New DRoster Scheduling Software - Release 3.3.2

Free Employee Scheduling Software

It's official! The new DRoster 3.3.2 was released less than 2 weeks ago and is enjoying accelerated downloads already. Read the press release from PRLeap.com for details about all the latest DRoster enhancements that make scheduling a breeze!

If you've already downloaded the new DRoster 3.3.2 and have tried it, I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Write to me at navushe@kappix.com or to support@kappix.com with all your comments and wish lists.



Kappix Improves Employee Scheduling Flexibility with New DRoster 3.3.2


(PRLEAP.COM) Kappix’s new free employee scheduling software, DRoster 3.3.2, is designed to give scheduling managers choice, flexibility and to reduce time spent on scheduling by ninety percent.

DRoster now includes four different planners that give supervisors four different perspectives of their schedules and rosters set up. The Shifts Planner, Hourly Planner, Detailed Planner and Person Planner enable scheduling managers to create and manage different aspects of their schedules easily from the Modules navigation pane. Supervisors can select to edit schedules with the planner most convenient to them.

In addition to the new Planners, scheduling managers can choose from a rich set of options for their schedules layout. One such option is a choice of hours mode. DRoster is equally suitable for setting up military rosters that require the military hours mode or business and organization rosters that require AM/PM hours mode.

Another option is the choice of working with fixed non-overlapping shifts or overlapping shifts, or staggered shifts. The options panel also provides a one stop source for quick scheduling customisation for more features such as color-coding shifts and selecting layout colors.

To make scheduling irregular shifts or rotating shifts easier, DRoster equips managers with the Template module. Templates allow you to quickly set up a special schedule for a group of employees or a work station or a shift. There are no limits to the number of templates you can make and store. DRoster saves all scheduling templates in a quick access drop down list that managers can access from all four planners to select and apply to any stretch of time needed. Once applied, DRoster integrates fixed shifts and rotating shifts automatically into all schedules. Applying templates is easier than the copy and paste functions most programs have.

Easy access to employees’ availability times and customisable reasons for absences and time off give scheduling managers an informative edge in tracking their workforce. Critical data such as employee qualifications, credentials, abilities and availabities for a range of duties that DRoster offers means that the most suitable employees are scheduled for a duty and time slot. More importantly, for scheduling managers who get an early morning call from an employee calling in sick, this means they can instantly access a list of all available and qualified employees to deploy on demand at the click of a button.

The result is optimised schedules, improved service levels and a smoothly run business. These are a few of the new advantages in Kappix’s new release of DRoster.

Kappix is the only scheduling software company to offer a completely free download that doesn’t require filling in forms, registration, or giving out your email. The Kappix Team respects the privacy of its users and believes that free software must never burden its users. DRoster is also unlimited in time.This means that anyone can download DRoster and begin to use it whenever they please and for as long as they want.

But best of all, DRoster is not limited in any feature at all: it’s a fully featured scheduler for up to 300 duties. That means that most small businesses can use DRoster for free forever with Kappix Team’s customer courtesy email support (the team goes out of their way for their users).

DRoster is guaranteed to be clean of spyware and adware by leading download websites such as download.com and softpedia.com in addition to hundreds more. The scheduling program is currently being used by close to 200,000 users strong world wide. DRoster is available in a stand alone version or an over a network version to share with other users, both free.Kappix invites anyone tired of paper-based scheduling or their old scheduling program to download DRoster and contact Nancy Berger at navushe(@) kappix (dot) com with any questions and recommendations.


CONTACT INFORMATION
Nancy Berger Kappix Employee Scheduling Software Producer navushe@kappix.com 972 547 259 303

Employee Vacation Request Form

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Employee Vacation Request Form

Unfortunately, there is no way to post a document/form in Blogger. So, for those of you interested in the form, please send me an email with "Employee Vacation Request Form" in the subject line (otherwise it will be considered spam and auto-deleted) and I'll be sure to send you the form via email.

My email is navushe(@) kappix (dot) com

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Nancy

'Tis the Season to Vacation - Handling Employee Vacations

Schedule Employee Vacations with DRoster

In Europe August is considered vacation time. Often the entire company shuts down for the month of August to allow their employees a good chill out in popular resorts. In France this is known as "La Grande Vacance" or the big vacation, practically considered a birthright. (see link below to an interesting article called: Time Off: The Europeans Do It Right by Liz Murry in Business Week). But for Americans and Canadians, vacation time is not a given. Employees need to request time off and employers and supervisors need to deal with the influx of requests.

Consequently, the process of handling vacations is August can be a royal headache for employers and supervisors. While big companies often regulate vacations with proper forms, guidelines, and policies, small businesses often don't have the vacation and time off policies needed to ensure proper staffing. These small businesses often rely on working out vacations on the fly which can create quite a conundrum. One of the last things a small business owner thinks of when starting a new business is how to schedule vacations and time off.

I've prepared a form for handling employees' vaction requests. It's a no nonsense form that anyone can easily use to manage requests for vacations and time off. It can be used on its own if a company wants to begin with a paper-based system or in conjunction with Kappix's Droster scheduler, as an aid in creating computerized schedules.

Please feel free to contact me at navushe@kappix.com and I'll send you the vacation request form.

Enjoy and Happy Vacation!





Time Off: The Europeans Do It Right

http://http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/jun2007/ca20070630_940712.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

New Company Logo

Free Employee Scheduling Software

I'm proud to present Kappix's new company logo!





Your feedback and ideas are most welcome. Please send your feedback to navushe@kappix.com

Seven Best Practises for Employee Scheduling

Free Employee Scheduling Software

Managers in the retail and service business often spend countless hours working out timetables and employee rosters, trying to get their shifts and schedules just right. Getting it "just right" is critical to maintaining proper service levels, satisfied customers, and quality employee retention. If you're one of those managers you'll be interested in the following best practices for scheduling employees.

1. Consider peak hours and high season; dead hours and low season when allocating the number of employees per shift. You want to ensure your customers are getting proper attention. Understaffing creates havoc for customers and employees. Not only can you lose customers but also employees. Overstaffing, on the other hand, is costly.

2. Plan for vacations, time-off, holidays in advance. Why wait till the last minute? Ask your employees to fill out a time-off request form at least one month in advance. Your employees will appreciate working for a business that cares about their leisure time.

3. Take your employees' preferences into account when scheduling. Some actually prefer night shifts or weekend shifts while others might not particularly like them but want them for their higher wages. Distribute highly sought after shifts evenly among employees as much as possible. Again, you need to know employees' preferred days and hours. Make sure you also ask them which days or hours they have problems with in order to avoid "violating" their preferences.

4. Employees' skill set, seniority,and experience play an important role in ensuring that each department/shift/station is allocated an optimized team. A skill set could be any ability required for the job such as knowledge of a foreign language (important for contact centers), certification or ability to operate certain machinery.In a team/crew scheduled for a particular shift, you really must have at least one experienced member who can guide the others or mentor the newer members.

You should put together a chart will such valuable info for scheduling purposes. Group your employees according to qualifications so that in case of a team member's absence, you know exactly who can fill in.

5. Always send your employees a copy of their schedules at least one month in advance for their approval. Ask them to check that schedules do not conflict, fill their weekly hours/quotas, and are in keeping with their preferences. Also request a confirmation from your employees. You can do all this via email using a template you can update monthly. If you have an automated scheduling program, you can send a report to all your employees instantly.

6. Schedule days-off for training in advance. If your company offers training courses and seminars, you must factor those into your scheduling. Make sure that you know who is registered for training throughout the year to make allowances for their absence.

7. Create a stand-by list of employees. There's no need to scramble looking for replacement; prepare a list of employees willing to replace absent employees who call in sick at the last minute. This is a common occurrence so there's no reason not to be equipped with a list.


Following those seven best practices can make employee scheduling more effective. True, there are many factors to consider if you want effective scheduling but the rewards outweigh the effort. If you schedule the old-fashioned way on paper or on a simple spreadsheet, it's time to move on and get a good scheduling software program.

A good scheduler will not only save you time but it will optimize your staff to guarantee good service levels, satisfied customers, happy employees with a higher retention rate and an all-round positive work environment. Most of all, you can implement best practices for staff scheduling quickly and in a headache-free way.