Deputy in Retain Workplace Environment
October 28, 2021

Deputy in Retain Workplace Environment

Justen Smith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Deputy

Ten Thousand Villages is a Fair Trade organization selling various consumer goods via retail store. We are using Deputy to schedule regular salaried, hourly and volunteer resources through 7 days / 10hr per day schedule. Due to the nature of the resources, there is a large number of persons to cover the necessary shifts, thus the need for Deputy.
  • Organizing personnel documents.
  • Understanding individual needs (time available, shift duration).
  • Visual schedule coverage.
  • Visual schedules could display resources in sequential order per shift in blocks. Would be easier to see if there are gaps in coverage.
  • Ease of switching between tabs doesn't allow easy of movement between sections.
  • Sometimes finding information you need in the help documents isn't easy. I think the keyword searches aren't as good as they should be.
  • It will save time with scheduling, but we are not using additional capability.
  • We still spend more time than we would prefer scheduling resources and hope that our understanding of the software and application to our business will get better.
Excel is simple and easy to visualize, however didn't have any automatic functions, it's just raw. Project is good for resources, and can show them visually, but is horrible to work with and doesn't like changes. Access could do this to search resources and fill a schedule, however is difficult to work with. None of those have support, where Deputy has good support which has been put to good use as we learn.

Do you think Deputy delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Deputy's feature set?

Yes

Did Deputy live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Deputy go as expected?

No

Would you buy Deputy again?

Yes

Features for filling a fixed schedule are good. Adjustments to schedule, short resource availability and changes all can take a lot of time to check and double-check if enough people are scheduled. It would be nice to just look at the scheduled resources and see if there is a gap.
We are still in the process and it isn't smooth, however the overall resources online and especially the chat are invaluable. The chat is great and so far the people that have helped us have been quick to identify the issues and provide reasonable support and direction. The online support is more difficult to navigate and searching is limited.
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), AutoCAD
Deputy is well suited for regular shift schedules with fixed hours per day and a fixed resource base. With our shift hours moving due to holidays and busy weekends, and the need for additional resources at certain times, it can be difficult to manually keep track of the needs. We haven't found an easy way for the software to support the changes.