If you are a long-time TimeForge user, you are probably familiar with our system, and how it continues to evolve to take advantage of new technology, faster computers, and easier ways to manage employee schedules and track time and attendance. If you haven’t burned, thrown away, or otherwise destroyed all of your Excel labor spreadsheets , now is the time!
On July 11th, at the Retail Solutions Provider Association (RSPA) trade show held in Las Vegas, we debuted our brand new scheduling system. New users of TimeForge are already using the new scheduling system, and the feedback has been tremendous so far (keep it coming!). The new system looks similar to Microsoft Excel, but includes many enhancements necessary to build a schedule.
Some of the new features include:
- The ability to see (and change) the entire schedule from a single screen. Up to seven days can be shown at a time on the screen, and the schedule can be displayed by staff members, or by position , whichever you want to use!
- Add a shift to multiple days with a single click. For example, if “Joe” works on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday , there is no need to create four separate shifts. Simply create one, and “check” all of the other days to add the shift to them.
- When adding or editing shifts, you can now view all of the other shifts that the employee is working, and can also see their availability. No need to switch screens!
- Display shifts by times, hours, or expected labor costs.
- View employee totals (such as the number of hours worked by an staff member), and daily totals (such as the expected labor cost for the day) on the same screen.
- Drag and drop scheduling! Schedule one employee, and then copy or move their shifts to another employee.
Build Employee Schedules by Employee
TimeForge still includes all of the scheduling features that continue to make us a leader in employee scheduling:
- The one and only TimeForge AutoScheduler™ learns about your scheduling patterns, and can build a complete employee schedule in just a few seconds – or use schedule templates to quickly build schedules.
- Our proprietary Daily View, providing instant verification of your schedule – do you have too many cooks, or not enough staff members? – and staffing charts (gantt / bar charts). See where your schedule is too heavy, or insufficiently staffed.
- Build schedules by department, or for any time range! Divide up responsibility for scheduling among several responsible managers or supervisors.
- Compare the schedule to forecasted sales, table turns, guest counts, parked cars, full-time equivalents (FTE), or any other metric , and receive alerts when the schedule is out of line.
- Schedule SnapShots allow you to perform what-if scenarios, and the ability to jump back to a previous snapshot at any time.
- And much more …
Add or Edit a Shift with Insight About the Employee
If you are currently using the “old” TimeForge scheduling system, that’s ok, you can continue to use it. However, please use and become familiar with the new scheduling system , we will be phasing out the “old” system in the future. To try out the new system, follow these steps:
- Go to one of your schedules (or build a new one).
- On the “Schedule Detail” screen, click on the “Switch to the new TimeForge scheduling system” link (if you don’t have this link , congratulations! you are already using the new scheduling system).
- Play with the new staff scheduling system.
- If you want to switch back to the “old” system, simply click on the “Switch to the old scheduling system” link within your schedule.
Build Employee Schedules by Position
As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on the new scheduling system.
How long does it take to make an employee schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, hotel, bank, school, bar, club, or retail business. Sign up for a trial today!
