Scheduling software?

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Hey all,

What scheduling software does your service use, and how do you like it?

Looking for new scheduling software here.
 
Telestaff: I like it. Works well.
Aladtec: works well as well.
Trauma soft: don't touch the thing with a 10 foot pole.
Zolls scheduler was pretty good too when I used it.

From a supervisor standpoint I'd say telestaff is best. Aladtec has some limitations in time keeping. Only allows hour increments of schedule changes. (So if I end at 730 it will only allow me to do 7 or 8). But I'm not a heavy user on the supervisors end of the software. I just have to play with it every so often
 
Aladtec can be set for :00, :15, or :30 times. But once you go down to a finer level, you can't go back up higher.

My volunteer agency used to use Alatec, now we're at eSchedule. Eschedule is less expensive, but the software is less capable and the interface is much clunkier.
 
honestly, it depends on what you want. my favorite scheduling software is whentowork. It's a scheduling software, with few bells and whistles, but it does scheduling very well.

We currently use Aladtech at my FD, and used to use it at the school I teach at. it's not bad, but for a larger agency (think 15+ units with varying start and end times), I think W2W is better.
 
Every where I've worked has used ePro/NetScheduler which was recently bought by ESO. It's good, and is feature rich. None of the places I've worked have ever used it to it's full capacity, maybe it's difficult.

9th Brain is another one. We use it for a lot of things, like certification management, CEs, incident reports, etc... Very robust software package. It has a time keeping option, but we don't use that piece of it.
 
NPO said:
Every where I've worked has used ePro/NetScheduler which was recently bought by ESO. It's good, and is feature rich. None of the places I've worked have ever used it to it's full capacity, maybe it's difficult.
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I've used ePro.... as you said, it's feature rich, but (as you said), no one has used it to it's fullest capacity. Not only that, some places use the additional features because they paid for them, not because they have an actual need for them. And I'm sure those additional features are factored into the cost. https://www.ninthbrain.com/ is the same way.

Feature rich is great, but do you need all of the features, or do you need a scheduling software, because your agency already has software that handles everything else?

It all boils down to finding software that satisfies the requirements you have. don't let the salesperson distract you with extra fluff, focus on your requirements.
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone! Whentowork sounds like it may be a cool option. Anyone else use it? And is anyone able to share screenshots of how it looks/works at their agency?
 
We use Aladtec and it works well. My only real complaint is that it takes too long to see your partner for a particular shift. Shift trade and PTO requests are easy to make. I don't work on the back end, but the people I know who do seem to like it.

We previously used Netscheduler, which was awful. And is apparently now ePro Scheduler+.
 
rails said:
Thanks for the replies, everyone! Whentowork sounds like it may be a cool option. Anyone else use it? And is anyone able to share screenshots of how it looks/works at their agency?
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My former agency used it; it was a significant upgrade from the excel spreadsheet that we used previously... here is a screenshot of it taken off the web (and I wouldn't share a live shot even if i I could, because it would include our employee names):
wtw_fake_names.jpg


you can schedule multiple units (just swap out the letters above for unit numbers), with multiple start times (see above), and set repeat patterns. It seamlessly exports to a google calendar. you can use it to handle trades, time off requests, and view the calendar using multiple views (i preferred the weekly view myself, especially when managing multiple units daily). a supervisor can send emails out from the system for open shifts, based on people who are qualified to fill a position. I think you can also have people submit availability in it, but i'm not sure, since we never used it.

here are some training videos which explain it's features (most less than 5 minutes in length):

And the official tutorials:

Getting Started – WhenToWork Help

when2work.com when2work.com

Trade & Pick Up Shifts – WhenToWork Help

when2work.com when2work.com

At it's most basic level, it's a scheduling software, nothing more. it's not a time clock, HR system, incident reporting or truck check, payroll, certification tracker, etc. it's SCHEDULING. That's it, and it does it VERY well.

My other EMS agency used to have a paper schedule, which was printed every month, and outdated about 6 minutes after it was published. errors were common, typically with unfilled schedules or errors on the part of the scheduler. Once they went to whentowork , the error frequency decreased dramatically, and people were able to check the "official" schedule before the day of to get errors corrected.

Here is some info on aladtech from one of their press releases: https://www.ems1.com/ems-products/s...t-growing-private-companies-T2D9PmJ7HvQtXcQD/

and a video from epro schedulw:
 
Any software will require work up front to get it to work for you.

I’ve used telestaff, wasn’t impressed. EPro seems to be a decent combination of price and features, and Aldatech is nice too
 
We still use a paper calendar for vacation scheduling..

We fill out and sign paper time sheets..

We have a "staffing" module off our fire reporting software, but it's really just used for daily line-ups..

No lie..
 
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The only thing that could possibly be worse than Traumasoft for EMS scheduling is paper and pen. Not pencil, which can be erased as changes need to be made; but pen so that every change needs to be scratched out, written in the margin with arrows, sometimes completely illegibly. If this paper could be kept in a different place, on an ever changing basis decided at random, that would be worse than Traumasoft, but only just barely.

I would take any commercial software scheduling solution over Traumasoft if it was my decision to make. I would run ePro in Swedish(I'm in the states, working for an agency that, to the best of my knowledge, employs zero swedes) before I would continue to use Traumasoft, if it were my decision, which it is not.
 
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We use ePro and while it’s feature rich, implementation of those features is a pain. I understand that ESO will be retooling lots of it. We use almost all the modules. Incident reporting, equipment tracking, vehicles, and all the rest. The con ed module is awful. I’d love to move to ninthbrain.
 
NomadicMedic said:
We use ePro and while it’s feature rich, implementation of those features is a pain. I understand that ESO will be retooling lots of it. We use almost all the modules. Incident reporting, equipment tracking, vehicles, and all the rest. The con ed module is awful. I’d love to move to ninthbrain.
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+1 for Ninthbrain. We use every thing except time keeping and scheduling on it. I don't know why we dont, since it can.
 
I expect ePro to become a lot more similar to NinthBrain. ESO is committed to fixing it
 
I am but a user. However, CrewSense (VectorSolutions) is certainly the best I've used so far. Their app is excellent and in terms of "just" scheduling, I can't think of anything it lacks.

Another job recently got EPro which is fine, but the mobile interface is garbage. The time keeping portion can be set up to require you to be on pre-approved wifi networks which seems smart.
No fan of TeleStaff but that could be a locality issue. Seems too complicated in general and very slow.
Aladtec and WhenToWork seemed pretty comparable and worked well.
PlanitEMS was ok from what I remember, not sure that it's even still around?
 
I use W2W for my BLS agency. I like it as a manager, the staff like it, the app is great and if you set the rules up on the back end its really easy for everyone to use on the front end.

I have been a user for Adalatec and it was ok. I currently use Epro and its also ok, but as a FT employee on a set schedule i dont really engage with it that much.
 
Tigger said:
I am but a user. However, CrewSense (VectorSolutions) is certainly the best I've used so far. Their app is excellent and in terms of "just" scheduling, I can't think of anything it lacks.

Another job recently got EPro which is fine, but the mobile interface is garbage. The time keeping portion can be set up to require you to be on pre-approved wifi networks which seems smart.
No fan of TeleStaff but that could be a locality issue. Seems too complicated in general and very slow.
Aladtec and WhenToWork seemed pretty comparable and worked well.
PlanitEMS was ok from what I remember, not sure that it's even still around?
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Yes, it is, unless you're trying to dissemble your true reason for a dramatically timed and poorly executed hard transition to an empirically inferior scheduling system. Then you'll spread a rumor through your organization that the firm went bust overnight and that's why we have to roll out a pull from the garbage can solution from the 2000s. And many people will believe it....
 
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