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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

(1-3 of 3)
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Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is currently only being used by the front of house staff and management. The kitchen is reluctant to use it. It does provide the FOH staff with easy access to their schedule from their mobile device. Management does not like the way a schedule prints out and finds it a bit hard to read, but overall, it is worthwhile.
  • Mobile access to schedules is key for the FOH employees.
  • As an owner who does not do the scheduling, I do appreciate being able to bring up my phone and look at the roster to know who is working and when.
  • Tracking availability schedules and food handler certs are certainly very helpful.
  • HotSchedules should move away from being connected to companies that promote stealing other employees. Jobsabi was not appreciated by this employer whatsoever.
  • Reporting - especially the posted schedule - is hard to read and doesn't have many options for different layouts
  • Give us the ability to hide past employees in the employee listing. It's ridiculous to have to see terminated or inactive employees.
Well suited for changing schedules and flexibility required by the front of house restaurant staff. Well suited for keeping track of certificates and availability. Definitely not necessary where schedules are more set and don't change much - a spreadsheet works great and the cost of HotSchedules is not necessary.
  • none
  • I don't have an answer here, but I do appreciate all of the training database videos they have.
  • Schedules are tough, I am good at using all kinds of software, but I still found it challenging to be sure all shifts were covered
Yes
Some of it is easy, but putting together a final schedule that is error-free is very tough. Users don't like the look of the posted schedule and I have not found very many options to modify that.
Frank Jameson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use HotSchedules for 3 very different businesses, an entertainment center with 100+ employees, a restaurant with 50+ employees and a liquor store with 15 employees. It works for all 3 businesses and we find it VITAL to use the store logs to provide comparisons and insight from staff to better future events. From an HR standpoint, we keep a log of interactions with your staff, good and bad, providing proof for coachings, merit reviews and even labor audits. From a business operations viewpoint, we post in the logs regarding maintenance issues, new product introductions and customer requests. Todays' employees want their schedule information quick, HotSchedules provides a platform to share that information in the text messages, emails. The entertainment center uses the budget feature and we are working to introduce that feature to our other two businesses.

Is HotSchedules pricey? Yes and no. A product is only as good as the person that chooses to use all of the features, we value the store logs MORE than just using the scheduler. Add in that we occasionally use the budgetary segment, we believe we get more value out of HotSchedules.

Overall, I would highly recommend HotSchedules for any company - small, medium, and large!
  • Store Logs - the ability to record daily events. It provides the review for the monthly results, or even a staff members training progress.
  • Scheduler - divide your staff into various departments so your managers can focus on meeting guest needs in smaller groups. Also a great communication tool as it sends out the schedules in a way convenient to the staff member.
  • Reports - we only use 5 of 30+ reports, but those provide us material for managers to keep the business on track throughout the day.
  • Configuration is key - there can be bumps after bringing a new business into HotSchedules so the terminology has to be different for each one.
  • Scheduler - on the old one, there use to be a key that explained the hot keys, now its missing. Probably under Support, but it used to be on the scheduler screen.
This product is well suited for all businesses, but definitely, one where the business deals with daily interactions with customers. Retail, restaurants, and amusement parks all would benefit from the scheduler and store log features.

It probably would not be as beneficial in an office setting, unless it was strictly used for the scheduler feature. Also, if the operation is small in size (under 15 employees), I believe the price may prevent some from trying the product.
I believe HotSchedules is a premier tool for our businesses. Our last scheduler app did not provide the store log feature, where as HotSchedules provides all of the features that we need and MORE. Reports, Staff Journals, tracking task assignments, handling multiple time off requests. Best part, we still haven't used everything it provides.
  • Scheduler
  • Requests for Time Off
  • Messaging
  • Staff Journal
  • Budget setup
  • Adapting or configuring the terminology to a different industry.
Yes
Works really well to use for views of the logbooks, rosters, staff information, but it's way too easy to "lose" progress on a posting by going back or accidental exit of the app. There should be a safeguard to ask you if you want to leave. I also have the Above Store Console that allows me to switch between 3 different companies, and the mobile feature works flawlessly.
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.
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.
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