie in a column).

Pros

This software has been great for us and moving to it, from pen and paper, was the best decision we ever made. We have most definitely saved time in both writing and administering rotas, and the app means that all the staff know when they are expected in work without being able to say they hadn't been told!

It is generally really easy to use from both a Manager and Employees point of view. The customer support is excellent, with questions being answered very quickly through the online chat facility. This is also great as it means you have a record of the conversations so if you need to refer back to something later on then you are able to do so. We manage two sites and 6 rotas in total across the business with nearly 100 employees. Being able to manage the leave through rotacloud has proven far more efficient and ensured that we are not in danger of finding ourselves at the beginning of December with a lot of holiday to make up with staff - something that seemed to happen every year historically.

Cons

There are some quirks which I would love to see ironed out. The 'Availability' function cannot cope with both ongoing requests and individual requests at the same time which is really frustrating. The majority of our crew are casual employees who have ongoing commitments as well as one off commitments so we have had to come up with a workaround to enable them to add all of their availability without the danger of some of it being missed.
It would also be useful to have an easy way to see, and reinstate, past employees. With a very transient workforce, often away at university or travelling for long periods, we don't want to keep them on the system but need to be able to reinstate them when they return. I currently do this via a link but an easier way would be better.

Pros

User-friendly, does a lot of the 'managing' for you, its really liked by our staff. I find the admin really easy to use either from an office or on-the-go. It is mostly reliable and the takes time and effort out of admin tasks - forward planning rotas, accurately recording holidays etc. Having a PHB meant that we had to take on the responsibility of managing 6 staff (3 full time/3 part time) to care for my disabled son around the clock. This facility is absolutely brilliant, and takes away the time-consuming role that I have now of admininistrating rostas and managing those staff. It also ensures that we run everything very professionally - but it takes away the embarrassment of saying 'no' if there are holiday clashes, staff want to swap last minute etc - as the function automatically puts in red flags when our staff try to do this. They soon get the message without us having to tell them! This would otherwise be difficult to in a situation like ours when people are working in your home, caring for your child and for parents like myself who are are not used to management of staff.

Cons

We can honestly say there there is not one single function that we don't like. The designer are very approachable and willing listen with regard to putting in new functions if you are not happy with the design.

Pros

The ease of use of the system and the short amount of time that is required to set up. I was able to implement the system for our company within 1 day which included inputting of the rotas 4 weeks in advance.

Employees are now able to see their shifts at any time through the mobile app or browser and are able to see any shifts which need covering. The cost of the system pays for itself purely from an administration point of view as we do not need to call round all employees for availability.

Cons

There are different price structures for different features and from our point of view it would be easier to have one price for all access.

Pros

The user face is very simplistic and easy to set up an account or add a new employee. It's great that we can add multiple locations to the account as we have multiple stores across the North West, and how we can add employees to various locations rather than having to add the same employee numerous times to have their account set up at different locations (which we had to do on other apps) which makes it much easier for the employees to see when they are working as well as where they are working.

Cons

It would be helpful for the person who is managing the Rota to be able to see the weeks rota in full on the phone app (like you can on the desktop) by spinning the screen on its side as at the moment you can only see day by day and have to select the each individual day to see it all, however this isn't a major issue.