HotSchedules is a cloud-based scheduling, labor and communication management software solution serving the restaurant and hospitality industry. According to the vendor, key benefits include: Build & Communicate Schedules The scheduling and labor management software reduces the time it takes managers to create and communicate schedules. All scheduling and employee information is stored in one central location, so managers have access to time-off requests,…
$2
per month per employee
Wondershare PDFelement
Score 5.0 out of 10
N/A
PDFelement is a document management solution from Wondershare Software headquartered in China.
$79.99
per year per user
Pricing
HotSchedules
Wondershare PDFelement
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$2
per month per employee
Plus
$4
per month per employee
Quote-Based
Quote-based pricing
PDFelement
79.99USD
per year per user
PDFelement
129.99USD
one-time fee per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HotSchedules
Wondershare PDFelement
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
For Individuals:
Yearly Plan: $79.99/user;
2-Year Plan: $109.99/user
Perpetual Plan(one-time): $129.99/user
For Teams:
Yearly plan starts at $109/year for 1 user
For Education:
Yearly Plan: $47.99/user;
Perpetual Plan(one-time): $99.99/user
For small to medium-sized companies HotSchedules works great when business is very static. If you are simply using HotSchedules for a schedule writing tool, it is phenomenal. However, it does miss the mark as a labor control software. Needs more controls to keep managers aware of spending versus historical sales data.
It's a wonderful asset to have when you lose your original Word doc, etc. so you can still edit a document (and not have to start from ground zero). That feature alone is why I bought this product and why I will continue to recommend.
Communication is so simple on HotSchedules. Whether it is communicating a new schedule release, or a quick note about tonight's shift we as managers are able to easily communicate and know that it will reach our team through text notifications, or email notifications.
The Meal Break planning tool is very useful in being able to help our floor leaders clearly understand and plan for what breaks are needed throughout the shift. This allows them to come up with a strategic game plan quickly and spend more time with our guests.
Shift Swaps and Releases are so seamless. This is our favorite tool as it makes helping our team cover shifts extremely easy and painless. On the flip side it also makes staff who want more hours be able to find what is available in real time.
PDFelement provides the same powerful features as Adobe Acrobat, but the interface is easy to learn and use. The product is extremely intuitive, which saves our clients from becoming frustrated as they learn the product.
PDFelement Pro's ability to create fillable forms with the click of one button is one of our clients favorite features. I was impressed at how accurately PDFelement performed this task and the ease with which these fields can be edited, if needed.
Security is more important than ever these days and PDFelement provides the encryption and permissions to protect documents quickly and easily. I especially like the batch encrypt feature, this makes it easy to protect multiple files with the same password.
PDFelement makes it easy to extract the data from form fields. This is a huge plus for our clients.
Clocking In and out can be a little slow. It takes longer to clock in then our previous method. Before we just had a card you swiped and it would clock you in. Took 2 seconds. Now with the Hotschdules method we use it take 30 seconds or so. Not a huge issue but it can add up if you have one computer and a line of employees waiting to clock in.
Time Cards. It does not allow you to view someones current time until the "punch" has ended. If the manager would like to check what time the employee clocked in/out from lunch they have to wait until the employee has clocked out for the day before the record is generated. As a shift lead you may send and employee to lunch but forget to note what time you sent them. Awhile passes and you feel like they should be back by now, so you want to go in and see what time they left for lunch but it does not show you that punch record because the employee is still "clocked in" they are just on their "Meal Break"
The ability to customize the restrictions for Clocking in and out. You can set it up so that employees can only clock in from a specific location, however if you have a manager who is allowed to work from home they would not be able to clock in without being at the same location as set in the software. It would be nice to see it able to be customized per user.
I wish there was a lighter program for just reviewing a document and then to transition seamlessly to an editing mode. It takes a few seconds longer to load than Preview on my Mac, and based on that frustration, I use Preview to view documents.
6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.
There is a lot of learning. Although some of the functions you can probably pick up relatively quickly, some of them, including compressing the size or using a different language, remains a myth to me.
On rare occasions a phone call has been required to find the solution to a problem, the HotSchedules response staff have been helpful, courteous, and genuinely seem to care for their clients and take pride in what they do. The consistent development and fine tuning of the platform, interface, and mobile environment shows that this is not a program full of people who rest on their laurels.
PDFelement is always in contact with me, by email and by giving constant tips and recommendations. But what makes me give you a 10, was the outstanding support service received on July 9th by one of your support professionals Amanda, who helped me with a tariff issue, and makes me [rate] your product.
I have not used any other Scheduling software for employees. As a campground manager in the summer season, we are using campground master for reservations. it is very similar in process to employee scheduling. the ability to the user of that program to set up their own parameters for time and reservations is something that would benefit the employee scheduling software.
I didn't try or buy other programs, but did a good bit of research on them. I went with PDFelement because of the lower pricing, and because of the rich features I learned it had. I also appreciated the great customer service I received from reps in the community forums, which showed me they have an aim in keeping their customers happy - which is always good to have when using fairly complex technical apps.
Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business.
For me, it's been very important to me that my business as a pet sitter and dog walker not leave a negative footprint on the environment. To that end, it's been very important that i'm able to do as much paperwork as possible without using paper. PDFelement is wonderful at helping me meet those goals.
