What is the Best Scheduling Software for a Small/Large Field Team? Spilling the Tea!

Escape the hassle of researching 100s of field scheduling software solutions. Identify the most ideal solution for your field operations with this one-stop guide.

As a field service manager, it’s your responsibility to plan, create, and manage shifts for your employees. However, this can be difficult without the best field scheduling software. These software solutions come with advanced tools that help managers make intelligent staffing decisions.

But, the internet is already brimmed with employee scheduling software solutions. So, how would the manager find the appropriate software?

Don’t worry! Our experts have sorted out the wheat from the chaff for you. They have listed the top features, that should be included in scheduling software for small businesses and big enterprises. So, continue reading and getting essential details before choosing the best employee scheduling software.

Looking for the best Field Service Scheduling Software?
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What is Field Employee Scheduling Software?

Field employee scheduling software is a one-stop platform that creates, manages, and organizes the shift and task schedules of field employees. The software provides daily or weekly shift templates with time and day slots. Managers can fill those slots with appropriate employees’ names to let them learn about their upcoming shifts and responsible tasks. This helps handle frequent scheduling conflicts like overlapping events and double-booking.

With the use of the software, companies can:

• Distribute tasks fairly
• Adjust shifts on the fly
• Notify employees of any unexpected changes

Benefits an Ideal Employee Shift Scheduling Software Should Offer

By choosing the best employee shift scheduling software, businesses can have these incredible benefits:

1. Promotes Efficient Scheduling and Dispatching

Just suppose a company relies on spreadsheets to schedule technicians’ jobs. Do you think such software can help companies get real-time technicians’ locations, which is important for scheduling employees’ tasks? Well, that’s where the field schedule software helps. With the software, you don’t just input schedules but also get an overview of your workforce stationed out of different office locations along with their areas of expertise and leave schedules. By having this data, you get to dispatch the right technician to the service location in a matter of minutes.

2. Facilitates Equal Distribution of Work

Most field employee scheduling software solutions come with resource utilization and capacity load metrics. These two crucial features alert the manager if an employee has been overscheduled. Thus, all employees get equal opportunities for their shifts and overtime. This enhances employee satisfaction and boosts the overall organization’s productivity.

3. Reduces Scheduling Conflicts

From their desks, managers can simply view and manage the schedule of their entire deskless workforce. Meanwhile, employees can also access their schedules, and shift changes on their mobile apps. This facilitates increased visibility within the organization, leading to reduced confusion and conflicts related to scheduling.

4. Cuts Down on Redundant Tasks

No need to create schedules from scratch when you want your employees to work in the same order. You can simply copy and paste them on the best employee scheduling software from past days, weeks, and months. This helps cut down on redundant tasks of filling the same schedules.

5. Carves Out Time to Groom Your Staff

The time tracking feature within the field employee scheduling software helps managers assess downtime. They utilize the downtime better to train their employees. Consequently, this enhances the team’s skill sets and leads to happy employees all over the organization.

Top Features of Best Scheduling Software That Takes Away Scheduling Conflicts

Whether you manage a small field or the largest one, here are some essential features you must find in a field employee scheduling software to simplify scheduling.

1. Calendar View

With the calendar view feature in the software, managers can get adequate visibility into their employees’ schedules, meetings, and appointments. This way they learn which employee is allocated with which tasks, eliminating confusion and uncertainty in between the operations.

2. Shift Templates

The field scheduling software should eradicate the need to create and populate schedules manually. It must provide a pre-configured template, using which, managers can fill the day/night slots with specific times for each employee. This leads to streamlined and consistent scheduling.

3. Shift Swapping

Shift swapping feature incorporates the voluntary exchange of shifts between two employees. For instance, managers can swap an employee’s scheduled shift date/time with another employee’s current shift date/time. Thus they decrease no-shows when unexpected events occur.

4. Job Reminders & Notifications

Employees get immediate notifications whenever their schedules are updated or rectified. This helps field teams’ reduce their time spent while traveling to the office or on phone calls to get proper details on the next appointments.

5. Up-to-the-minute Task Tracking

Without real-time employee tracking, your field scheduling software may leave a dent in workforce productivity. That’s why real-time tracking is another consideration you should make while opting for the best scheduling software. With this feature, you can assess your employees’ whereabouts, task status, clock-in/out, and more such requirements. This helps you allocate your staff better to the nearby client’s location.

6. Time Tracking

Time tracking feature in the software helps record how long an employee was actively working on the assigned field jobs. When you have this info in front, you can better identify the unproductive employees and alter their schedules or make decisions accordingly.

7. Real-time Data Sync

Today, most field service scheduling software solutions come with cloud-based that effortlessly syncs all colossal employee scheduling data from CRM or ERP tools. Using the cloud server means seamlessly accessing employees’ working status and other information from any location or device. That ultimately helps reduce administrative manual work to find the misplaced documents. Also, lets employees submit reports online and access the updated information in real time.

8. Analytics and Reporting

Leveraging analytics for staff scheduling can positively impact your business’s bottom line. For instance, you can identify the peak period of customer traffic to adjust staff schedules accordingly. You can also analyze customer satisfaction scores to decide whether the staff requires training or not.

🍒Cherry on the Top! You can reap all these incredible benefits with TrackoField. All you need to do is just sign up for a free trial.

Tips to Pick Field Employee Scheduling Software – Just Answer these 4 Questions!

Now that you have developed a good understanding of the field employee scheduling software, it’s time to learn how you should choose the one. So, answer these four questions and then jump on to the best employee scheduling software.

1. What outcomes do you want to achieve?

Outcomes could be anything like optimal schedule planning, efficient shift coverage, improved productive hours, lower scheduling conflicts, etc. You must evaluate the outcomes that you want to achieve before making an investment in any employee shift scheduling software.

2. What problems will you resolve with the software?

Think about the problems your company is facing and how you will resolve them with the scheduling software. This will provide you with clarity on the features and functionalities your software needs. For instance, you must look for field scheduling software with geo-coded attendance marking capability so that you can assess your employees’ actual punch in/out, working hours, locations, etc.

3. How many users will use the software?

This question has to be there because many vendors divide the software into different price ranges and versions, following the number of users. So, calculate all users wisely, i.e., your HR professionals, finance team, multiple line managers, and field employees. Once done, acknowledge the key priorities of your employees, managers, and users to ensure they are all aligned with the software. 

4. What other tools and modules do you require with the scheduling software?

At this moment, just think about all the other tools and modules that you need with the scheduling software. They can be attendance marking, task management, leave tracking systems, etc. As it is not a wise decision to simultaneously invest in these different modules, opt for the solution that consolidates these like TrackoField.

TrackoField – Streamlining Scheduling Processes of Diffused Workforce Across Field Tasks

Here comes the best field scheduling software you have waited till now. Yes, TrackoField has passed all the tests of being a great companion for field service companies to achieve streamlined and efficient scheduling processes.

The software allows employees to submit their availability and days-off requests directly in the app. Managers after evaluating the total workforce can determine which employee is available. Accordingly, they plan and create employees’ schedules. Once schedules are published, employees get notifications on their mobile apps. They access the details of work with the time slot and location. Therein, they head to work, and upon reaching, seamlessly clock in for the day.

What else?

Managers, by accessing the calendar view, can learn which team member is working on which task and for how long. Based on that, they can track project deadlines and adjust shifts for the future. They can also access the software’s cloud facility and sync the data across all devices with end-to-end encryption. Moreover, they get real-time employee tracking to stay informed about their employees’ locations. This helps them find replacements quickly when an employee is unable to attend their shifts.

That’s not it!

Other than the features provided above, TrackoField offers various other capabilities that can improve your entire field operations such as:

• Location-based visual verification
• Ad-hoc task allocation
• Remote expense tracking
• Seamless sales order placement
• Efficient payroll management
• Flexible leave module

Conclusion!

Field scheduling software is not just a tool for organizing employees’ working hours; it’s a necessity in this time and age to embrace a transparent and fair workplace.

We hope that the features and capabilities of the field service scheduling software described in the guide will help you find your solution. However, if you want to know more about how the software enhances your scheduling process and fosters workplace flexibility, investing in advanced scheduling software is a step in the right direction.

So, are you ready to take that direction?

If yes, sign up to use TrackoField for free and experience the positive difference your operations come across with systemized schedules.

Frequently Asked Questions on Field Scheduling Software

• What is Field Scheduling Software?

  Field scheduling software enables managers to create and manage shifts for their field employees to avoid delays caused by creating schedules manually over spreadsheets. The software offers tools and features as shift scheduling templates, and calendar task modules to ensure smooth and streamlined shift scheduling, leading to improved workforce productivity.

• What should be the features considered for employee shift scheduling software?

  Here is a list of all the dynamic features you must have in your employee shift scheduling software:
  - Shift template
  - Shift swapping
  - Calendar view
  - Real-time task tracking
  - Job reminders & notifications
  - Time tracking
  - Analytics and reporting

• What is the best scheduling software for field service business?

  TrackoField is the best scheduling software, bringing the most streamlined and convenient ways for managers to schedule shifts for their employees. Moreover, the software incorporates every other feature like shift template, shift swapping, real-time employee tracking, etc., that makes the scheduling process as easy as ABC.

• What are the Benefits of Using Field Employee Scheduling Software?

  Field scheduling software for small businesses ensures:
  - Efficient scheduling and dispatching
  - Reduced scheduling conflicts
  - Mitigated redundant tasks
  - Fair distribution of work

• How to choose the best field employee scheduling software?

  While choosing the best field employee scheduling software, you must ensure to assess:
  - What challenges do you want to overcome?
  - How many users will use the software?
  - What other tools and modules are found within the software?
  - What results do you want to get with the software?