7shifts vs Branch

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Our analysts compared 7shifts vs Branch based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Employee Scheduling Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

7shifts is a web-based platform that helps restaurants create, edit and publish staff schedules. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows managers to assign shifts quickly while factoring in employee availability, time-off requests and overtime limitations. To avoid scheduling conflicts, it automatically highlights potential issues such as missed breaks and unbudgeted labor hours during the creation process.

It integrates with existing point-of-sale (POS) systems, eliminating the need for manual data entry. It pulls sales data to help managers create labor schedules that align with sales forecasts. Additionally, clock-in/out data can be incorporated, providing a complete picture of labor costs.

The platform offers a mobile app for both managers and employees. The manager app allows for on-the-go schedule changes, communication with staff, and real-time sales and labor cost monitoring. The employee app allows staff to view their schedules, request time off, and swap shifts with colleagues directly from their smartphones.

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The Branch app is a mobile-first solution that connects employees working on an hourly basis with enterprises. Employees can pick up available shifts within minutes rather than wasting valuable time in search of available shifts. Employees can earn more by working available shifts, collect advance paychecks and plan their finances.

It offers modules that bridge the communication gap between hourly workers and companies. Employees can find convenient shifts and can swap shifts in case of an emergency. Its seamless interface reduces absenteeism, saves time and cuts costs.
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$3/User, Monthly
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$5 Monthly, Freemium
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Insights

  • Try It Before You Buy It: Get started with 7shifts for free! You can schedule up to 30 employees at one location without needing a credit card. Plus, all paid plans come with a 14-day trial to help you explore all the features before committing.
  • Top-Rated Solution: Our analysts ranked 7shifts among the best employee scheduling software, with an impressive score of 86. This puts it right up there with industry leaders like When I Work (85) and Deputy (86).
  • Simple Setup, Powerful Features: Looking for an all-in-one scheduling solution? 7shifts might be perfect for you. Our research shows it supports 84% of essential employee scheduling needs right out of the box, requiring minimal setup.
  • Enhanced Teamwork: 7shifts excels in team communication and collaboration, offering features like news feeds, group chats, announcements and direct messaging. Plus, read receipts ensure recipients read messages, and employee sentiment tracking helps managers identify potential issues.
  • Effortless Employee Management: 7shifts offers everything you need to manage your team effectively. Create and maintain employee profiles with ease while ensuring compliance with labor regulations. Features include self-service profiles, certification reminders, task management and even employee mood tracking.
  • Robust Mobile App: The 7shifts mobile app is a user favorite, with a 4.8 rating on the Apple Store and a 4.5 rating on Google Play. It includes features like geofencing, time tracking, shift swapping, team messaging and customizable notifications to keep everyone informed.
  • Effortless Schedule Creation: Scheduling is a breeze with 7shifts thanks to tools like AI-powered auto-scheduling, drag-and-drop functionality, conflict identification, skill-based scheduling, and the ability to create and use customizable templates for recurring needs.
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  • Automatic Notifications: Sends notifications automatically to employees about new messages, upcoming shifts, shift approvals or rejections. Its chat feature facilitates messaging between employees without having to share personal information. 
  • Improves Workers’ Finances: Provides various budgeting tools that help employees enhance their financial health. Employees can instantly access earned wages to pay their bills, unexpected expenses or emergencies ahead of the payroll period of two weeks. 
  • Boosts Earnings: Helps employees enhance their shift coverage and boost their earnings by picking up more shifts. 
  • Reduces Absenteeism Up to 43%: Offers a flexible platform for hourly employees to swap their shifts when their availability changes. This feature simplifies the scheduling process for shift managers and reduces employee absenteeism by as much as 43%. 
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  • Scheduling: Managers can quickly build staff schedules using drag-and-drop functionality. The system integrates with existing point-of-sale systems to automatically forecast sales and suggest labor needs. Managers can then publish the schedule through the mobile app, allowing staff to view their shifts, request time off and swap shifts.
  • Time Clocking: Use a mobile time-clocking app, 7punches, to simplify employee attendance tracking and ensure labor law compliance. The app integrates with the scheduling system, allowing only employees with scheduled shifts to clock in. This prevents time theft and ensures accurate timesheets. Managers can also enable optional features like photo verification or location tracking (geofencing) upon clock-in to further confirm employee presence.
  • Tip Pooling: You can automate tip calculations and payouts. The system integrates with existing scheduling data to ensure accurate tip allocation. Managers can specify how to split tips among staff, and the system handles calculations automatically, eliminating manual errors and saving time. 7shifts also offers secure and cashless tip payouts, replacing the need for cash advances, bank runs and manual tip distribution.
  • Payroll Management: This integrated solution, specifically designed for US restaurants, centralizes employee onboarding, time clocking, labor law compliance checks and payroll processing. The system automates wage and tip calculations, ensuring accurate and timely employee payments.
  • Employee Engagement: An engagement dashboard helps monitor key metrics and identify areas for improvement. Managers can automate shift feedback surveys to gather employee insights for coaching and addressing issues. The platform facilitates performance conversations with data and insights, ensuring continuous improvement. The manager logbook bridges communication gaps between shifts by allowing managers to document and share daily updates.
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  • Self-Service Design: Offers a self-service platform to employees so that they can swap shifts as per their availability. This functionality eliminates administrative hassles and drastically reduces the time spent on scheduling. 
  • AI Chatbots: Designed with artificial intelligence chatbots to facilitate the onboarding of the staff, training, engagement and learning. 
  • Mobile Application: A native mobile application helps employees manage their shift coverage, earnings, leaves, overtime and attendance. 
  • Communication Tools: Offers numerous features that strengthen communications within businesses and boosts coordination. Shift managers can broadcast important updates and announcements to ensure everyone is informed, and important tasks are finished within deadlines. 
  • Reporting and Dashboards: Offers automated reporting tools and dashboards to report survey results in real time. Businesses can generate various customizable reports that can aid their improvement and help with employee performance reviews. 
  • Performance Benchmarking: Compare survey results with industry benchmarks and discover the areas that need improvement. It can be used to improve the performance of an employee or shake up things high up the ladder. 
  • Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with various third-party applications like Zapier, Box, Salesforce and SAP. Connect with the company’s external systems to complete team workflows. 
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Product Ranking

#12

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

#85

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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Branch
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Collaboration Employee Management Leave And Absence Management Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Analytics Schedule Management Security And Compliance Shift Management Time And Attendance Management 100 94 87 90 61 81 95 67 89 83 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 1305 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 1616 reviews
94%
of users recommend this product

7shifts has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 94% when considering 1305 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

91%
of users recommend this product

Branch has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 1616 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.2 (12)
4.5 (14)
4.6 (105)
4.4 (219)
n/a
4.58 (679)
4.7 (1176)
4.6 (675)
4.8 (12)
3.9 (29)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated 7shifts and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Collaboration. 7shifts stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Collaboration Award

Branch stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Use: The platform has an Intuitive interface and is simple to navigate, even for non-tech-savvy employees.
Comprehensive Features: 7shifts supports every key employee scheduling requirement in a centralized platform, managing scheduling, time tracking, payroll and employee engagement.
Responsive Customer Support: Users report positive experiences with support in resolving issues and implementing feedback.
Improved Employee Engagement: The platform reduces managerial stress by allowing employees to manage their schedules and trades from phones. This promotes transparency and confidence among employees by allowing real-time schedule and timesheet tracking.
Efficient Team Communication: Users report that 7shifts has significantly improved team collaboration by facilitating easy messaging among staff and management, making shift swaps and updates straightforward.
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Ease of Use: All users who referred to ease of use said that the system is straightforward, making it easy to learn, use and navigate.
Communication: Provides an easy way to communicate with teams and includes supervision for more efficient workflows, as noted by all reviewers who referred to communication.
Management: All users who specified management said it streamlines managing and tracking of schedules, shifts, finances and more.
Advance Paycheck: All users who mentioned advance paychecks liked the ability to take paycheck advances or loans when needed.
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Comparatively Expensive: Users find the platform costly for accessing necessary functions, especially on higher-tier plans. It could be more affordable for smaller companies.
Technical Issues: There are reports of occasional slowness and glitches, particularly on mobile devices. After a system update, some functions may change without prior notification.
Limited Customizations: Some features lack flexibility, such as the inability to stack and sort employee shifts on a given day and limited options for dashboard and view customizations.
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Performance: All users who referred to performance said that the system can be slow, glitchy and also crash at times.
Integration: It doesn’t link with all banks or applications, as observed by 86% of users who mentioned linking.
Customer Support: All users who talked about customer support wished that support would be available online via 24/7 chat and phone.
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My overall experience with 7shifts has been positive. The onboarding process was a breeze, taking just five minutes to set up my shop and begin scheduling. I particularly liked the option to have 7shifts automatically set up my business by uploading an existing Excel schedule. The platform then created departments and employee profiles for me, saving a significant amount of time.Another feature I found valuable was the customizable manager logbook. It allowed me to take detailed notes, set up alerts and create reminders for upcoming maintenance activities. Additionally, the mobile app stood out with its unique selfie-based employee punch-in feature, ensuring that the right person was clocking in for their shift.While 7shifts offers a comprehensive suite of features, there are some drawbacks to consider. One major concern is the cost. Compared to competitors like Homebase, WhenIWork and Sling, 7shifts is more expensive for smaller companies. Another point to note is that payroll management is not included in the paid plans, requiring an additional charge to unlock this feature.Despite these limitations, 7shifts offers a user-friendly platform with various features designed to streamline employee scheduling, time tracking, communication and employee engagement. Responsive customer support and a focus on employee experience are additional strengths.Ultimately, whether 7shifts is the right fit depends on your specific needs and budget. For small business owners on a tight budget, the cost may be prohibitive. However, for those seeking a comprehensive, user-centric solution, 7shifts could be a valuable asset.

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Branch is a cloud-based solution for time and productivity tracking for companies managing multiple shifts. It provides the capability to monitor work hours, view schedules, assign tasks, plan shifts and communicate with employees. Provides visibility on employee availability both in real time and in the future to help managers plan resources and workflows. A self-service mobile app enables employees to track everyday schedules and budgets, message colleagues, take advance paychecks and earn more money by taking shifts that are available. Some reviewers mentioned that it doesn’t link with all the banks and applications, preventing them from using the cash advance feature. The system can be glitchy, slow and crash at times. Users wished that customer support would be made available online via 24/7 options, which would be more pragmatic and reliable.

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Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Employee Scheduling Software


Deputy

Findmyshift

Homebase

Humanity

OpenSimSim

Planday

Quinyx

ScheduleFlex

Shiftbase

Shiftboard

Sling

TimeForge

When I Work

WhenToWork

ZoomShift

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