Sling Scheduling Review: Is It Right for Your Business?

Create a great schedule with Sling and save it as a template to use over and over. Sling tracks availability so that you don’t schedule someone for overlapping shifts. You can post shifts to employees and let them choose which they prefer or announce open shifts for the taking. The auto-assign shift feature, available with the Business plan, can build the schedule for you by assigning employees based on skills and availability.

The paid plans come with a time clock that is included in the mobile app. With the time clock, you can easily track employee hours and export time sheets for quick payroll processing. You can also set it up as a kiosk. It lets employees clock in and out with their personal devices. You can set rules to prevent early clock-in and automatically clock an employee out at the end of their shift. The geofencing tools ensure employees are at the correct location when clocking in or out.

Sling starts with sharing schedules, setting shift alarms and notifications, and letting employees swap shifts, either on the mobile app or via desktop. Managers can get alerts when an employee is late, requests time off, is approaching overtime, and more. In addition, Sling offers private and group messages and sends announcements and event notifications. The social-media-style format lets employees “like” and comment on posts, and you can get notifications that messages are read.

The mobile app offers nearly all the features found on the desktop version. Managers can create and post schedules, send announcements, and get notifications and alerts. Meanwhile, employees can chat with coworkers, accept open shifts, request shift trades, request time off, and get reminders about shifts. The GPS feature on the time clock allows for geofencing and can automatically clock an employee out when they leave an area or after their shift ends.

The app is well-regarded by users, who say it’s very easy to use and effective for scheduling. Employees liked the reminders. Some users had trouble logging in.

User Scores

• Android: 4.8 out of 5 stars with 6,500+ reviews
• iOS: 4.7 out of 5 stars with 24,000+ reviews

Sling offers a robust task management feature to help clarify shift duties. You can set up to-do lists for individuals, positions, or teams—breaking them down into specific actions using the SMART methodology (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound). You can also save recurring lists, such as for opening or closing so that you can reuse them.

Checklists can be managed on mobile so that employees can mark off items as they complete them, wherever they are. Managers can access the lists to keep up with performances.

Sling does not offer as many native integrations as other scheduling software, but it is working on building that list. Currently, it integrates with Toast, Shopify, Square, Gusto, Harbortouch, ADP, Restaurant Manager POS, and POSitouch.

These integrations will make it easier to pull sales information from your point-of-sale (POS) system, send timesheets directly to your payroll service, and sync employee data. This helps you streamline processes and conduct a deeper analysis of labor costs vs sales.

Sling’s rules-setting tools can help you stay compliant with labor laws, and checklists can provide a “paper trail” of compliance for health, safety, and other industry regulations.

Sling pulls the time clock data into time sheets that managers can view and approve at the end of each pay period. Once any issues are fixed, you can export them to your integrated payroll system or as a CSV file.

Sling offers reports for Labor, Time Off, Sales, Attendance, and Payroll. In addition, you can create your own reports by filtering date ranges, locations, and other fields. You can also choose what columns of data you want in a full report and modify how you want to view time—in decimal format or by hours and minutes.