When I Work Reviews

Pros

The When I Work software is great at keeping track of my work schedule. On the Dashboard, it notifies me of my next upcoming shift, the date, and the time. It tells at which location I am working and what my position will be. It also tells what coworkers that I am working with during that shift. I can go into the schedule tab of the software and see what days during the week I am working. The software will also tally up my total hours that I will work per week. This is helpful because it allows me to see who is working and who is not so I can get a shift covered. The software also allows me to put in requests in advance of dates that I want to request off.

Cons

The availability scheduling feature takes some time to learn how to navigate. It is somewhat difficult to fully schedule availability. If you make a mistake and accidentally alter the availability for one day you have to go back to that day and fix it before adjusting your availability.

Pros

The platform was easy to use in general and the employee app was handy.

Cons

Wasn't the best solution for a restaurant. Wanted to be able to schedule without defined end times so that staff didn't get the idea they could leave exactly at that time. Some other platforms allow for this (such as scheduling to "business decline" or "close"). But it works well for businesses with fixed schedules.Dealt with some lagging on the backend when scheduling via a pc.

Alternatives Considered

7shifts

Reasons for Choosing When I Work

Wanted an employee app.

Reasons for Switching to When I Work

We ultimately switched away from WIW to 7Shifts.

Pros

Interface is simple and provides an organized structure that is responsive. Inviting and adding employees is automated.

Cons

Your employees cannot "turn in" or "submit" their timesheets! There is no way to know or have them verify that what they have entered is ready for review. A mgr has to chase down each employee to verify they have finished, or have a side system of notices, or double tracking.
Employees cannot enter PTO after the fact, they can only REQUEST PTO for future dates. If a company is using the timesheet function to have employees enter their time, breaks, PTO, etc, there are many limitations that require managers to do additional work. For instance, if an employee has an unexpected family emergency for two days, they cannot request PTO after those days are past. So how does PTO get entered for those days? Somehow the employee has to communicate with the mgr to enter it for them!
Very simple but integral functions that are important to a timesheet app that are missing!!
When giving feedback to WIW about these missing features, we were told that it was fine for us to move to another app since WIW wasn't a good fit. In other words, they are not open to feedback for improvement.....like it or leave.... We are leaving and taking the two clients we already setup on WIW trials to another platform, along with the 5 other clients that were waiting for the results of our trial run. All of which would have been paid subscriptions for WIW!

Pros

When I Work is so easy to use, it is simple to add employees, great for creating shift templates and the chat features and shift drop applications make changing the schedule simple for employees. As a manager these features are awesome as they reduce the amount of time that I spend re-working the schedule.

Cons

The only challenge we have faced is that we don't have access to the task list as we don't pay for this version of the application. We would love to try it out to see if it is a good value add for us.

Alternatives Considered

Schedulefly

Reasons for Switching to When I Work

We liked how easy it was to use, and how many add ons there are included with the basic account.

Pros

It is incredibly easy for both the employee to enter their availability and the manager to appropriately schedule. We love that we cant schedule somebody if they mark themselves unavailable, avoids confusion and holds the employee accountable

Cons

The inability to attach files to an email

Alternatives Considered

Sling

Reasons for Choosing When I Work

We were creating our own schedule utilizing excel spreadsheets, this left open a ton of room for human error

Switched From

Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to When I Work

The video training was so easy to understand and charming, it was a no brainer

Pros

The features are so easy to use and easy to teach to staff.

Cons

The least I like is the first payroll we had a glitch, but that can happen to any software

Alternatives Considered

Homecare Homebase

Reasons for Choosing When I Work

They were antiquated and hard to use, no support and expensive.

Reasons for Switching to When I Work

Ease of use and features that Homebase did not have

Pros

It is easy to keep track on all employees. It is also very easy to see who is on the schedule for the week and fix times if needed.

Cons

We turned off the mobile access to be sure that everyone was being accurate and honest.

Pros

I love that I can create multiple schedule templates and positions. Also, LOVE the "drop shift" feature for our employees. This feature has made managing this for my managers much easier.

Cons

I wish there were more specific reports I could pull for payroll.

Pros

I love the ease of use. When I work is the whole package for what we needed it to do. The app does what it needs to by allowing the employees to do everything they could do on desktop. This makes them much more willing to use it and use the functions correctly.

Cons

So far we have not found something we don't like.

Alternatives Considered

TimeForge

Reasons for Switching to When I Work

We tried timeforge and I think it is a good product, but the app didn't yet do all we needed it to do and the graphs and info for management tracking were a bit too informative for our needs which I felt made them confusing.

Pros

After searching for a job two years ago, I found one from Craigslist. I was told to download this app and my schedule would be sent to it. Well the next day I woke up and decided to check my phone while doing so, I got a text or notification from the app. I opened it and sure enough I had to go to work in less than 10 minutes. I hurriedly put on my clothes and ran out the door. I was late on my first day. I told them the app lagged and I received my schedule minutes before coming to work. This app never got straight, I had to write my schedule down while at work.

Cons

My schedule never showed up in a timely manner. I was eventually fired then the schedule started showing up telling me I had work. How ironic is that, I didn't need notifications then, yet I was still getting them. I uninstalled the app and went back to my Event Specialist job.

Pros

When I Work is a simple and truly effective time scheduler for resourcing projects in your organization. You can track across one or more projects, as needed, and identify time availability for the work that needs to get done. This is often one of the most challenging aspects of keeping projects on track and very few project management tools can help you like When I Work can.

Unlike the "capacity" view of other applications, When I Work gets down to the most granular details. It allows you to identify when and where a team member will be used, including time-off, breaks, lunches, meetings, etc. You can use these categories to identify how best to allocate their time.

The scheduler allows you to see teams based on shift or positions (roles). You can track un-paid breaks and time off, as well as customize schedules and create templates for reuse. You can even create specific shifts for one time or recurring use and maintain notes on each entry. It also provides high level visibility of total individual team member capacity as well as what is scheduled and what has already been used.

View your teams across one or more projects or job sites and distribute resources across them all as needed. It offers program-like management of projects and does not restrict you to individual projects, which can become cumbersome when re-allocating time of one team member across two or more projects.

When I Work is a great tool for planning, or simply use it in addition to your project management application. Its scheduling features make it a powerful tool that lets you forecast as well, by easily making changes in schedules as needed. You will spend less time manually calculating your resources and where to place them, saving you time and money. Changes to any schedules are easy to see and the responses are easy to manage.

When I Work also offers features like task management, which allows you to manage projects of less complexity in the same application. And if you are looking for integration, yes, you can use their library of APIs for that. But, you need to click on the developer link at the footer for more details. Their integration features are not prominently displayed on their website.

Cons

No cons I could personally find for the application and its use. Integration via APIs are present, but this is more for organizations who have techs who can implement them. I have seen organizations with limited development capabilities due to their areas of expertise, where integrations might pose a small challenge... but this should not necessarily pose as a true con for you.

Pros

used on phones. multiple site capability. we started with one location with the knowledge that as we gained locations this system could grow with us with out having to buy into a large expensive system before we were ready.

Cons

the workchat function is still in need of some attention. deleting old chats isn't obvious. Sometimes when writing longer texts the system will stop displaying the text being written after about 200 characters, then the whole text will be displayed when sent. can't edit or delete a posted text. posting pictures can be confusing although they do post. the chat is about 75% there just needs a little buffing up, this is a pretty big part of our administration as to a great degree we manage from offsite.

Pros

My employees can use the app to get alerts and check their schedules. Employees can swap shifts with my approval. The time card is integrated into the schedule app. It is somewhat easy to use. We have used this software for about 2 years. When we first started with them there were not a lot of options out there. And it served its purpose. Our employees seem to like using it.

Cons

There are several cons. I think the price is too high for what you get. Trying to process the time cards is very cumbersome and not very easy to understand. We run 24 hours a day and this software is not well suited to a 24 hour clock. Overall I spend too much time trying to understand how to use the time clock - punch in/out- and it is really frustrating. Also- their customer support is really pretty horrible. There is not a way to call someone and you have to submit an email to support and it can take them a bit to get back to you. Issues with time cards are things you want an answer for right away and they do not offer a quick response. Also- you really have to use a desk top to process the time cards and it does not function so well with google chrome- I think safari works better- but I prefer to use chrome. There are glitches with it that are just frustrating.

Pros

-Allowing for employees to be in different timezones
-Allowing for employees to set their unavailability and their preferred scheduling times
-Allowing employees to shift swap within the software

Cons

-Software is often buggy. It auto schedules my employees during times they are marked as "unavailable". This may be due to the fact that we have people all over the world and could be a time-zone issue, but the fact remains that they are often scheduled during "unavailable" times, and it has to be adjusted.

-It also doesn't seem to honor the "schedule weekends first" feature correctly when I'm using auto scheduling. One of my employees ends up never being scheduled and I have to adjust. (TBF I have to adjust EVERYONE'S schedule after using the auto scheduler, but the issue with this one employee in particular is consistent and weird.)

-Making shift templates is cumbersome.

-There is no way for me to view someone's schedule in their timezone (and I'm talking about Singapore vs. CST) without switching my OWN timezone preference, which requires me to then immediately refresh the site or it won't show properly.

-There is no "undo" -- If I have a schedule pushed and I need to play around with a swap, the moment I shift someone's shift, it goes into draft mode and if I decide, "Hey, I'm gonna actually just leave them where they are," there is no way to undo the movement without republishing (and sending them a notification) the shift.

-Shift swapping doesn't allow for a FT employee to cover a PT employee's shift if they want, or for a PT employee to cover part of a FT employee's shift. I have to manually do this.

Pros

It does what it is supposed to - enables us to schedule employees, notify them of their shifts, sends us a text when someone did not clock in or out.

Cons

Their billing practices are very deceptive and not user friendly. They sell you "user spots" in increments of 10. It is very confusing how to downgrade but very easy to upgrade. I urge every customer who uses this program to check their billing to see what they are being charged for. Customer service is not helpful and seems like they are not interested in providing good customer service.

Pros

the software is great, but the customer service is OFF THE CHARTS! I wasn't a very tech savvy guy when I first started using WhenIWork, so I was constantly chatting with customer service and they were always extremely helpful, found answers if they didnt know the answers, and sent a handwritten personalized thank you card when I first joined. This is an example of a company that does things RIGHT! I love the scheduler, but also the hire feature, auto-assign, and the work chat allows me to email my entire team (as much as the employees change) without having to update a contact list email.

Cons

My business is strangely specific, so my needs are very specific. WhenIWork covers all the bases for me except being able to load saved shift templates from the mobile app. I can publish them from the mobile app, but I can't load them unless I'm on a computer. Which I am most of the time, so it's not that big of deal. I don't use a few of the features besides the scheduler, but having the options to use HIRE, TIME CLOCK, and other features are very helpful to other business mangers as well.

Pros

I enjoy the ease of being able to track employee time sheets. When I Work is very user friendly for both the administrator and users. I also am very impressed with the customer service department when I reached out to them regarding upgrading ny services and they were very helpful with recommending what would best suit the needs of both the employer and staff.

Cons

It was a little difficult for the employees to get used to the change of software that was being used for payroll, however, that is no fault of When I Work. Change can be difficult and hard to remember at times.

Pros

I like that I am able to see everyone schedule and it will tell me how many hours and how many hours this person has on one specific day and in total. I also like the fact that employees can put in for their days off on the app and then those shifts are available to whoever would like to work them first. I also like the sack that employees can get in contact with all levels of staff and management. It also allows employees to switch shifts, which has been an issue in the past. For one employee will say so and so sad they would take over my shift and this person has no idea what the person is talking about or says no I told him I couldn't do it. When all of it is done on the app you could hold people responsible for training shifts or picking up shifts.

Cons

I think on the scheduling part there could be a little more room. The employee list isn't double spaced and it's a regular size font. I also found creating staff schedules to be a bit of an inconvenience due to the fact that you have to use a cursor to pick a time spot and drag it from one side to another. It can often times be difficult when you're busy.

Pros

The functionality and features offered are by far the best thing about this Software.
Ease of use, and control of use. Fairly Intuitive, and addresses most all of my needs for my small business!! The Cost! This software is very affordable for a small company.

Cons

I think that the Customer Support is not up to Par. The only way to get support is via Chat or to submit a Ticket. I have been ignored or neglected in the past, and just needed some help and no one was available and Did not respond either. This was when I first started using the Software and so it left a bit of a bad impression with me... I wish the Reports were not just limited to CSV files. I wish the reports were nice and clean and well presented like some of their competitors offer...

Pros

The ease of navigating the app. Being able to put the scheduling software directly on the phone of the employees is outstanding.
We also really enjoy utilizing the messenger tool. Its a great way to speak to everyone in an efficient manner.

Cons

We dont like the add drop portion of shift scheduling and changes. As a management staff we would like to use this but it has been difficult to create a process do to implement this do to it not requiring a manager approval.

Pros

What I like most about this software is the ability to track my hours in multiple manners. Not only does the app show me how many hours I am scheduled to work a week, it shows me the scheduled hours of everyone on staff in a larger format, and can even show my timesheets, giving me the breakdown of negative or positive hours correlating to clocking in early or clocking out late. This last feature is extremely helpful as it quantifies the fruits (whether ripe or rotten) of your labor, letting you know exactly what you need to keep doing or improve on.

Cons

Yes, when I am accessing availability and have repeating schedule preferences, if there absolutely any overlap, it simply does not allow you to make changes and it is then your job to find the overlaps and shift them to allow for your original change. Often, this process is tedious, but it doesn't come up often as the initial mistake is human error. If there was a way for it to offer options on how you'd like to fix the overlap, that would be perfect.

Pros

It simplifies communication with staff and freelancers, pushing updates to them en masse. It is an attractive UI and the app functions pretty well. Support is responsive and communicative.

Cons

The permission levels need a lot of work. They are limited and global so you really don't have much control over who sees what. You can't copy a shift from one week to the next, this seems kind of basic, especially if an event spans multiple weeks it's inconvenient to have to build the shift twice. It would also be nice to have the ability for someone to view a schedule at a location other than the one they are scheduled at...for example, someone in one office wants to see if someone in another office is scheduled to be available or not without showing up in that locations schedule. Currently this is not possible.

Pros

It's a simple and easy solution for scheduling. The managers Like being able to view on a computer , staff use the app to see their schedules.

Cons

The is no where for managers to make notes on employees regarding that schedules. - example while an employee did not show up to work - if you use the shift notes every is notified . Haven't yet been able to see if you can create a small group chat - example only managers.

Pros

It makes scheduling a simple task AND adds features like schedule templates open shift offering that are icing on the cake!
Customer support is responsive and very helpful.

Cons

I would really like a link to view an employee’s full availability directly from the weekly schedule. I have made a request, which was acknowledged in a very positive way. It hasn’t happened yet, though.

Pros

Easily the most attractive thing about this software is the approachability and ease at which one can create a dynamic employee schedule as well as an open line of communication between employees. Everything about When I Work is very intuitive and malleable, and thus is a good solution for those operating a business.

Cons

The least attractive thing about this software is the cost of it compared to other similar products, and the lack of flexibility inherent in the availability of employee function.