Float Reviews

Pros

Float's user interface and logic are inspirational. They have made the activity of coordinating multiple resources on multiple projects about as easy as it can be. They have paid a lot of attention to usability, efficient use of screen real estate and simple navigation. However the killer feature is the intuitive yet clever way that searching and data navigation work. All searching and filtering is done using a single search field, which offers indexed word search on pretty much everything including tags. There is also a well-worked out protocol for handling union and intersect searches.

Cons

The only real bugbear is that any user that can enter data into the system can define new values for any field. It isn't possible to centrally control lists such as task names, clients, job descriptions etc. This means that if you have more than one person using the system, very quickly you get different versions of the same thing being defined (e.g. job roles being slightly different) which makes it difficult to analyse across records. Not a dealbreaker, but I do think it should be possible to lock down lists of values. Also it would be good if you could zoom out the view a little more - if you're dealing with more than a dozen resources/projects.

Pros

Float is an excellent scheduling tool that I have been using for months now. It is user-friendly, intuitive and the customer service is top-notch. I love the flexibility of the platform, which enables me to easily move and adjust my schedule when needed. It's a great way to keep organized and on top of my tasks.

Cons

Only negativity I've experienced with Float is the fact that it doesn't have an integrated time tracking feature. This means I have to manually keep track of the time I spend on each task, making it a bit cumbersome.

Pros

I like the fact you can filter and search by people and/or project

Cons

I don't like that you cannot see 3months in advance on 1 screen. It's still laggy when scrolling, we have 70 people timesheeted and we have project managers filling this in, they find it cumbersome. The repeating tasks are not well formed, as in if you set a repeating weekly task then want to edit one week to be say 3 days, it won't let you do it.
We have other awkward things around adding contractors or people leaving jobs, it would be nice if Float had more sample data as I think sometimes we uncover usecases they haven't tested for - atleast tested the UX for.
I'd love it to improve, as the last speed improvement they did was a step in the right direction, but more customisation is needed.

Pros

That once you get the hang of it is great tool for my team (about 40 team members). The big board gives great overview and the filters work like charm! As long as you have set them up correctly. This took a bit to click through all the team members but once done it make traffic management SO much easier!

Cons

Lack of multiple currencies, very cumbersome managment of retainer projects (those that need to be repeated month by month). Phases don't really work for me as it's too much maintenance and it's not the easiest to do

Alternatives Considered

Resource Guru, monday.com and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Float

Interface, price, personal preferance that's difficult to pinpoint at the moment.

Pros

How easy it is to use. It's easy to jump in and also complicated enough that you can really use some advanced features.

Cons

There are of course small issues here and there but none worth mentioning at all. It's truly a great product and really helpful.

Pros

The interface has a great overview. Adding projects and tasks is intuitive and the colours make every tasks and project stand out. Logging time is really easy. We were not interested in a "log-per-minute" type of application but rather one where you can just log bigger blocks. Float helped us plan and log our time better.

Cons

Planning a project is not super extensive. Float has some tools but the tools are a bit limited. The time tracking feature is the feature we use the most, it is a shame that is not available separately.

Pros

Float has made managing my team's workload a breeze. The drag-and-drop interface is intuitive and the real-time updates keep everyone on the same page. Highly recommend!

Cons

While Float has a lot of great features, the mobile app could use some improvement. It's not very user-friendly and often crashes.

Pros

One dashboard, one overview of all resources and it integrates with our job creation tool which makes it super easy for timesheets. Moving jobs to other days is just a drag and drop away.

Cons

It would be awesome, if a job doesn't exist in our job management tool, if float could create it via push.

Pros

It's a good software for scheduling people's time on projects, seeing at a glance who is available and when, and who is working on each project. We can easily categorise people into teams, roles etc and then do quick searches. It's also really easy for every employee to log their time spent on projects so that we know what to invoice to clients.

Cons

It's not great for managing the budget of a project: the reports are really limited so you have to do a csv export if you want to do in depth analysis.

Pros

The user interface is very clean and simple and it's quite fast to grasp the concept of how it needs to be used by everyone in the company.

Cons

Some functions unfortunately are not very intuitive. Very few people in our company understand how to input data for the whole week in one single click, so they end up going through inputting data for every single day of the week and getting quite frustrated.

Pros

I like the ease of use for bandwidth calculation. Before Float, it would be very difficult for us to understand Trainer occupancy, and it was also a challenge to schedule trainings far in advance over several regions. With Float, I can see what's coming up at a glance and provide accurate reports to stakeholders so that they know how busy we are and will be. At the end of the quarter, I can easily calculate and show how much time we spent, and on what.

Cons

For my specific use, access can be a challenge. I need something between "Project Manager" and "Member." For me, it would be ideal if there are a "Department Manager" role where people who had this level of access could modify the schedule for anyone in their department, but not see or edit the schedule of other departments.

Pros

Easy to setup and use without any training required. Clean interface that makes it easy to view and update resources assigned to projects. Love the ability to easily drag to extend duration of tasks assigned.

Cons

Would be great if there was a better integration with our timesheet tool (Xero) to populate timesheets automatically based on plan in Float.

Pros

I really like the possibility of having a global view of the activities and the possibility of having a fast (very fast) synchronization with the Outlook calendar. Furthermore, it is really useful to assign different roles to people in order to define planning permissions.

Cons

I am not crazy about the graphic style of the calendar / schedule view. Hiding over the weekend it is difficult to see at a glance the separation between the various weeks. Also there is no translation of the portal in Italian, not a serious deficiency, but if there were it would be better :)

It also lacks the ability to view your schedule in a daily agenda format in order to have a more precise schedule of your commitments, as you can do through outlook.

Alternatives Considered

Toggl Plan and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Float

We chose float among all the other software seen because it provided a better user / price ratio than others in relation to the size of the company. The choice was also made because it provided all the necessary functions of division into teams, projects and tasks that were necessary for our team.

Pros

As both a user and administrator of Float at our company I'd say my favourite feature is the UI design of Float. It looks great and I never have to to look hard to find the information I need - it's all very intuitive.

I also love the daily email digests that come through. Way better than any 'to do' software I have tried in the past.

The reports visualisation is fantastic too, and is something I'm only just discovering.

Cons

I'd love to use time logging / timesheets but cannot for the life of me figure this part out!

Alternatives Considered

Jira, Paymo and Basecamp

Reasons for Switching to Float

Float was more focussed on resource management and the user interface was top notch.

Pros

The bird's eye feature is a must, it allows for full visibility of the whole team, or segments of it, and allows managers to keep track of current, past, and upcoming projects.

Cons

Time report integration, we use Harvest and we have to use a different partner for this.

Alternatives Considered

Trello

Reasons for Choosing Float

Brid's eye view feature

Switched From

Favro

Pros

Float is an incredibly intuitive piece of software to use, with a simple calendar-like interface that everyone can understand. I have found that this aspect of the software is helpful in promoting its adoption within our teams. The experience is consistent across the product, which has allowed me to discover more and more features in and enrich the experience of using the product.

Cons

The performance of the software is occasionally a bit lacklustre. For example, I often find myself accidentally clicking somewhere on the screen which prompts a dialogue box to open to enter a new task. This problem is especially pronounced when using a trackpad, and isn’t something that I experience elsewhere. Additionally, the interface seems to have a strange way of ‘splitting’ tasks that occur across multiple days. I have found that it often leaves blank gaps that give the illusion that a team member is working more hours per day than they actually are.

There are a few features that I would like to see when going forward. Firstly, I think it would be good if there were different options when ‘resizing’ a task. Currently, the task can be resized independently across both axes (i.e. how many hours per day, and across how many days). I think it would be good if there were an option for these to affect each other – i.e. the total number of hours allocated to the project remains the same and could be allocated fewer hours across more days, or more hours across fewer days.

Pros

Easy to use and it's simple to scroll backwards to check your historical or upcoming bookings. As a user it does all I need it to do.

Cons

I've previously used Synergist which was great for production resources as all the bookings automatically pre-populated timesheets ready to add hours and submit. I'm not sure if Float has this functionality but our organisation uses separate systems for both, and I find it does add a little more effort to time logging.

Pros

Integration with our business was very straightforward, and there are very few problems that arise when using float on the daily. The schedule updates immediately and its very easy to keep track of an entire teams workload at a glance.

Cons

Sometimes I have issues adding in new tasks to the system, but this is quite rare.

Pros

I like the range of colors we are able to use. easy to adjust timing per day and see total time for each project

Cons

I wish there was a way for my team members to see everyone elses schedule. I can see the full team, but each individual can only see their own.

Pros

Float is incredibly easy to use and integrate into smaller teams. Visually straightforward, it gives you quick and simple answers to essential resource-based questions and allows team members to see what work they should be progressing and when in a tidy calendar view. In addition, there is an easy link between time in the calendar to projects that can be managed quickly.

Cons

I do find that compared to some other systems, a level of detail when it comes to finances and budgets vs resource is missing. Whilst you can get some very top-level detail, the ability to link actual time spent versus project budgets is a little simplistic and could be expanded upon to really drill down into more detail to provide better overall reports.

Pros

The visual look and similarity to the age old resourcing view that came out of excel. It makes scheduling easy

Cons

Spilt and having to right click and come back to add/edit every single time. Generally its working well for what we require of it

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Excel

Pros

Float is a really helpful piece of software, especially for running studio resourcing. The flexibility of being able to move jobs between different resources is great. Definitely one of the easiest resourcing tools i've used.

Cons

After doing a a few resource moves the system gets a bit buggy and you have to refresh or sometimes log out and log back in again to see the changes you've made.

Alternatives Considered

Greenhouse

Reasons for Switching to Float

Price!

Pros

Float is a project management and team scheduling software that allows teams to manage their tasks and schedule at one centralized place which makes it easy for them to ensure that everything is on track. Additionally, the platform is fully customizable, so teams can tailor it to their specific needs.The platform has a user-friendly interface that makes it convenient for users to navigate to the information they need. Another great feature of Float is its scheduling tool. It allows users to assign resources, and track progress. This helps to ensure that there are no delays or missed deadlines.It also allows easy collaboration and communication between team members, which helps to keep everyone on the same page.

Cons

Float currently has limited integration options with other tools and platforms, so teams may need to use multiple tools to manage their work. While it provides some basic reporting and analytics, it lags in many advanced features. Float does have a mobile app, it may not have as many features as the web version of the platform. And the pricing model may not be suitable for teams with limited budget

Pros

It's simple, clean, loads pretty fast and gives the best statistics and insights that come in handy. The administration of our company also prefers it over other online planning tools, for its convenience. The different colors feature that separates users is really a cherry on top of the whole set-up.

Cons

Logging in hours as a user could be more visible than it is right now. Users may find it quite knotty considering other features of Float; many coworkers have asked about where it's located.

Pros

Float has a user-friendly, "card"-based, grid interface where you can schedule your tasks for the day and see what you are scheduled to work on days (or weeks) in advance. My job is project-focused where we have a large team who are all working on different projects and Float keeps everything running smooth by showing who is on which project and tracking all the utilization all the while. Also it's very easy to update your Float Card and log your time each day.

Cons

Sometimes Float can be dense especially when you first start using it, there's a lot of different options and bells and whistles, but once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to update your calendar and tasks.