7shifts Reviews

7shifts makes scheduling easy with a copy to next week feature that allows scheduler to mimic previous weeks schedules.

the repeating schedule feature makes scheduling kinder - allowing staff to set a weekly schedule of availability.

the chat and announcements feature lets communication flow without messier emails and texts.

the app-based time off submissions really simplify and streamline a formerly archaic system that was easy to screw up with paper notes, emails, calendars, notebooks.

the shift pool empowers staff to make last minute changes to their schedules or pick up extra work.

there's a lot of neat features that you have to pay extra for like an events calendar and labor to sales based scheduling.

A super all-in-one app that does pretty much everything. Scheduling, to time clocking, to event calendar, to messaging, to task assigning. Price is fair and function is easy to use.

Messaging within the app is slow and unreliable. Amount of notifications received is too much and not easily customizable. Not having the ability to show a staff’s shift from another department that work multiple departments when printing is kind of a bummer (if I am scheduled to work as a manager in admin department, I will not show up in the restaurant department even though I am assigned and appear on schedule).

We have been using 7Shifts little over 2 years now and it has been a great experience.

User interface is very simple. It an app that apple would have build. Very basic but yet very powerful. If you are getting this app i highly recommend getting all packages. End of the day it saves you money and head ache. Advil pain killer is expensive and good for your body

I dont have any dislike so far in 2 years

We can maximize profit by scheduling exactly where needed with forecasting
We can create a schedule in minutes verses an hour
We can eliminate scheduling employees on requested days off or outside of their availability
Employees can update availability, time off without bothering management
Employees find a replacement for their shift after schedule is posted instead of bothering management
Managers can monitor labor in real time on phone app dashboard report
We use the 'engage' report as a positive way to eliminate attendance issues (late, no show, sick, change schedule, etc)
Employees can access by phone or computer
Employees can provide immediate shift feedback at end of shift
Managers can distribute hours and tasks evenly and monitor
Managers love the communication notification. One memo can be distributed to all or certain department to inform of last minute specials or even announce an employees birthday

To be honest, my list has dwindled of items I like least because everytime I bring a negative aspect to customer support, the development team calls and gathers information, then they begin programming and redesigning to improve their product for everyone. My only issue is waiting for them to make the awesome labor dashboard available for lower levels so managers can use it to train team leads without programming them to be in the 'management' category just to get the actual real time labor on their phone.

I like that I the functionality of the app and online. It is easy to access and use. The app is free and this makes a big difference with our hourly team members.

I wish the reporting was more robust. Sometimes I need more data than the reporting is capable of pullin gin.

- Very Short Learning Curve
- The App is very stable and accurate
- Our staff enjoy using the app and don't see it as a burden, but a convenience
- With our package, the app is feature-rich without bloat.
- Developers listen to the community and add value as often as possible.

As with any software development, some features that would be useful for you may take time if they are more niche use cases.

7shifts is really geared toward restaurant shift/labour management and communications, whereas so many of the other scheduling softwares out there try to fit the general case and don't handle the high-paced, dynamic nature of restaurant staffing nearly as well. From our perspective, 7shifts literally cuts down 5-10 hours a week of admin time, while also providing us a convenient, central location for communication with staff, basic HR data, etc. We use the free 7punches app to track time punches, which also has some nifty features that help us manage labour costs and keep better tabs on things like lateness. What I'm most excited about now is 7shifts' built-in "Optimal Labor" tool, which combined with our POS sales integration, provides me with HOURLY forecasts for my sales on given upcoming week, then tells me how many servers, bartenders, etc it thinks I should have on based on my sales, labour targets and past scheduling. It's not perfect, but its hugely helpful and lightyears ahead of what we were doing in the past, taking only a fraction of the time. 7shifts is a tech company that really gets restaurants and what we need, I eagerly anticipate every update to the software.

I'm a techno-geek at heart, with my own tech industry experience, and by working with the 7shifts people and products, I immediately see a really healthy, creative tech culture at the company, which are poised to keep moving at a phenomenal pace and quality of output.

I wish we could get the Machine Learning auto-scheduler feature at "The Works" package level, even as a priced add-on. Currently the only way to get it is to sign up for a massively more expensive package that is really designed for franchise chains with many locations to handle. We have just one location, but really want the auto-scheduler (it's absolutely brilliant).

I love the 7shifts web API and use it for quite a lot of our own software, but the documentation is really incomplete/out of date and I have to do a lot of reverse engineering either from their website or by making educated guesses. I can imagine that this might cause some friction or limit the abilities of third parties to integrate with 7shifts.

Third party integrations have not been as robust or full-featured as I'd hoped, at least the TouchBistro/7shifts integration, but I think that's more due to the other side of the integration than the 7shifts people.

The software has a lot of potentials to be great, the best part of it is the integration with POS so we can have real-time data.

There are sections like time-sheets that are unnecessarily hard and not user-friendly.

The best features of this program is all around communication. That includes communication from ownership on down. Everyone always has quick access to the notes and day to day. Management log and scheduling were the biggest attractions for us.

The biggest con for me so far is the permissions. We can only designate one Administrator and we cannot customize all permissions down quite as much as we need or would like. Sometimes we are stuck with "all or nothing" permissions decisions for some staff members.

I like the ability to schedule, edit and communicate on the go!

Sometimes there are glitches with the app, such as....a staff member being scheduled once, but appears twice on the schedule for the same day.

How easy it is to use. It solved many of our scheduling issues.
Staff resolve many of the trades etc among themselves. The schedule is always up to-date. The schedule is always available on my phone. I can approve changes etc when I am not on site and the schedule is updated and everyone knows what is going on.

Sometimes the updates have caused some glitches. They are quickly resolved once 7 shifts is made aware. Because we are not a restaurant some of the features on it we do not need and show up all the time. It would be nice if there was a version without earnings profits etc. as we do not need all of that. We are a residential housing program for persons with disabilities and other then that it works really well for us.
the staff really like the freedom they have as well with the app.

Easy to use
Great tutorials
Fast and friendly support staff
Efficiency for reviewing labor
Incredibly communication tool between staff and management
Consider suggestions for functions and features and notify you if they become implemented
Fair price for the power of the product

I own a full service, high end, casual dining restaurant. I have usually between 50-65 employees. 7shifts allows me to manage multiple department schedules for the entire restaurant pretty easily. I very much like the feature that allows me to copy and paste the schedule from prior weeks, as well as the ability to create a template and distribute that template amongst everyone’s availability. I like that it puts accountability for requesting time off an updating availability on the employee. This saves me so much time. 7shifts connects with Cake (my POS) and brings sales over so that I can project my labor for the schedule I’m making.

When I start from a template and the software distributes the shifts based on people’s availability seems very random. It would be better if the software was able to take into consideration the employees schedule from last week, keeping it the same as much as possible, and prioritizing shifts to primary roles. When I start from a template I have to do a lot more reorganizing of shifts after the software fills it out for me.

No glitches ever (previous app we used glitched and made errors to employees' schedules)
Budgeting tool
Ability to put in events
Color coding departments and jobs
Ability to print PDF schedule
Communication (chat and message options)
Employees can trade shifts
Availability and time off request features are perfect
Multiple locations allows you to use employees at different sites, but you can see in lighter color where they are already scheduled to work
Great value for the price
They keep making it better and will let you know when an update has been made

There's a minimal international fee charged monthly for 7Shifts. But that's all!

While 7Shifts was the first and original scheduling app we tested, we did try 2-3 others. But we kept coming back to 7Shifts. At the center of this decision was the ease of use, and nice design that allowed for easier scheduling. A scheduling app has to do that and work for us. Without this ease of use scheduling can be a a tedious task. 7Shifts makes this a breeze.

I think 7Shifts has a very good core product (scheduling). And I only wish we had more time to test other features. But that is more on us, than the app. The one feature I wish we had back, as an administrator I wish I had the ability to quickly help employees with their password management. Resetting the passwords used to be easy some years back, whereas the admin was able to set-up a password for the end-user. That feature went away some years back.

It is easy to understand, set up and the customer service is extraordinary!

I wish there were more manager capabilities in the mobile app, but the app has improved already since it was first launched, so I imagine it will only get better.

Our supervisors use the manager logbook and it has been extremely helpful in keeping everyone up to speed on daily operations, issues and ideas. We act much quicker when addressing problems with staff and maintenance, and reduce the distortion of facts when compared to transferring information along a chain of conversations. This is a valuable feature not to be overlooked.

Some of our staff members have been experiencing freezing and glitching in the app. Some staff are resistant to change and there was a lengthy transition time to get everyone on board. Now that it’s in place almost every new employee loves the interface and is eager to sign up.