Deputy Workforce Management Review

Deputy Review
4.2
4.2 of 5 stars 1 review
  • Pricing
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  • Features
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  • Support
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Pros

  • Affordable software
  • Powerful, yet simplified scheduling feature
  • Easy time tracking tools
  • Facial recognition and mobile geo-location prevent misuse
  • Robust employee self-service

Cons

  • Weak HR capabilities
  • No time tracking for tasks

ABOUT

Deputy is a cloud-based workforce management platform. It can help businesses streamline a host of administrative tasks from employee scheduling to task management and a good bit in between. Like a lot of software developments, Deputy too was born out of need. In the early 2000s, Steve Shelley, an Australian entrepreneur, was running a successful aircraft ground-handling business. However, he found himself spending most of his time taking care of arduous administrative tasks rather than growing his business. A chance encounter with Ashik Ahmed, a young Bangladeshi software engineer, changed all that.

Ahmed, who was flipping burgers to make ends meet at the time, developed an automated staff scheduling application for Shelley. This in-house solution helped Shelley expand his employee base from 200 to 1500 over the next eight years. Having experienced the efficacy of the solution first-hand, the pair co-founded and launched the software onto the marketplace in 2008. The journey from an in-house solution to award-winning software has seen Deputy being used by over 200,000 businesses worldwide. According to its website, the app has scheduled 200,000,000 shifts and processed over $25 billion in payroll to date.

Who Is Deputy For?

Boasting of names such as Amazon, Nasa, Nike, Uber, and HubSpot, Deputy’s client list is impressive. Don’t let that lull you into thinking it can only be used by enterprise-level companies, though. The software’s pricing is kind to all types of corporations, from micro-businesses up to large-scale ones. Furthermore, the company structures its pricing such that you only need to pay for the features your business requires, which is an excellent way to ensure the scalability of the software. Along with its affordability and scalability, Deputy’s rich feature set also endears itself to a range of business types and industries.

PRICING

Deputy has four pricing plans. The company has an annual subscription option only for its Premium users with a discount of about 11%. Irritatingly, the software has a minimum monthly spend amount of $10/invoice for monthly subscribers. What’s nice is that the company offers special discounts for charities, community organizations, and nonprofits. Importantly too, Deputy has a generous 30-day free trial for which no credit card is required, and you get 24/7 support.

Another attractive facet of the app’s pricing scheme is its weekly plans, which is especially beneficial for businesses that conduct weekly events such as catered conferences or festivals. Here, you get all the tools of the software’s Premium plan, but you only need to pay for the staff who are actively involved in the event. This way, event-based businesses can hire and manage temporary, seasonal employees without incurring a monthly cost. The weekly plan costs $2/user/week.

Here is a comparative look at Deputy’s pricing plans:

Plans

Scheduling

Time & Attendance

Premium

Enterprise

Price/user/ month

$2.50

$2.50

$4.50

Custom Prices

Employee Scheduling

Yes

_

Yes

Yes

Auto Scheduling

Yes

_

Yes

Yes

Timesheets

Yes

Yes

Yes

Payroll

Yes

Yes

Yes

Leave Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

News Feeds

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

POS Integration

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Reports

Yes

Yes

Custom Roles

Yes

Dedicated Support

Yes

Advanced Planning

Yes

Single Sign-On

Yes

FEATURES​

  1. Employee Database Management
  2. Employee Performance and Stress Management
  3. Scheduling
  4. Time Tracking
  5. Time-off Management
  6. Employee Self-Service And Collaboration
  7. Task Management
  8. Reports

1. Employee Database Management

This software allows you to manage all employee-related information from one central repository. Using the software’s database manager, you can maintain extensive employee profiles, complete with personal, account, tax, and emergency contact details. In addition, you can set pay rates, assign a job location, and user-access permissions according to each employee’s designation. The app has a well-developed filter system that lets you easily segregate staff into different departments across multiple locations, no matter how complex your business structure is.

2. Employee Performance and Stress Management

One of the software’s standout features is the ‘Stress Profile’ tool that lets you control overtime work. This feature not only helps you take care of your employees but also ensures you always remain within your state’s overtime rules. You can set stress parameters such as the maximum number of hours per shift, maximum shifts per week, or minimum gap between shifts. Once stress profiles are set, Deputy automatically alerts you if you try to schedule an employee whose working hours are approaching overtime.

Another unique tool is the Journaling feature that managers can use to record an employee’s day-to-day performance in real-time. There are several ways the software allows admins to do this. For one, when approving an employee’s timesheet, managers can leave a journal entry against them. Helpfully, these entries can be marked as negative or positive, making it easier for future evaluation. For another, managers can also tag notes on an employee’s profile page. The software records these entries in each employee’s performance journal for effortless appraisal. Importantly, the journal entries are entirely private such that no one (including the employees themselves) except a supervisor can view them.

3. Scheduling

This feature is undoubtedly Deputy’s crown jewel. The software turns the arduous task of employee scheduling into a simple and error-free one. The scheduling dashboard gives you a calendar-like overview, whether daily, weekly, or bi-weekly, of your scheduling requirements, complete with a list of shifts, along with all the available and authorized employees on the left side of the screen.

To schedule a shift, you need to drag-and-drop employees into a shift cell. Alternatively, you can click on a shift cell to add a manager, shift timing, and employees. If you have a set rotating roster, you can copy shifts or design weekly shift templates. You can notify your staff by publishing the schedule, and the software will send an email and push notifications to all scheduled employees. If you want to send out SMS notifications to your employees, you can do that too for an additional $0.05 per message.

To prevent shift clashes, Deputy also does a 5-point check of employees that includes leave, stress profile, and training checks before they allow you to go ahead with a final schedule. In case an employee cancels at the last minute, you can press the ‘Find Replacement’ button on a shift, and the app will show a list of recommended employees with whom you can replace your indisposed team member. You can either select a replacement yourself or invite all your available employees to work on the vacant shift, on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Deputy also has an auto-scheduling feature that uses AI along with a range of parameters like the number of bookings, peak times, and sales amounts. It gives you a shift structure already filled in with timings and employees, which you can tweak according to your needs. If you set up your employee’s wages, the stats bar on top of the scheduling page gives you the daily and weekly cost of your scheduled shifts and a comparison graph of these against expected sales during those shifts. This serves as a nifty budgeting tool.

4. Time Tracking

With its clock-in and out functionality, Deputy allows for easy time tracking. Employees can check in with the software at the start of their shift using their mobile devices. Alternatively, you can set up a booth at work for them to do so too, and the software clicks a picture every time they clock in or out, as a way to prevent buddy punching. Aside from facial recognition, Deputy also allows you to verify an employee’s credibility using device geo-location. This is especially beneficial for businesses that have a remote workforce.

Additionally, the platform also allows you to track and enforce breaks, even going so far as to alert managers if an employee misses one. This protects both you and your employees. Moreover, you can set up compliance-related questions that employees must answer when they clock out. For example, you can ask them if they had an injury-free shift or not. These questions not only serve as a record but also protect you from liabilities in the future.

Once an employee finishes his or her shift and clocks out, the software automatically creates a timesheet. Managers can approve these timesheets with the click of a button and then export them to a host of connected third-party payroll applications for processing. If an employee has forgotten to clock in or out, managers can manually add a timesheet for them. Importantly, each timesheet has a history tab that records every entry, no matter whether it is an employee or manager making it, another way the software safeguards you from future liability.

5. Time-off Management

Deputy comes with several preset leave types. These include sick leave, annual leave, bereavement, holiday, and training leave, to name a few. Helpfully, the software allows you to remove, edit, or add leave types according to your business needs. With each leave type, you can set conditions or rules. For example, you can configure a time off as paid or unpaid leave or let the accrual reset after a set period, and so on. You can also define your leave accrual and deduction rules.

Once these rules have been set up and assigned to employees, the software automatically applies these in its pay rate calculations. The software also allows you to edit an employee’s leave balance manually. In addition, the leave management dashboard gives managers an overview of all leave-related information on their employees, along with any requests that need approval. The software also alerts admins when an employee’s leave balance is running low.

6. Employee Self-Service And Collaboration

The app has a well-developed self-service feature that gives employees a lot of functionality. Not only can they log into their accounts to clock in and out, but they can also do so to check their schedules and request extra shifts or time off from within the software itself. Employees can also view, but not edit their timesheets, keep tabs on their leave balances, and check PTO entitlements through their portals.

Other notable features are the ‘Shift Swap’ and ‘Shift Offer’ tools that employees can use to either swap shifts with others or put their shift up on offer for other team members to grab, respectively. You can set these features to go through with or without a manager’s approval. Either way, by giving employees the power to make these changes themselves, the software reduces a manager’s administrative burden significantly.

For team communication, Deputy has something they call ‘News Feed,’ which allows any staff member to create a post and share it with others, and is an excellent way to get rid of needless back and forth email and text communication. However, you cannot use this tool to initiate audio or video chats. Newsfeed posters can share their posts with everyone or just select individuals. They can also attach images and PDF files to their posts if necessary. Importantly, managers can include a confirmation button in their posts to ensure everyone has read an important announcement or policy update.

7. Task Management

Deputy has a handy task management feature that admins, location managers, and shift supervisors can use to create and assign tasks to employees. The feature is easy to use. All you need to do is configure a task title, set a due date, and add explanatory notes. You can then assign tasks to one or multiple employees. The software also allows you to set up group tasks if a procedure involves more than one job.

For example, closing a restaurant will involve multiple tasks such as wiping down tables, mopping floors, restocking the pantry, and so on. Additionally, if a task is an hourly, daily, or weekly ritual, you can set it up as a recurring one, so you don’t have to waste time redrafting the particulars each time. Deputy sends emails and push notifications to employees if a task has been assigned to them. It also notifies supervisors when a task is marked as completed by a team member.

8. Reports

The software has five inbuilt reports. These are:

  • Employee details
  • Journal usage
  • Schedule vs. timesheets vs. sales
  • Time-off and schedules
  • Timesheet locations

You can change the reports by altering parameters like the date range, location, and employees. In addition to the prebuilt reports, Deputy also has a custom report builder. This feature allows you to create specialized reports using data from a host of the software’s modules. Once generated, you can export a custom report in CSV format if you want to share it with your clients or shareholders.

INTEGRATIONS

With over 50 integrations, Deputy offers a modest number of seamless connections. As can be expected for an employee management software, a third of these connections are to other payroll and Point of Sale apps. In addition, the software also offers open and unlimited APIs that developers can use to connect to hundreds of other third-party applications.

Here are some of Deputy’s important integrations:

  • Zapier
  • G Suite
  • Dropbox
  • Gusto
  • Square
  • Xero
  • QuickBooks Online
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • OnPay
  • MYOB
  • ActiveCampaign
  • Netsuite

More About Deputy Workforce Management

Set Up And Ease Of Use

Setting up Deputy is a straightforward process made even simpler by the quick tutorials the software greets you with when you open a module for the first time. To start using the app, all you must do is fill in your employee and location details, and you are good to go. Helpfully, the software allows you to import these records in bulk if you already have them ready as an Excel sheet or in another third-party application. Another helpful feature, one that newbies, in particular, will appreciate, is that you can book a 30-minute tutorial with an expert at the time of your choosing, and they will guide you through the onboarding process.

Deputy has an extremely user-friendly interface. The main menu is horizontal and runs along the top of the page and hosts the software’s features, like schedules, locations, tasks, timesheets, and reports. It is an uncomplicated layout that all and sundry will be able to figure out with a little poking around. The main menu also has a help button on the top right-hand corner, which will give you access to the software’s knowledge base as well as its in-app chat support. A chat icon at the bottom right side of the screen also opens up the software’s chatbot.

Device Compatibility

Desktop Browser App

Android App

iOS App

Windows Phone App

Apple Watch App

X

The software’s mobile apps are well developed and have the same functionality as its desktop version and are similarly easy to use. The iPhone app allows managers to do everything from scheduling and creating tasks to journaling and finding shift replacements while on the go. The Android app also has similar functionality. However, you cannot find shift replacements using it.

On the employee side of things, both apps have the same functions. Team members can access their accounts, view and comment on news feeds, clock in and out, and request leave or shift swaps using their mobile devices. As can be expected, the Apple Watch app does not afford the same capabilities as Deputy’s other iterations. That said, you use it to clock in and out, record break times, and even find a shift replacement.

Customer Service

That the company cares about their customers shows in its customer care offerings. The software offers all customers 24/7 support, no matter if you are on a free trial or a paid plan. You can reach the company’s reps via phone, email, and in-app live chat. The latter, in particular, is very effective. There are anywhere between one to three reps on hand at any given time, and they are usually quick to respond. Further, the software has a remote access option that, if you enable, allows the company’s reps to quickly access your account, investigate, and resolve any issues.

If all the above options fail, Deputy has other customer support fallbacks in place. First, the company has an active presence on various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, so you can reach out to them using social media too. Second, it has a good repertoire of self-help articles, including getting-started documents, FAQs, and feature guides that can help you navigate the software. Lastly, Deputy’s YouTube channel has a vast collection of video tutorials to help you drill down and get the most out of its features.

Online Security

To ensure data integrity and security, Deputy has several measures in place that are compliant with industry standards. These include:

  • Bank-grade data encryption with 256-bit SSL encryption
  • User and company-level data separation to ensure integrity
  • Over 99% uptime
  • Rigorous penetration testing
  • Data breach reporting
  • Two-factor authentication
  • Single sign-on

PROS AND CONS

PROS

  • Affordable software
  • Powerful, yet simplified scheduling feature
  • Easy time tracking tools
  • Facial recognition and mobile geo-location prevent misuse
  • Robust employee self-service
  • Good mobile app
  • Easy to set up and use
  • Stellar customer support

CONS

  • Weak HR capabilities
  • No time tracking for tasks

CONCLUSION

It’s easy to see why Deputy is such a popular software. From its affordable pricing schemes to its powerful features and outstanding customer support services, it has a lot going for it. If your business is the kind that works largely on shifts and you are on the lookout for a software to help you with that, then Deputy should certainly be one of your top contenders. However, if you primarily have salaried employees with the same working hours, then the software’s powerful scheduling features may prove to be excessive and redundant for your business. This is especially so since the app only has basic HR and task management tools. Fortunately, Deputy’s generous 30-day free trial is there for the taking. The software’s features are certainly worth taking a look at to see if it is the right fit for your business or not.

Check out our list of the best Employee Time and Attendace Software companies

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