Crew scheduling software allows you to create ideal and equally distributed schedules for your teams with just the click of a button – no more back-and-forths to understand your employees’ availability, misunderstandings, or shift conflicts. Check out these top 9 crew scheduling apps to find the right fit for you.
Making an efficient and equally distributed work schedule, while juggling employee absences and PTO requests, covering employees on sick days, and going back and forth with your employees to understand their availability, all while avoiding mistakes, conflicts, and overlaps in your schedule, is overwhelming, to say the least. Especially if you’re still doing this process manually with pen and paper.
Crew scheduling apps take the headache out of employee scheduling and give you all the tools and information you need to create the optimal schedule for your team with just the click of a button.
To help you find one that best suits your business’ needs and budget, we’ve done our research and put together a list of the top 9 crew scheduling apps available in 2023.
If you don’t have the time to read through our research, jump down to our quick comparison table.
Our Top Picks
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Best all-in-one crew scheduling software solution.
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Best for scheduling compliance management.
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Best for group scheduling.
What to Look For in a Crew Scheduling App
When looking for a good crew scheduling app, keep an eye out for the following aspects and features:
- Ease of use: It’s easy to set up and offers an intuitive user experience.
- Customizability: It’s customizable to suit your team structures.
- Simple schedule creation: You can easily create crew schedules according to your employees’ availability, and repeat existing shifts and schedules.
- Availability: Your employees can insert their availability and time-off requests, and request shift trades and covers.
- Manage qualifications: You can enter your crew members’ qualifications and only schedule them for jobs that they are qualified for.
- Notifications: It has multiple automatic notification options, such as notifying your team when a new schedule is published or when it’s time for them to enter their availability.
- Error highlights: It highlights mistakes in the schedule, such as shift overlaps.
- Integration options: It integrates with your other related software, such as time clock or payroll software, or includes these capabilities.
- Price: It is cost-friendly and suits your budget.
Support: It comes with good customer support to help you with any issues.
The 9 Best Crew Scheduling Apps of 2023
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Best for: All-in-one crew scheduling software solution.
Connecteam is the best all-in-one solution for employee scheduling and management. With Connecteam managers can create employee schedules in a click with recurring shifts, customizable templates, drag & drop capabilities, and open shift claiming. Know that every shift is covered with automated notifications and reminders.
Employees can set their availability making it easy for managers to know who is available to cover a shift. With Connecteam’s employee scheduling app you can attach shift notes so employees know exactly what needs to be done when arriving at a job.
Additionally, an in-app chat and an employee directory helps resolve any miscommunication or confusion between employees and management and reduces back and forth calling or texting. Everything is located directly on the employee’s mobile device and management has complete scheduling and employee management oversight.
For whom?
Connecteam is the best all-in-one employee scheduling solution for frontline workers, deskess employees, and remote staff. Great for any industry and any size business.
Key Features
- Real-time scheduling oversight
- Automated notifications and reminders
- Customizable templates
- Recurring shifts and drag & drop
- In-app directory and chat
- Scheduling conflict notifications
- Open shift claiming
- Desktop, mobile, and kiosk access
- Shift notes with images, videos, GIFS, links, files
- Overtime and limitation notifications
Pros
- All-in-one employee scheduling and management app
- Helpful and responsive customer support
- Easy to use and set up
- Integrates with Quickbooks and Gusto payroll system
Cons
- No automated scheduling (at the moment)
Pricing
Starts at just $29/month for up to 30 users
Free 14-day trial
Free plan available -
Best for: Scheduling compliance management.
Humanity offers automated and predictive scheduling to help management streamline scheduling and save time. In addition, they help in controlling labor costs with overtime alerts, limitation notifications, and insightful data to help you make the best and most cost effective employee schedule possible. Humanity provides integrations with several payroll and employee management systems such as Oracle, Workday, Paycor, and QuickBooks.
For whom?
Ideal for SMBs and enterprises.
Key Features
- Alerts and notifications
- Automated scheduling
- Drag & drop
- Messaging
- Shift swapping
- Desktop, mobile, and kiosk access
Pros
- Easy to use
- Break and shift swapping has some bugs
Cons
- Expensive for large teams
Pricing
Costs $3.50/user per month ($100 monthly minimum)
Free trial: Yes
Free plan: No -
Best for: Group scheduling.
- web
- ios
- android
- windows
- mac
With Sling you can easily create employee schedules, manage PTO and absence requests, see employee availability, and manage shift swapping requests. Automated notifications alert management to scheduling conflicts or overtime and limitation issues. Sling integrates with ADP, Gusto, Shopify, and many more solutions.
For whom?
Sling is a good fit for all industries and business sizes.
Key Features
- Alerts and notifications
- Employee database
- Messaging
- Shift swapping
- Absence, vacation, sick leave management and tracking
Pros
- Easy scheduling feature
- Easy schedule distribution
Cons
- Messaging cannot be monitored
Pricing
Premium plans start at $2/user per month.
Free trial: Yes
Free-for-life plan: Yes -
Best for: Grantt chart visualization.
- web
- mac
- windows
- ios
- android
With the Wrike crew scheduling app, you can easily see when employees are scheduled to work. Let employees set their availability and request PTO and vacation days directly through the app. Create fully customizable working schedules for your whole team. Wrike works with several integrations such as salesforce, MediaValet, Gmail, and many more.
For whom?
Best for medium sized to enterprise businesses.
Key Features
- Automated scheduling
- Calendar management and syncing
- Real-time chat
- Templates
- Employee directory
Cons
- Poor customer service
- Extremely expensive
Pricing
Costs $9.80/user per month (200 users max)
Free trial: Yes
Free plan: Yes -
Best for: Controlling labor costs.
Save time creating crew schedules with Fourth. With Fourth, you can easily control labor costs, open available shifts, open emergency shifts if an employee calls in sick, or even split shifts if available. All scheduling features can be directly accessed by employees right on their mobile devices.
For whom?
Ideal solution for the hospitality industry.
Key Features
- Alerts and notifications
- Time and attendance
- Mobile access
- Trend and problem indicators
Pricing
Speak to a representative for more information.
Free trial: No
Free plan: No -
Best for: Drag-and-drop scheduling.
With findmyshift management can easily create crew schedules in minutes. Findmyshift is meant to feel and look exactly like an excel spreadsheet. With easy to use features such as drag and drop and swapping shifts, making sure every shift is covered is a breeze. Employees can easily access their schedule directly from their mobile device. In addition, request an absence, PTO or swap shifts right in the palm of their hand as well. They also integrate with Xero, Slack, monday, and many more.
For whom?
Ideal crew scheduling app for shift workers or hourly employees.
Key Features
- Alerts and notifications
- Appointment scheduling
- Automated scheduling
- Messaging
- Mobile access
- Time, attendance, and sick leave tracking
Pros
- Easy to use and setup
- Customizable views
Cons
- Only mobile access
- Users report that reporting feature is weak
Pricing
Costs $25/month for up to 20 users.
Free trial: Yes
Free plan: Yes -
Best for: Scheduling constraints management.
With ABC Roster you can easily manage every aspect of crew scheduling. Track employee availability, days off, absence requests, and PTO. Schedules can be easily exported to a PDF, Excel spreadsheet, or HTML document. Simply email and distribute employee schedules through the app.
For whom?
Specially designed for small organizations.
Key Features
- Automated scheduling
- Absence, sick leave, and PTO tracking
- Exportable schedules
- Mobile access
Cons
- Easy to use
- User interface looks dated
Pricing
ABC Roster is a free software solution.
Free trial: No
Free-for-life plan: Yes -
Best for: Restaurant industry.
With 7SHIFTS you can easily create employee schedules with drag and drop and templates. Easily view employee availability, manage time off and overtime. Easily stay in compliance with overtime and labor laws. Employees always have access to their schedule on-the-go right on their mobile device and employees can manage their schedules directly from the app.
For whom?
7SHIFTS is specially designed for restaurants.
Key Features
- Alerts and notifications
- Automated scheduling
- Employee database
- Messaging
- Group scheduling
- Mobile access
Pros
- Easy to use
- Great customer service
Cons
- Users report slow loading times
Pricing
Costs $29.99/month for up to 30 employees.
Free trial: Yes
Free plan: Yes -
Best for: Field service with a pay-per-event model.
With Fieldcode you can automate employee dispatching and scheduling with just a few clicks. They offer route optimization as well, so you can cut down on unnecessary costs. With fieldcode you have real-time oversight of all your employee schedules and dispatched employees. In addition, they are making positive changes to global climate regulations for carbon emissions which is why their route optimization is a key feature.
For whom?
Fieldcode is an ideal fit for the field service industry.
Key Features
- Drag & drop
- Routing
- Automated dispatching
- Real-time oversight
Cons
- Easy to use
- Can be expensive for large field service companies
Pricing
Pricing starts at $1 for each field service event.
Free trial: Yes
Free-for-life plan: Yes, for up to 10 users.
Compare the Best Crew Scheduling Apps
What Is Crew Scheduling Software?
Crew scheduling software is a digital tool designed to simplify and partially automate the process of creating and managing crew schedules and sharing these with team members.
It gives managers all the tools they need to easily create the most optimal schedule for their teams. It takes every factor relevant to the crew scheduling process into consideration, such as each crew member’s submitted availability and qualifications, and helps reduce mistakes, such as double-booking an employee.
How Does Crew Scheduling Software Work?
With crew scheduling apps you can partially automate your crew scheduling process depending on the features that the crew scheduling software offers and your selected preferences. This can for instance include setting a maximum of weekly work hours, enabling notifications for mistakes in your schedule, and using templates for repeated schedules.
You can create crew schedules based on your employees’ submitted availability and qualifications, and publish and share these with your team members. It also allows you to handle sudden changes, such as finding replacements and updating all relevant crew members.
The software can also include additional features related to scheduling that help streamline your processes, such as a time clock or payroll, or offer integration options.
What Are The Benefits of a Crew Scheduling App?
The main benefits of using crew scheduling software include:
- Time-saving: With a crew scheduling app you can reduce the time it takes to create crew schedules by 80% and reduce labor costs by 3% by simplifying the entire scheduling process.
- Efficiency: It can make recommendations for employee placement based on inserted data, such as your total number of team members, of assigned shifts, and of crew members required for a certain job. Such recommendations can often also be linked to each employee’s qualifications.
- Schedules on-the-go: It keeps every employee up-to-date on their schedules and schedule changes because everything is available to them directly on their mobile device. Employees can set their availability, request PTO, and absences right in the palm of their hand.
- Overtime & labor compliance: You can easily control and manage employee hours. With overtime alerts, you can easily see if an employee has been scheduled for too many hours for easy overtime and labor law compliance.
- Tracking capabilities: It allows you to keep track of the number of hours each employee works or spends on specific jobs and tasks and convert this data into reports.
How Much Does Crew Scheduling Software Cost?
The pricing of crew scheduling software largely differs per provider and often depends on the number of users and the feature package. Subscription pricing of most crew scheduling apps ranges from $1 to $4 per user per month, while others have a set fee per location for an unlimited number of users ranging from $14 to $35 per month. Particularly those that charge per user can get rather expensive if you’re working with a large team.
Keep in mind that high pricing does not necessarily equal a better user experience or that you will get all the features that you need. Our number one pick, Connecteam, offers basic plans at a set price of $29 per month for the first 30 employees.
FAQs
Why is crew scheduling important?
Without having a working schedule it’s impossible to know all shifts are covered, so you can see how creating a working schedule that accommodates all employees is paramount to a businesses success. By using a crew scheduling app you can create a stable and easily accessible schedule for all employees. This increases employee happiness and creates a better work-life balance.
Should I choose a crew scheduling app that is also an all-in-one employee management software?
This really depends on the needs of your business. If you’re also looking for features that can help with accurate time tracking, task management, training and onboarding; then yes, definitely. With the Connecteam all-in-one employee management app, you can create schedules in minutes, accurately track employee hours with a digital time clock with GPS and Geofencing capabilities, track employee task progress, easily onboard and train new employees, and so much more.
What industries use crew scheduling apps?
There are many industries that take advantage of crew scheduling apps. The most popular include the field service industry, healthcare industry, food and beverage, retail, construction, security, and so many more. They are a great solution for any company that has employees who are on-the-go or rarely behind a desk.
The Bottom Line on Crew Scheduling Apps
With the crew scheduling apps mentioned above, you should be able to make work schedules in much less time and back-and-forth with your employees.
Also, these types of software will help eliminate scheduling conflicts and overlapping in the future, giving you more time to focus on other areas of your business.
We recommend trying out the free trials these solutions have to offer. That way, you can figure out which crew scheduling app has the most relevant set of features that match your business’s scheduling needs.
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