As a labor management software suite, TimeForge comes packed with useful tools and features. These features make work easier for business owners and operators.
For example, by automating repetitive tasks or helping businesses avoid compliance issues. Other tools help by keeping managers and staff on the same page.
For today’s post, I asked the TimeForge team to tell me about their favorite features. I was sure that with so many to choose from, everyone would pick something different! Turns out, one feature is pretty popular among the team. Keep reading to find out which one. 🙂
The TimeForge Team’s Favorite Features
Here’s what the team had to say about their favorite features:
Are your staff getting the message?
Audrey Hogan, our Chief Operating Officer, chose something unexpected as her favorite:
“With all of the cool machine learning and fancy things we can do with labor budgets, you’d think my favorite feature would have something to do with a whiz-bang futuristic module. It doesn’t.
My favorite TimeForge feature is incredibly simple, underutilized, and a ton of customers don’t even realize it exists. It’s the ‘viewed’ status on messages.
In my past life, I worked in restaurants and retail. Great communication is really hard, and it can feel impossible when everyone works at different times. Shift notes are helpful, and texts are great, and posting a note on the bulletin board is fantastic, but the I didn’t know and I didn’t get the memo kinds of problems still stack up. Especially when you have a ton of newbies who don’t know how things operate.
Most the time, employees genuinely just didn’t read a message yet or see a note, but sometimes employees use the intermittent communication patterns as an excuse to ignore bulletins, and claim that nobody told them (so that they don’t have to do the thing).
Inside TimeForge, you can send messages to your staff – one, some, or all of them. You can see a time stamp of when the message was delivered, and here’s my favorite feature: exactly when they viewed the message.
There’s no more I didn’t know. This facilitates conversations and helps everyone be on the same page. I wish I’d had it when I was managing!”
For more info on how this feature works, check out our guide on viewing sent messages.
Schedule your reports to reduce the tedium
For Don Salisbury, our Software Architect, scheduled reports are at the top of his favorites list:
“My favorite TimeForge feature is scheduled reports. I think it’s darn nifty not having to repeatedly visit the reports page to run that daily/weekly report that you always use.
When its scheduled time hits, the generated report pops up in your notifications. You can also have it sent to any email addresses you specify.”
Want to get reports automatically by email? Check out our guide on scheduling email reports.
Stay compliant with certification alerts and document tracking
Diego Gaytan, our Support Team Lead, identified certifications as his personal fave:
“My favorite feature would have to be the Certifications feature. I think it’s a great tool to use if you have employees who need up-to-date documentation, like a food handler’s certificate or alcohol service license, to work at your location. Managers can quickly set up reminders so their employees finish their required training.
More importantly, it prevents managers from scheduling employees with an expired certificate, which could bring in fines and affect store operations.”
To learn more, visit our guide on setting up certifications and alerts. You can send alerts both to the employee whose cert is about to expire AND a list of managers of your choosing.
Save time with the TimeForge AutoScheduler
Mike Hetisimer, our Implementations Manager, lauded the AutoScheduler as his favorite TimeForge feature:
“For me, it’s got to be the AutoScheduler. I’ve seen it remove hours of weekly work for stores. I really enjoy showing a manager how it can automatically find the best fit for staff on big schedules, even with ones over 1,000 hours! And it only takes seconds.
It’s also a lot of fun nerding out with folks and walking through what it can do, and how it gets smarter the more data you feed it, like employee availability.
The AutoScheduler even accounts for things like whether an employee is full-time or part-time. It’ll also let managers know when they’re under or overstaffed, all with the click of a button.”
The AutoScheduler is a tried and tested feature that’s been a part of TimeForge nearly since the beginning. It’s not only designed to save time but also to keep labor costs low and maximize profits. Read our quick how-to guide on the AutoScheduler to learn how you can create your first optimized online schedule in minutes.
See everything that’s important to you at a glance
Okay, it’s my turn to nerd out. My favorite TimeForge feature is actually the Today Page.
A few years ago, we revamped this page into a customizable dashboard. Now, it’s populated by widgets that you can choose and move around, so that the moment you log in, the first things you see are the things you care about most.
For some of our customers, that might be a list of clocked-in employees. For others, it might be a chart showing actual versus scheduled labor.
There are a ton of location widgets to choose from, and some of these report on pretty sophisticated stats using charts and graphs. I’m just really impressed by everything the dashboard can show you. Even your employees’ birthdays!
A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought employee birthdays to be that significant. These days, though, with employee engagement and retention being so important, my perspectives have really changed.
Every little thing you can do to let your employees know you care now counts. Even wishing them a happy birthday in passing or, better yet, giving them a card signed by the team.
Automate repetitive and difficult tasks
For Erik van Gilder, our Chief Technology Officer, it’s a tie:
“My two favorite TimeForge features are tied between the AutoScheduler and the forecasting system. Both features automate tasks that are impossible for a human to quickly perform.
The AutoScheduler will schedule employees within constraints such as availability, cost and skill, and save the scheduling manager hours of work.
The sales forecasting module is similar. Given enough data, it will forecast sales volumes more accurately than a manager can. Best of all, the manager can fine-tune the TimeForge forecast for even greater accuracy to account for promotions and special events.”
And… the AutoScheduler wins again!
And we have a winner! Daniel Fernandez, our Senior Software Developer, also chose the AutoScheduler as his favorite:
“My favorite TimeForge feature is the AutoScheduler, which will assign employees to shifts based on multiple variables each account may have.
An AutoScheduled schedule is optimized to make both employees and managers happy by considering employee requests, skill levels, busy times, costs of different employees, and other criteria. In this way, the AutoScheduler creates the most profitable and most employee-friendly schedule possible.”
Do you have a favorite TimeForge feature? Shoot us an email and let us know, or find us on social media. We’d love to hear what you think!
