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January 31, 2000

Scheduling Software For Any Industry
New version of ScheduleSoft expands worker categories for easier staff management

By Chris Murphy

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hen staffing the operations group at Turner Entertainment Networks, the goal is to ensure cable television channels such as Turner Classic Movies and the Cartoon Network serve up entertainment around the clock.

Doing that means rotating personnel in the master control room in eight-hour shifts so staffers don't lose concentration from monitoring the controls for too long. To better manage these schedules, Rob Hill, VP of broadcast operations, turned to ScheduleSoft Corp., which recently shipped version 4 of its ScheduleSoft software.

"We were doing all of the scheduling on Excel spreadsheets. It was the classic stubby-pencil system," says Hill, who oversees up to 220 employees for the Atlanta company.

ScheduleSoft lets Hill enter rules such as worker skills, seniority, earned vacation, and overtime, and the software develops schedules based on those rules. ScheduleSoft 4.0 expands the rules categories offered in the software.

ScheduleSoft is among the vendors that offer one package that can work for any industry. Other vendors target vertical industries, or a function such as call centers, with a more customized and costly fix.

ScheduleSoft CEO Greg Flessas positions his product between the inexpensive off-the-shelf scheduling software and customized applications costing $50,000 or more. The average price is $2,000, he says, and customers include Barnesandnoble.com and the California Highway Patrol.

There are also market players that offer a broad range of applications and argue that standalone scheduling software is the wrong choice for businesses that want to share information among applications. For example, Kronos Inc.'s scheduling software integrates with its other applications, such as sales forecasting. "We're a little skeptical that you can sell scheduling software alone. We're not sure there is enough meat there," says Jim Kizielewicz, Kronos' VP of marketing.

However, Turner Entertainment passed up staffing software used by its Turner Studios division that also helps schedule facilities and equipment. Says Hill: "We needed a more-focused application."

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