New and existing TimeForge users received a major upgrade on Thursday night, as the TimeForge system was updated to provide more flexible scheduling, new time and attendance functionality, and brand new Communication Log features! Some of the new features include:

• Availability Requests have been upgraded and are now easier to use. Outstanding employee availability requests are presented as part of the schedule making process and employees are constantly informed of any changes to their availability.

• Never accidentally schedule staff before or after closing the store! Open and closing times can be configured while making the schedule, and warnings are displayed when staff are scheduled before the store is open or after the store is closed.

• Employees are automatically notified by text message when management approves a shift swap.

• Export punch-in and punch-out times to payroll for easy processing. TimeForge has partnered with CompuPay, a leading provider of payroll for small-to-medium retailers and restaurants. Hours can be exported to CompuPay with a single click!

• Easily identify which employees need to work in specific stations or sections, and schedule these positions with a single click. No more typing “Section 1” or “Pizza” or “Lane 3” when making schedules!

• In accordance with state and federal laws, each position (or job code) can have multiple pay rates, depending on the time of day. Always make sure that employees are paid appropriately!

• Employees can now search for a shift to pick up, or can pick up any shift that has been given up shift by another employee – if approved by management.

• Support for delivery drivers is now included! Drivers can enter tips and mileage for their shifts directly into the TimeForge Time and Attendance module.

• Support for break and meal periods has been enhanced, and managers can now create specific break and meal periods for each shift when building the labor schedule.

• Decisions about your business that include the weather can now be made directly from TimeForge. TimeForge includes weather forecasts on the “To Do Today” page.

• New reports! New TimeForge reports include summary reports for time and attendance, as well as several new scheduling reports.

• Are employees asking for the ability to print the schedule, or a copy of the request log? A setting inside of TimeForge will allow employees to print their own copy of the schedule, breaks, or requests.

• Does your shift need more information than TimeForge normally provides? You can now enter shift notes directly on to the schedule while building shifts!

• Significant improvements to TimeForge Attendance were made – time and attendance entries can be sorted a number of different ways, and a note can be entered for each attendance entry.

As always, feedback on the new TimeForge functionality is always appreciated!

As previously mentioned, the team behind the TimeForge employee scheduling software has been working hard on version 1.9.2 of TimeForge - released today, Jan 1, 2008. Happy New Year!

So, what’s new in TimeForge? A lot! Some of our recent improvements include:

• Messages about your schedule are available on all of the schedule views (including the daily, weekly detail, and weekly summary views). You can see which “rules” have been broken by your management team while building the schedule, whether the shifts were created by the AutoScheduler or by management.

• Day Parts are now displayed in the schedule (on the day view), and can be used to segment your day into different parts (for instance morning, afternoon, and evening shifts).

• Day Parts are also visible when looking at employee availability. You can quickly see what shifts employees are available to work.

• When editing an availability request, you can click on the day of the week to make an all-day request.

• A new report: On the report page, there is a new 7-day schedule, called “Condensed 7-day schedule, sorted by position.” This new report is a variation of the Condensed 7-day schedule, where all of the employees are grouped by the position / department.

• Templates have been updated to look like the Daily Schedule View, including graphing and different views of the day (sort by position or employee).

• Additional numerous small improvements were made to the software ….

How long does it take to make your labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?