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HotSchedules

HotSchedules

Overview

What is HotSchedules?

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 SchedulesThe scheduling and labor management software reduces the time it takes managers to create and…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

HotSchedules has become a reliable solution for businesses in various industries, including restaurants, amusement parks, resorts, and …
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HotSchedules

9 out of 10
January 27, 2020
Incentivized
HotSchedules is used across both our stores for scheduling and employee management. Employees are able to update when they want to work …
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HotSchedules review

7 out of 10
February 02, 2018
Incentivized
HotSchedules has given our company a chance to manage labor across the organization and the capability to compare labor strategies with …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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What is HotSchedules?

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…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Alternatives Pricing

What is 7shifts?

7shifts is a restaurant workforce and scheduling management application, which also features collaboration features, from the Canadian company of the same name.

What is Lightspeed Restaurant?

The Lightspeed Restaurant POS, from Lightspeed in Montreal, is a restaurant POS and management system designed to enable users to sync the user's menu with major food delivery apps, manage all orders and and reach new customers.

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Product Demos

HotSchedules Demo: The Employee Experience

YouTube

HotSchedules Demo: Creating a New Schedule

YouTube

Demo of Red Book Keep

YouTube

HotSchedules Demo: Navigating the Schedule

YouTube

HotSchedules Demo: Employee Shift Release & Pick-Up

YouTube

HotSchedules Demo: Submitting Time-Off Requests

YouTube
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Product Details

What is HotSchedules?

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, availability, skill level, and certification compliance.

Work Schedule App

The HotSchedules mobile app lets employees check their schedule, request time off, swap shifts, manage availability, and send messages. All shift requests require a manager's approval.

Forecasting and Reporting

When integrated with the POS, the tool pulls time and attendance, sales and guest data into the system. The forecasting engine shows past sales trends, which makes it possible to build schedules with the right amount of labor. There are also over 40 reports.

Multi-Unit Store View

The Above Store Console provides reporting and visibility across stores, anywhere and at any time. It can be configured by region, state, country.

Bilingual App & Support

The mobile app is available in English & Spanish. Employees can call into the AVS or Customer Support Center to get their schedule in English or Spanish - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

HotSchedules Features

  • Supported: Online Scheduler
  • Supported: Time-Off and Availbility
  • Supported: Work Schedule Mobile App
  • Supported: Scheduling Templates
  • Supported: Employee/Staff Communication
  • Supported: Sales and Labor
  • Supported: Forecasting Engine
  • Supported: Reporting
  • Supported: Point-of-Sale Integration
  • Supported: Centralized Communication
  • Supported: SMS Messaging

HotSchedules Screenshots

Screenshot of Time-Off, Availability, Employee Hours, Sales Volume are all available in the scheduler.Screenshot of Employees are able to swap and pick-up shifts from the HotSchedules Mobile App. All shift changes or requests require a manager's approval.Screenshot of Managers and employees can communicate with each other from the mobile and web apps - from anywhere and at anytime.Screenshot of Employees can submit a time-off, request - paid, or unpaid - and can request to work or request off right from the mobile app.Screenshot of Managers can view sales and labor data from their phone.

HotSchedules Video

HotSchedules Competitors

HotSchedules Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web
Supported LanguagesEnglish, Spanish

Frequently Asked Questions

When I Work and ScheduleFly are common alternatives for HotSchedules.

Reviewers rate Usability and Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.9.

The most common users of HotSchedules are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(232)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

HotSchedules has become a reliable solution for businesses in various industries, including restaurants, amusement parks, resorts, and retail establishments. Users have reported significant time savings and improved efficiency in scheduling processes. For example, a restaurant manager praises HotSchedules for reducing their scheduling time from over 3 hours to just 30 minutes per week. This software enables employees to cover their own shifts with approval, allowing for better shift management and flexibility. It facilitates communication among team members, ensuring constant checking and trading of shifts in an amusement park setting. Multiple departments at a resort rely on the platform to handle last-minute schedule changes, call-offs, and requests for added shifts.

HotSchedules assists food and beverage departments by providing easy access to availability, time off requests, and labor forecasting. This improves communication between staff and management. The software's user-friendly interface allows for generating and posting weekly schedules effortlessly. It also serves as a means of communication with staff members across multiple locations within a restaurant group.

Moreover, HotSchedules Train formerly Schoox is utilized for employee orientation and training purposes. The software not only helps with controlling labor costs but also offers features like sales forecasting and labor cost analysis. Across organizations, HotSchedules proves valuable by assisting in proper staffing needs and managing labor expenses effectively. In retail settings, the product streamlines employee scheduling while enabling them to view their schedules easily and make shift swaps when necessary.

In conclusion, HotSchedules is highly regarded for its ability to save time, improve communication, increase flexibility in scheduling processes, and provide various features that benefit different departments within organizations. Its broad range of applications makes it suitable for businesses of all sizes across multiple industries.

Users highly recommend signing up for HotSchedules and getting familiar with the application. They also suggest using the convenient mobile app and setting up email notifications for easy access to schedules and efficient shift swapping. Additionally, users highly recommend HotSchedules as a reliable solution for scheduling needs in various work environments. Overall, they find HotSchedules to be a valuable tool for controlling expenses, allocating labor, improving communication, and making positive changes within the service industry.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
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Frances (Franny) Spellman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
HotSchedules is being used in our individual venues with an Above Store Counsel set up for our corporate execs. We have 5 restaurants and 2 hotels in the division I work in. HotSchedules is mostly used for its scheduling, log book, staff journal, and sales/labor forecasting. Since implementing HotSchedules, it has allowed us to maintain labor budgets, and ultimately, function much more efficiently by way of staffing and increasing managerial communication.
  • Manager Log and Staff Journal -- increases more effective communication as well as keeps corporate folks in the loop and able to identify problem areas much more easily (and proactively).
  • Sales and Labor Forecasting - allows us to maintain appropriate labor levels according to budget.
  • I really wish we could upload PDFs in the staff journal. We would likely replace much of our HR practices if we were able to upload reviews and progressive discipline documentation.
It promotes more effective manager communication and operations.
HotSchedules is a one stop shop! You will get everything you need operationally as well as an awesome customer support team!
HotSchedules Support is fast and VERY informative. I can generally solve any issue I have within 30 minutes or less. They are helpful and I do not have to go though MANY channels to a simple issue.
I just recently implemented HotSchedules into our 4th location. The implementation process was fast and easy! They also offered training afterwards on an individual basis if necessary.

Yes
We had a small issue with the labor sync at one of our venues and HotSchedules Support was able to solve the issue within a few hours. They are incredibly helpful!
  • Log Book and Staff Journal
  • Scheduler and Template Making
  • Labor Card Reporting
  • Sales Forecasting
  • Labor Sync seems to be finicky if doing mid shift
Yes
The App is AMAZING!

It is SUPER user friendly. I have this at 4 venues with roughly 20-30 users. I rarely get questions about HotSchedules and training is always VERY easy.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
HotSchedules is implemented across our company, a multi-unit corporation, as it allows for a stream lined approach to immediate communication, scheduling, and labor management with our entire team. HotSchedules allows for immediate access to all of our locations no matter where I am located. The ease of communication with specific staff members or our entire employee roster with one simple click and a few minutes of typing compared to the hours it would typically take without such a platform is a great time saver.
  • Streamlines communication and scheduling staff. Once you truly understand the capabilities of the HotSchedule platform and train your staff on the ease of using it, management saves hours of work each and every week. Management can then have more time to truly manage.
  • Employees will be able to arrange schedule swaps, change availability, and communicate with one another all in one location. Obviously management must approve said changes, however it is no longer managements responsibility to make these changes, remember requests, availability changes, that is all done, saved, and implemented for them.
  • The customer care team at HotSchedules has always been helpful and a pleasure to work with. This is not a company that is willing to take your money, but provide no service to its customers.
  • The messaging system should be able to send attachments such as pdf's to make distribution of company materials easier. Whenever we do a menu change, it would be very helpful to have the ability to drop a pdf version of the menu into a company wide message.
  • The scheduler should be available through their mobile application platform. The application is great, however it would be more convenient to be able to create schedules from said platform rather than needing to log in from a standard web browser
  • The scheduler is not compatible with apple/OsX commands or the scroll up/down in a web browser. Windows platform is works seamlessly, however the use of Apple products can be less than easy when utilizing the scheduler to its fullest capacity.
In the food/beverage/hospitality industry, HotSchedules is a phenomenal tool. It saves time and makes managing a more seamless experience for both manager and employee. It works especially well for FOH applications, as many of the service staff are very tech savvy and pick up the features and abilities of this tool very quickly. It is still very useful for the BOH application, however the typical staff member requires more instruction and training on the function and capacity of the program.
  • None
150
HotSchedules is used by nearly every single employee within the company. Whether that be owners, management, as well as FOH & BOH staff members. This assists in connecting every employee with one another, enabling communication and organization to flow up and down the chain of command in a very short period of time.
3
We have a dedicated IT position that communicates directly with HotSchedules if we have a request for further instructions or training staff members to use the interface. We also have our HR representatives at each restaurant location that continuously maintain current records of employees for management to properly schedule employees without the concern of first entering or removing an employee from the system. All of this could be combined into one specific job, or, have the responsibilities delegated to members of the management teams at each location. We have found our system to work most effective for our current business model.
  • Daily responsibility of organizing/scheduling of staff members
  • Streamline communication between all staff members, no matter what position one may hold.
  • Budget forecasting of labor
  • Staff members have utilized the messaging feature in the interface for work purposes, it has also provided a safe platform for staff to communicate with one another without the need to exchange personal contact information.
  • Distribute study materials to every staff member instantly
  • Certification expiration not only allows for notification when expired, but also daily reminders of the upcoming expiration to all management staff.
  • Would like to be able to signify when a staff member is on paid vacation. As of this point, the fact that ah hourly employee can be on paid leave however the paid time does not reflect in the forecasting of labor costs. Would like to have this as a feature for the fact I would be able to track paid vacation days digitally and be able to produce evidence or lack there of to support which days were considered PTO and Uncompensated Leave of Absence.
  • Scheduler would be much quicker if a mobile interface could utilized to write it.
  • Employee documentation would be helpful and create an environment of less
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.
HotSchedules has been very helpful in every issue that has arisen, however the most help received was with the installation and original training of staff members. Now that we have used this system for years, we are fairly well versed in its operation, but if there is an issue that arises, they are always very quick to find a resolution.
March 01, 2017

HotSchedules is HOT

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It facilitates the scheduling for the restaurant and allows managers to focus on managing rather than solving shift issues.
  • Use historical data to facilitate schedule writing
  • Allows for ease of labor tracking
  • Simplified tool for scheduling
  • Reports could be explained better
Hotschedules places more time back into a manager's day. It facilitates the writing of schedules and day-to-day schedules issues with employees.
Data from the previous year was missing, customer service followed up on the weekend to ensure it was recovered.
Yes
Shortest queue
They go above and beyond when presented with issues.
No
Kim Cargill | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use HotSchedules to communicate with our staff, make schedules, coordinate shift changes and time-off. All four of our locations currently use HotSchedules! Allowing qualified staff to be scheduled faster, setting appropriate staffing levels based on expected business is much easier and faster. Making an effective, and efficient schedule is easy.
  • Communicating with staff, quickly and clearly
  • Communicating with staff in advance about upcoming specials and sales points is super easy
  • The "paper trail" that HS provides is extremely helpfull in all aspects of scheduling and time off.
  • I love that HS is ever evolving. The software developers are constantly taking our feed back and making effective changes that work intuitively with our scheduling.
  • I would like to have the schedules separate. If one user is in the schedular tab at the same time as another user, one cannot move out of the schedule without "posting" said schedule. It causes some kind of glitch and the scheduler doesn't work properly. Only one user needs to be able to make changes to a schedule at a time.
  • HS has gotten better at letting users know the intended purpose or best practice for an intended task, such as the request /time off functions. This information wasn't always conveyed previously, therefore limitations were exposed that could have been avoided.
HotSchedules is well suited for time off requests, and with the new availability module, submitting availabilities and applying them for a certain date is wonderful! That was one draw back previously, that has now been resolved.
I get exceptional support frequently. I admire the staff's cheery and helpful attitudes when I call about something.
No
We tested several other scheduling programs before FINALLY finding HotSchedules! The other scheduler programs were either too simple or too much. We didn't have an option to limit or expand what aspects of the software we wanted. HS allowed us to "baby step" our way into the digital scheduler world!
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
Several of our managers had used HotSchedules before. They recommended us trying it. We wouldn't go back to the age of pen and paper schedule for anything!
HS is much more intuitive. Always getting better!
  • Less labor time making schedules
  • More effective communications with staff
  • Better scheduling!
Always cheerful, informative, and educated staff. Each person seems to want to find a way to help us with any issues or questions we have. I love that all the staff is friendly and in a good mood when you call, I have never had a rep be unhelpful or short tempered, or ever less than accommodating to our needs!
Yes
There is a glitch when multiple people are in the schedule tab at once. Even if they are working on a differential schedule. We are currently waiting for resolution, but I feel confident that HS staff is doing what they can to resolve the issue, based on our previous experience and quick updates from us!
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