Looking for alternatives to Sling? Many users crave user-friendly and feature-rich solutions for tasks like Schedule Management, Mobile Capabilities, and Shift Management. Leveraging crowdsourced data from over 1,000 real Employee Scheduling Software selection projects based on 400+ capabilities, we present a comparison of Sling to leading industry alternatives like WhenToWork, Deputy, honeybeeBase, and Doodle.
Analyst Rating
User Sentiment
Sling is a cloud-native tool for streamlining employee scheduling for businesses of all sizes. It offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, allowing managers to build and modify schedules with ease. Pre-built templates for recurring shifts further save time, eliminating the need for repetitive manual assignments.
The platform offers employees self-service options to view schedules, request time off, and swap shifts with colleagues. This collaborative approach reduces management overhead and fosters a sense of autonomy among staff. Automated overtime tracking and labor cost analysis allow you to make data-driven decisions and identify areas for staffing optimization.
Additionally, it integrates with time clock functionality, enabling employees to clock in and out via their mobile devices. It also connects with existing calendar apps, ensuring everyone maintains a synced view of upcoming work commitments.
WhenToWork is a cloud-based solution that helps businesses create and manage schedules for hourly workers. It offers a free mobile app that supports time tracking, allowing employees to punch in and out of work remotely.
The platform’s standout feature is its one-click scheduling that uses a proprietary algorithm to generate optimal shift schedules, minimizing conflicts and reducing human error. With just a few clicks, you can create efficient work plans that ensure your team is adequately staffed at all times.
Employees can easily input their preferred, disliked and unavailable work times, allowing managers to make informed decisions when creating schedules. This feature enhances employee satisfaction and minimizes scheduling conflicts by ensuring that employees are working shifts that align with their availability and preferences.
This platform lets you prioritize clear communication and accountability within your team. It automatically sends notifications to employees when their shifts are created or updated, ensuring everyone stays informed. This enhances employee engagement and reduces the risk of missed shifts.
WhenToWork offers a 30-day trial period, allowing you to test the platform’s suitability for your scheduling needs. Its paid plans start from $38 per month, with pricing based on the number of employees and the subscription duration. Unlike other platforms, it doesn’t offer tiered plans based on features — every plan includes the full toolkit.
Deputy is a one-stop shop for hiring, training, scheduling, paying and managing time sheets of frontline and hourly workers. It offers an intuitive interface and various features to help manage employees, streamline scheduling operations and simplify internal communications.
You can easily create, edit and manage schedules while ensuring optimal staffing levels. The platform's drag-and-drop functionality allows quick adjustments to accommodate changes in staffing or workload. Time clock features enable employees to clock in and out accurately, minimizing the risk of time theft and simplifying payroll processing.
Also, Deputy provides a comprehensive suite of HR tools, including features for managing time off. Employees can easily request and track vacation, sick leave and other absences. A built-in messaging portal facilitates internal communication and records interactions to promote accountability.
You can also post job openings on popular online channels and create a branded portal to accept applications. The system lets you design a new hire’s onboarding workflow with embedded training materials and tips. Additionally, customizable automation helps businesses comply with fair workweek regulations, break rules, maximum work hours, consecutive workdays and other labor regulations.
One of the platform’s standout features is its pre-built integrations and extensibility with other third-party solutions. The vendor lets you add extra features such as payroll processing, business intelligence, demand forecasting, point of sale system and more.
among all Employee Scheduling Software
Sling has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 234 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.
WhenToWork has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 226 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.
Deputy has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 1504 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.
honeybeeBase has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 82% when considering 219 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.
Doodle has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 4442 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.
My research into employee scheduling solutions revealed that Sling is a frontrunner, particularly for its user-friendliness. The intuitive interface simplifies schedule creation and management, even for those with limited technical expertise. The platform offers highly customizable templates and automation features, making it easy to generate regular reports.What truly impressed me was the feature set offered in the free plan. Beyond basic scheduling, it provides time tracking, communication tools like news sharing, private messaging and long-term scheduling. This exceeds what many of its competitors offer in their free plans. Also, the ability to schedule up to 50 employees at no cost is a huge advantage for growing small businesses.However, for larger enterprises with complex staffing needs, Sling might not be the perfect fit. While it excels in core scheduling functions, it lacks advanced features like a built-in AI, hiring and onboarding tools, and employee engagement trackers. It doesn't let you automate scheduling or analyze sales forecasts to optimize workforce allocation.Additionally, scheduling conflict alerts are limited to employee availability and don't consider skill sets or preferences. For businesses seeking a more comprehensive workforce management solution with AI-powered assistance, Sling may require further exploration alongside other options in the market.
WhenToWork is a user-friendly online scheduling solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Its intuitive interface and straightforward features make it a viable option for businesses looking to ditch paper trails and digitize their scheduling operations.My experience with WhenToWork began with a simple sign-up process that required minimal information. The platform guided me through a brief onboarding process, where I provided details about my business and team members. While the onboarding process was straightforward, I noticed the business category list didn’t offer many options for construction-related industries.Upon accessing the web platform, I was greeted by a somewhat outdated design that felt reminiscent of an earlier era. While the layout was clean and easy to navigate, a modern update could benefit its overall aesthetic. The main menu has sections for schedules, employees, trades, time off, messaging, reports and current on-duty employees.The mobile app, however, offers a more streamlined experience with a user-friendly interface. It provides quick access to schedules, shift trades, time off, messaging, staff information and a link to the full web version. The app's dashboard offers a clear overview of assignments, time off, shift trades and messages.The messaging features are designed for efficient team communication. You can send and receive messages, create urgent alerts, and post on a bulletin board. The “Reports” section offers customizable reporting options, allowing you to generate reports based on various criteria and export them for further analysis.Overall, WhenToWork is a suitable option for businesses with basic scheduling needs. Its user-friendly interface, straightforward features and robust reporting capabilities make it a viable choice for organizations that prioritize simplicity and ease of use. However, businesses seeking a more modern and feature-rich platform may need to explore other options.
Deputy is a valuable asset for businesses looking to streamline their scheduling operations and enhance employee productivity. During my research, I found it to be a highly effective and centralized tool for hiring, training and scheduling employees. Users consistently praise its performance, with many giving it a 4.5-star rating.One of Deputy's standout features is its AI-powered automation, which can significantly improve scheduling and shift break compliance. However, it may require some initial setup and learning to function optimally. The touchless facial recognition clock-in feature is particularly valuable in today's post-pandemic world.I appreciate Deputy's commitment to employee empowerment. Its accountability measures, such as GPS tracking and facial recognition, effectively prevent time theft without compromising employee autonomy. The Shift Pulse feature is another valuable tool that fosters open communication between employees and management.While Deputy is a powerful solution, it's not without its flaws. I encountered bugs and glitches that occasionally disrupted the user experience. Slow performance, particularly for mobile app users and non-desk staff, can be frustrating. Additionally, GPS challenges can be problematic for businesses with multiple locations as the platform doesn’t support multiple time zones.The HR functionality is also limited, but I believe it has the potential to expand over time. Adding more languages to the interface would also make it more inclusive. Overall, I recommend Deputy to small to mid-sized organizations seeking a reliable and feature-rich scheduling solution that also offers basic HR functionalities.
honeybeeBase organizes processes, streamlines scheduling and strengthens team communications. It manages tasks, tracks employee work hours, accurately calculates total hours to compute payroll while eliminating manual calculations. It provides easy access to information anytime, anywhere, and employees can log in and out of their workplaces using mobile phones. The system is affordable and is backed by helpful technical support and an extensive knowledge base. However, the system is riddled with glitches and freezes while clocking in and out, is slow to load, encounters errors while generating reports and doesn’t have an appealing design. Its homepage is cluttered with unnecessary information, and the system comes with some unresponsive functionalities.
Doodle has garnered significant praise for its user-friendly interface and intuitive design, making it a breeze to schedule meetings and appointments. Users particularly appreciate the platform's flexibility, allowing them to create polls with various options for dates, times, locations, and even custom questions to gather additional information. The ability to integrate with popular calendar applications like Google Calendar and Outlook further streamlines the scheduling process, eliminating the need for back-and-forth emails or phone calls. Additionally, Doodle's mobile app ensures that users can manage their schedules and respond to polls on the go, providing a seamless experience across devices. However, some users have noted that the free version of Doodle comes with limitations, such as advertisements and restricted editing functionality. While the paid versions offer more features and customization options, the pricing structure may not be suitable for all businesses, particularly smaller ones or those with limited budgets. Additionally, while Doodle excels at scheduling meetings and appointments, it may not be as comprehensive as some other employee scheduling software options that offer features like time tracking, payroll integration, and shift management. Overall, Doodle appears to be an excellent choice for businesses and teams of all sizes who primarily need a simple and efficient way to schedule meetings and appointments. Its ease of use, flexibility, and integration capabilities make it a valuable tool for streamlining communication and improving productivity. However, businesses with more complex scheduling needs or those seeking a free solution may want to explore alternative options that offer a broader range of features.
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