Are you tired of managing employee schedules on a spreadsheet but don’t have the budget for a more robust system? Look no further. Open-source employee scheduling software comprises publicly available modules created collaboratively by a global community of developers, delivering robust and transparent solutions for all your scheduling needs. And the best part? You can download them for free!

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But, choosing employee scheduling software requires detailed internal analysis because what works for others may not work for you. And that’s why we’re here. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the best solutions in the market and help devise a personalized selection strategy to find the best fit for your organization. Let’s dive in!

Article Roadmap

• Best Open-Source Employment Scheduling Software
  • TimeTrex Community Edition
  • Open HRMS
  • Staffjoy
  • OptaWeb Employee Rostering With OptaPlanner
• What Is Employee Scheduling Software?
• Why Choose Free Software?
• Key Features
• Additional Resources
• Software Selection Strategy
• Next Steps

Best Open-Source Employee Scheduling Software

Our analysts scourge the market regularly to compare the top systems and identify the best products based on usability, integrations, features, cost and other criteria. Here are our top picks:

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TimeTrex Community Edition

TimeTrex Community Edition offers open-source employee scheduling software and a payroll management suite for small and medium-sized organizations. It is available only as a self-deployed option. Over 50 developers from across the globe developed this system, and it supports attendance, leave management, scheduling and payroll management features.

With the open-source community edition, you can manage scheduling, leave requests and payroll at no cost.

TimeTrex’s attendance features give users visibility into employee time logs. Source

Top Benefits

• Optimize Databases: TimeTrex centralizes employee data in a single database. It saves and stores personal and contact details, profile pictures, emergency contacts, dependents, and job information.
• Streamline Payroll: The suite handles attendance and employee scheduling to process payroll from the same system.

Key Features

• Scheduling: It helps users automate simple and complex multi-week repeating and rotating schedules. Employees can access their schedules from any browser and sync them with smartphones.
• Leave Management: Employees can submit vacation requests and personal time off from within the platform. Configure employee requests to fit various levels of the organizational hierarchy.
• Time Tracking: TimeTrex lets organizations monitor employee attendance in multiple ways using a web browser. Users can set up the number of accruals to track sick days, vacation days and banked time. Employees can also view their accrued time off.

Limitations

• The TimeTrex Mobile app only works with the Community and Professional Edition or higher.
• Users cannot import punch data from MySQL databases.
• It is only available as a self-hosted deployment and not on the cloud.

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Open HRMS

Open HRMS is an open-source employee scheduling software suitable for small and large-sized companies. It supports human resources processes like onboarding, time tracking, scheduling, attendance management, appraisals and more.

It is based on Odoo open-source ERP and is available as a self-hosted module. The employee shift management module lets managers create shifts according to their work hours and assign shifts based on employee contracts. It lets you assign new shifts to a sequence and supports human resource management features.

Open HRMS displays important employee information in accessible lists. Source

Top Benefits

• Improve Decision-Making: Get an overview of human resources metrics like recruiting, employee performance and workforce deployment. Users can access pay stubs, timesheets, running contracts, employee details, leave requests, job applications received, open leave allocation requests and more. It supports leave analysis using bar graphs and pie charts on a per-department basis while considering upcoming birthdays and other employee details.
• Enhance Employee Databases: Users can organize and manage employee data in a centralized dashboard. It helps track leaves, timesheets, expenses, attendance, appraisals and more. Keep a log of the employee’s lifecycle, including personal information, system access permission, job details, contract, contact and other details. Users can also store employee certificates, licenses and passports.

Key Features

• Shift Management: The employee shift feature creates, tracks and manages shift modules. It helps users create shifts according to their working hours and assign them according to employee work contracts and shift sequences. It also defines a list of available shifts and lets users set flexible ones.
• Project Management: It lets users create multiple projects, supports task management and generates reports on task analysis. It has a project dashboard where users can create new projects, add details, configure different tasks and assign tasks to employees.
• Payroll Management: It generates pay stubs based on timesheets, salary rules and structures. Users can create contracts, set contract durations, and state salary benefits and work permits. The system can also leverage salary rules to define benefits based on different salary structures.
• Employee Benefits: Manage employee benefits like a loan, advance salary and insurance. Users can manage employee insurance allowances on a monthly or yearly basis, and the system will deduct and automatically adjust the pay stub. Managers can configure loan policies, assign approval authority, and verify and sanction loans for their teams. The system automatically deducts the required amount from payroll, and users can configure advance salary rules and set limits.
• Recruitment: The suite supports an applicant tracking system that helps list job openings, decide recruitment levels, track applications and allocate suitable resources. Managers and HR personnel can list skill sets and display the number of open dates and other information. It helps create a recruitment pipeline with multiple stages like interview, prequalification, skill set and tracking.
• Leaves and Attendance: Open HRMS helps users process attendance in real time with multiple options. It captures attendance data with kiosk mode, ID card swipes, employee portal logins and biometric integration. Users can configure different types of leaves and create a standard leave policy. It supports the configuration of leave request email formats, and every email in that format converts to a leave request.

Limitations

• It does not support a mobile app.
• It does not optimize scheduling automatically.

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Staffjoy

Staffjoy’s open-source employee scheduling software is designed for small and medium-sized enterprises to facilitate workforce scheduling and provide helpful notifications. It is only available as a self-hosted solution.

It comprises Chomp, Suit, Mobius and other open-source mobile repositories available on GitHub. It has features like shift management, time-off management, employee roles, time and attendance, multiple location attendance, and time-based tokens. However, the company is not operational anymore, and active development is no longer happening. The code is open-source and is available for free.

See exactly who is scheduled for every job and time slot with Staffjoy. Source

Top Benefits

• Improve Attendance Tracking: Staffjoy helps users track attendance and scheduling across various locations. It supports time-based tokens attached to user sessions.
• Enhance Collaboration: The platform notifies employees by SMS, informing them of their shift timings.
• Increase Scalability: It provides an open API for building and integrating apps.

Key Features

• Scheduling: Staffjoy inputs compliance rules and schedules employees as a response to forecasted requirements. It considers compliance requirements when preparing a schedule.
• Shift Management: Employees can enter available hours in the weekly planner. It also lets them check for open shifts and choose or swap shifts.
• Timeclock: The platform helps track check-in and check-out hours. Attendance records can be reviewed and utilized for payroll.
• Employee Roles: Users can add jobs by title, category and function. They can assign shifts based on their roles in every shift.
• Time-Off Requests: Employees can request time off, and managers can review and accept or reject time-off requests.

Limitations

• Staffjoy is not available as a cloud-based module. It is only available as a self-hosted software solution.
• Installation and setup have to be done by a developer with coding experience.
• There is no customer support.

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OptaWeb Employee Rostering With OptaPlanner

OptaWeb Employee Rostering with OptaPlanner is employee scheduling software with an open architecture that optimizes employee shift scheduling for companies of all sizes. It is an open-source constraint-solving web application that combines metaheuristics, artificial intelligence algorithms and constraint-solving techniques to streamline scheduling and solve planning problems.

The platform is embeddable and solves optimization problems. It is compatible with all Java Virtual Machine languages and runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. You can download the source code off the internet for free and customize the platform to fit your needs.

Customize the backend to design custom automation. Source

Top Benefits

• Streamline Scheduling: It solves scheduling optimization issues with the help of artificial intelligence algorithms.
• Improve Benchmarking: It comes pre-loaded with a benchmark tool that automatically selects algorithms suitable for solving issues.
• Work From Anywhere: Available as a web application that you can easily configure to work on the cloud.
• Increase Flexibility: Users can view when an employee is available in the calendar view. It displays employees’ preferences about the days they like in a color-coded view.

Key Features

• Employees and Skills: Create detailed employee profiles with skills and preferences to schedule effectively.
• Tenants: Users can define a tenant for every department or business. It comprises generated datasets from multiple industries like security guard shifts, help centers, factory assembly lines, call center employees and hospitals.
• Spots: This feature highlights unassigned tasks. Open spots can display the required skills necessary to fill them.
• Constraints: Users can define multiple constraints and sort them by soft, medium choices and applicable hard constraints while deciding schedules. It also displays schedule-based constraint issues. They can add more constraints when required.
• Shift Management: Manage employee shifts based on skills, time-off requests, availability and task requirements. It lets users create new shifts, assign employees and delete shifts. They can pin employees to specific shifts. Users can create weekly schedules and define the publishing period.

Limitations

• OptaWeb Employee Rostering with OptaPlanner does not support a cloud-based module and is only available as a self-hosted software solution.
• It does not include attendance and time functions.
• It does not provide a mobile application.

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What Is Employee Scheduling Software?

Employee scheduling software is a tool to track time, automate employee scheduling, increase productivity and streamline employee allocation. These systems usually track sick, vacation and compensation time while addressing common employee scheduling problems. You can use this data to process payroll and analyze past activities to gain helpful insights.

The software typically includes mobile apps to track attendance, facilitate onboarding and limit overtime. These features help managers reduce employee turnover and tackle employee management challenges and are much more efficient than using spreadsheets, whiteboards and markers. Both paid and open-source employee scheduling software suites are available on the market.

Primary Benefits

Now that you know what employee scheduling software is, let’s look at some of its benefits:

• Improve Efficiency: You can track the time employees spend on various tasks to assess their efficiency. Also, manage attendance issues and address them proactively when they arise.
• Increase Productivity: These systems reduce the time managers take to create and coordinate employee schedules. Managers can automate scheduling, which lets them concentrate on other essential tasks.
• Minimize Costs: Employee scheduling software automates employee time management tasks, freeing up teams for more valuable processes. Managers and HR personnel can focus their energy and time on other revenue-increasing tasks.
• Streamline Scheduling: Managers working on projects must plan and schedule for employees at peak times. For example, the retail industry needs more employees during the holidays as foot traffic increases. Managers have to prepare for seasonal fluctuations, and employee scheduling software helps assess and plan for them. You can also avoid overscheduling and save valuable resources while setting optimal schedules.
• Simplify HR Processes: Automation tools let a single manager handle recurring scheduling tasks without involving the entire team.

These aren’t the only benefits you’ll reap from integrating an employee scheduling solution, but why should you choose open-source software?

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Why Choose Free Software?

The biggest advantage of using open-source employee scheduling software is that it is free and does not add to the cost of conducting business. The only cost that the business incurs is implementation expenses. This low cost of entry makes these systems advantageous for small and medium-sized companies.

On top of this, the major advantage of open-source software is its scalability. You can completely control the platform’s development and remain undeterred by external factors like vendor support and technician availability.

However, since these systems are open source, businesses must hire a developer to implement them. The main disadvantage is that you need to deploy most open-source software as self-hosted solutions. They also do not offer mobile apps and must be accessed online.

Key Features

Open-source employee scheduling software doesn’t necessarily guarantee an improvement in business processes, but it does automate tedious administrative tasks. These suites also increase employee engagement, satisfaction and retention.

If you’re looking for more ways to streamline your management, these essential tools will help. Features vary by vendor, but some standard features are:

• Managers can approve employee requests for time off by type, including sick leave, paid time off and more.
• You can access a calendar or Gantt chart view of employee schedules.
• The platform permits employee shift swapping.
• It lets you manage data collection and automation.
• You can analyze workplace metrics and KPIs.
• The system integrates mobile applications.
• It helps identify unassigned shifts.
• You can create payroll and invoicing reports.

Compare Employee Scheduling Pricing & Costs with our Pricing Guide

Additional Resources

• Employee Scheduling Tips
• The Best Free Employee Scheduling Software
• The Best Cloud-Based Employee Scheduling Software

How To Choose Open-Source Employee Scheduling Software

The first step in software selection is to gather your business’s executives and department heads to determine your requirements and prioritize the employee scheduling features most important to your workflows.

Beyond your requirements checklist, here are a few crucial factors you should consider when comparing potential solutions:

• Usability and Flexibility: Most open-source platforms do not have vendor support, so choose the software you can comfortably use and customize. Look for systems with a vast community and knowledge base to refer to when facing issues.
• Integrations: Ensure that the new platform offers smooth connections with every other HR tool your organization uses and intends to use in the future.
• Mobility: Open-source platforms don’t offer mobile apps out of the box and need custom development. If you don’t have the resources, look for mobile-optimized solutions you can access and use via mobile browsers.
• Communication: Make sure the solution can digitize every line of communication between you, team members and departments. It helps eliminate paper trails and centralizes company chats to improve accountability for each task.
• Analytics: The platform must offer adequate reporting tools to track employee performances, absences, engagement, sales and other metrics. Advanced systems also offer BI tools to forecast demand and adjust workforces accordingly with auto-scheduling.
• Cost: You can download most open-source solutions from the internet for free. But we recommend checking the total cost of ownership as you may incur charges later for customizations, advanced features or third-party integrations.

Questions To Ask

Ask yourself these questions to understand your requirements better:

• Which pain points are we trying to solve?
• Which automation do we need?
• How can we improve the employee experience?
• How many employees will use the platform?
• Which integrations do we need?

The following questions can help you gauge the suitability of the software for your operations:

• Does the platform solve our unique problems?
• What’s its selling proposition?
• What level of customization does the system support?
• Which third-party integrations does the vendor offer?
• Does it have a considerable user community and knowledge base?

To simplify the software selection process, we’ve created a simple nine-step methodology that ensures you tick all the boxes and consider every option to identify the best fit for your business. We call it Lean Selection, and you should definitely give it a try!

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Next Steps

In a world where effective workforce management is non-negotiable, open-source employee scheduling software is a cost-effective and flexible solution that caters to the diverse scheduling needs of different businesses. These platforms help create efficient schedules, which in turn improves workforce productivity and reduces attrition — all at no cost.

So what’re you waiting for? Embrace the power of open source, and watch your workforce management soar to new heights! You can try our free comparison report to compare the top employee scheduling solutions based on your criteria.

How has deploying an open-source employee scheduling software helped your organization? Do you have any interesting insights to share? Drop a comment below. We’d love to hear from you!