In my past life at a science center, I scheduled about 30 part time educators, each of which knew different programs and had different availability needs- similar to what Megan at Kalamazoo describes. We started in Excel, tried a program called "Time Forge", went back to Excel, and ultimately settled on a program called "When I Work", though that implementation happened after I transitioned out of the scheduling role.
Some of the biggest benefits of both Time Forge, and When I Work, was the ability of team to get their schedules on mobile, get reminder texts of their shifts, offer up shift trades with manager approval, etc. I found the challenge to be that any of the auto-scheduling options weren't powerful enough to deal with the complexities of our scheduling- it couldn't know that "if Suzie Q is the only one who knows this show, she can't also be the only person scheduled who knows this other one, because they run concurrently", for example. So I still had to manually build the schedule within the program- it was just a lot more user friendly when done.
At this point they use When I Work, and I think they still have that problem- the team knowledge is kept in a separate Access database and the two just can't talk to each other. There are some options, like assigning different roles, that could help with training levels, but I never quite got it to do what I wanted. But otherwise the program allows a lot of options and benefits for the team that emailing an Excel document never had. I liked it a lot from a user standpoint. Most of those programs have a cost that needs to be balanced- some are a flat rate, and some are on a per-employee basis. As with anything, the programs that have free versions don't have some of the benefits and tools available to paid versions.
In my current life I use Excel, because I have 6 team members and the knowledge base is very level, so it's pretty straightforward.
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Christina Beargie
Unit Manager
Ohio History Center - Ohio History Connection
Columbus OH
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-28-2017 08:29 AM
From: Thomas Close
Subject: Staff scheduling software
I should also add that our our School Programs team uses Artifax for their team scheduling because it does allow them to import booked programs from our CRM.
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Thomas Close
Gallery Experience Manager
Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Dallas TX
Original Message:
Sent: 09-28-2017 08:27 AM
From: Thomas Close
Subject: Staff scheduling software
Hello,
For the past 3 years, we have used WhenToWork to schedule various frontline teams at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Our Guest Services managers schedule approximately 75 part-time team members and I schedule 55 PT educators/interpreters. WhenToWork allows for there to be multiple manager roles and their respective teams are separate. Each staff member has his/her own profile login. It is a web-based platform, but is accessible from anywhere and has a robust enough mobile app. It allows for you to create/load saved templates and can schedule out as far as you're able to go based on employee's input availability. There's a trade board where team members can trade/drop shifts and managers can set restrictions on when/if this can happen or if it requires manager approval.
The company has been responsive to various suggestions over the years regarding new ways to view/sort information, input info/schedules, etc...
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Thomas Close
Gallery Experience Manager
Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Dallas TX
Original Message:
Sent: 09-26-2017 03:24 PM
From: Rich Lienesch
Subject: Staff scheduling software
Hello!
I would like to post this question to the forum:
We are looking to see what scheduling software other organizations have found useful. We would use this software specifically for scheduling education staff into education programs. We have about 40 staff, each with different availability and each qualified to teach a number of different programs.
Ideally the software would allow us to import scheduled programs coming from our reservation software (via Excel), and match those programs up to available educators qualified to teach a specific program.
Thank you,
Rich Lienesch
The Museum of Flight
Seattle, WA
| 
| Rich Lienesch | Associate Director - William A. Helsell Education Dept.
The Museum of Flight
9404 East Marginal Way S
Seattle, WA 98108
Work: +1 (206) 768-7143
www.museumofflight.org |