HotSchedules vs Sling

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Our analysts compared HotSchedules vs Sling 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.

HotSchedules Software Tool

Product Basics

HotSchedules is a cloud-based shift scheduling tool within the Fourth HR ecosystem. It assists with a variety of core employee scheduling tasks, including assigning shifts, tracking time and managing labor.

It helps optimize time and labor costs by analyzing sales patterns, forecasting demand and optimizing workforce allocation through seasons. The built-in messaging portal improves communication and keeps the team on the same page.

Businesses can create custom dashboards to track business-specific KPIs, employee performances and attendance. Employees get unique portals to view assigned tasks, swap shifts and communicate with team members.

A built-in wage and labor compliance module helps maintain compliance with state and federal labor laws. The mobile app provides push notifications for scheduling conflicts and compliance issues to stay agile and compliant from anywhere.

Pros
  • Convenience and accessibility
  • Scheduling functionality
  • Efficient automation
  • Diverse integrations
Cons
  • Learning curve
  • Inconsistent support services
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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.

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$40/Location, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$1.70/User, Monthly, Freemium
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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Product Insights

  • Save Time: Build schedules and assign shifts more effectively and save time spent on these activities.
  • Improve Communication: Communicate with team members, update schedule changes, swap shifts and more directly through the platform to keep up with all critical and urgent scheduling revisions.
  • Reduce Labor Costs: Generate store reports on labor costs and sales and assess overall labor practices to help inform future budgets.
  • Encourage Employee Engagement: Managers can provide employees direct access to the schedule through the mobile app, allowing them to access and request changes to the schedule, which boosts engagement.
  • Ensure Compliance: Configure labor rules to document shift transactions, control labor costs, and comply with industry, state and federal legislation.
  • Accurate Forecasting: Ensure accurate forecasts using tools that help cut operational costs, boost revenue from sales and increase customer satisfaction and experiences.
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  • Adopt a Data-Driven Approach: In our analysis, Sling scored an impressive 95 for its reporting and dashboard tools. You can generate reports and visualizations on time and attendance, scheduling history, employee performance and more. The platform supports automated weekly or monthly reporting based on your rules and offers filtering options to find and audit reports.
  • Simplify Task Management: According to our research, Sling is one of the top-ranked products for managing shifts and tasks. It supports 87% of key task management requirements out of the box, including custom task creation, rotating and recurring shifts, open shift bidding, auto-assigning vacancies, shift feedback, task notes and shift swapping.
  • Manage Schedules From Anywhere: Sling offers one of the highest-rated mobile apps, with 4.7 and 4.6 ratings on the Play Store and Apple Store, respectively. It supports employee punch-ins, push notifications, time tracking, geofencing/GPS tracking, calendar integrations and team messaging options.
  • Manage Employees Efficiently: Based on our data, Sling’s employee management tools are its second highest-rated module, with a rating of 87. This is on par with scheduling stalwarts like Deputy. It offers budgeting, employee self-service options, labor forecasting, shift bidding, multiple pay rates and more. The only limitation is that it cannot send update reminders and alerts for expiring employee documents.
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  • Scheduling: Build schedules with customizable templates and intuitive drag-and-drop tools. Approve or deny shift change requests, define rules to limit overtime and manage employee availability from a dashboard.
  • Time and Attendance: Track clock-in and clock-out times, collect information on tip and break entries, and allow employees to access their timecards and payroll histories. Managers can set up alerts to notify employees when they miss a time punch. Set geo-fencing rules using the mobile WebClock to track employee locations.
  • Labor Forecasting: Access the following forecasting features:
    • Schedule Optimization: Standardize scheduling rules and automate recurring tasks using predictive scheduling across multiple branches and locations.
    • Scheduling Visibility: Manage labor analytics to measure critical KPIs like overall performance, cost per labor, sales patterns and labor cost to keep restaurants competitive.
    • Store-Level Forecasting: Analyze historical data to identify weekly sales patterns and help managers allocate workforces efficiently. Send alerts for overtime and other potential compliance issues.
  • Labor Management: Calculate minimum staffing requirements, plan shift breaks, and generate suggested headcounts to ensure that any given shift always has the proper number of staff members.
  • Scheduling and Wage Compliance: Adhere to local and federal regulations with:
    • Predictive Scheduling: Stay up to date with local laws and evolve as regulations shift. Prepare and adapt to compliance changes before they go into effect.
    • Break and Meal Management: Set up rules to automatically schedule meal and break times for staff members. Receive notifications of missed break times and automatically calculate break pay impacts.
    • Overtime Management: Track employees going into overtime and allow managers to swap overworked staff with other employees.
    • Certifications: Receive certificate expiry alerts and define automation to request updated documents from employees, managers and other team members.
  • POS Integration: Employees can track time and clock in and out of work from a POS system. Pull sales and operational data from POS to forecast weekly and seasonal sales patterns and workforce requirements.
  • Health Surveys: Generate digital health surveys to gain extra visibility into the business. Use CDC-tailored surveys and health screening tools to ensure employees are safe to come to work.
  • Manager Logbook: Manage physical and digital logbooks that help track tasks, maintenance objectives and food safety information, such as temperature.
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  • Shift Scheduling: Build schedules within minutes while managing time-offs, shift swaps and employee availability. Schedule across geographical locations and time zones while saving templates for future use. Get notifications for double-booking or overlapping shifts, reduce absenteeism and late arrivals, and avoid scheduling overtime. Let employees pick shifts they like while granting approvals.
  • Task Management: Keep employees accountable by adding tasks to shifts. Clarify everyone’s job during shifts while ensuring employees stick to set timelines while finishing assigned tasks. Improve productivity and efficiency by allowing employees to access task lists via mobiles.
  • Time Clock: Track employee clock-ins and outs from a designated terminal, on-site time clock or both. Set early clock-in limits while automatically clocking out employees in case of forgotten log-outs. Review, edit, approve and export timesheets to process payroll seamlessly.
  • Location Management: Create location-specific news feed pages to share important information and messages. Monitor progress while creating to-do lists per location. Authorize multiple display directions and workspaces for every location.
  • Mobile App: Manage schedules on the go while letting employees clock in and out using any Android or iOS device. Use geofencing tools to ensure employees log in and out from designated locations while tracking attendance from anywhere. Send automated alerts or message latecomers in the app.
  • Labor Cost Management: Receive budget insights and suggestions while scheduling to ensure cost-effectiveness. The platform calculates labor costs based on employee wages, allowing real-time margin monitoring per shift. Sling also sends alerts if projected labor costs exceed your budget for a particular shift, prompting you to adjust staffing assignments before finalizing the schedule.
  • Compliance Management: Store licenses, contracts, certifications, and other files within employee profiles with unlimited storage. To ensure timely renewals, Sling alerts you when critical documents are nearing expiry. Set granular permission levels for document access to safeguard staff details. Managers can define and assign custom break durations per labor regulations, automate break scheduling, and send break reminders to employees.
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Product Ranking

#7

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

#30

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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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 91 87 78 98 75 95 86 56 86 83 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1149 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 234 reviews
86%
of users recommend this product

HotSchedules has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 1149 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

91%
of users recommend this product

Sling has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 234 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

4.5 (14)
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4.2 (94)
4.4 (82)
4.37 (426)
4.6 (152)
4.4 (388)
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4.0 (227)
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Awards

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

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Convenience and Accessibility: Users appreciate the system’s remote accessibility, which saves time and enhances productivity for both employees and managers.
Scheduling Functionality: The platform offers a comprehensive package of scheduling tools, including shift swapping, time off, blackout dates and availability management.
Efficient Automation: Automation such as auto-scheduling, sick pay and holiday calculations simplifies administrative tasks for managers.
Diverse Integrations: Users report that integration with other modules like payroll systems, POS solutions and HR software enhances productivity and workforce management.
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User-Friendly and Intuitive: Many users appreciate Sling's easy-to-use interface, which makes scheduling and other tasks straightforward and accessible without extensive training.
Comprehensive Features in the Free Version: Users find the free version of Sling highly functional and often better than some paid alternatives.
Optimized Shift Management: The ability to create repeating shifts and use shift templates saves time and effort in planning.
Improved Efficiency and Organization: Sling helps organize schedules and increase efficiency by reducing scheduling errors.
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Learning curve & complexity: The interface can be challenging for beginners, requiring significant time and effort to learn and navigate effectively.
Inconsistent customer support: Users report long wait times or difficulty resolving complex issues, leading to potential frustration and delays.
Pricing concerns: Additional fees beyond the monthly subscription can add up, making it more expensive than competitors.
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Notification Overload: There can be too many notifications, especially for chats that users are not actively involved in. Sling doesn’t offer the privacy tools required to customize notifications for managers and employees.
Occasional Glitches and Loading Issues: Some users experience occasional bugs, app crashes or slow loading times after a system update.
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Let's dish on the good, the bad, and the ugly of HotSchedules based on what folks have been saying lately. HotSchedules seems to be a bit of a mixed bag. Users dig that it's pretty straightforward to use and can be a real time-saver, especially when it comes to wrangling schedules and keeping everyone in the loop. It's like having a personal assistant who's always on top of things. But, there's a catch – it can be a bit pricey, and some users feel like it's missing some bells and whistles that other scheduling software has. Think of it as a reliable car that gets you from point A to point B, but maybe doesn't have all the fancy features like a sunroof or heated seats. So, who's HotSchedules a good fit for? Well, if you're running a business in the hospitality industry, like a restaurant or hotel, and you need a solid scheduling tool that won't leave you scratching your head, HotSchedules could be your jam. It's especially handy if you've got a bunch of hourly employees and multiple locations to juggle. However, if you're on a tight budget or need a software with all the latest gadgets, you might want to shop around a bit. There are other options out there like Homebase or When I Work that might be more your style.

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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.

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Top Alternatives in Employee Scheduling Software


7shifts

Deputy

Findmyshift

Homebase

Humanity

OpenSimSim

Planday

Quinyx

ScheduleFlex

Shiftbase

Shiftboard

Sling

TimeForge

When I Work

WhenToWork

ZoomShift

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