whats-best.ai

Employee Scheduling

Aplano

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Aplano GmbH · www.aplano.de

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Works Council Advocate

Weighted verdict

Co-determines how hours and overtime are distributed and how staff are monitored (BetrVG §87), and will not sign a works agreement for a system that watches more than it plans. Asks who sees absence reasons, what the app stores about location, what is logged and when it is deleted. Reads "performance insights" as a warning.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Works Council Advocate

Roster building & demand planning

How this is scored

How a plan gets built across locations, roles and qualifications — templates, staffing requirements, forecasting from sales or occupancy, and whether the product proposes a roster or only draws one.

0 — A shared calendar of shifts; no templates, no roles or qualifications, and no notion of how many people a shift needs.

3 — Shift templates and a weekly grid per location, with roles attached, but staffing needs and qualifications are the planner's memory rather than the system's.

5 — Templates, roles and qualifications, staffing requirements per shift, open shifts, multiple locations and departments, and coverage gaps shown before publication.

8 — Demand-based planning from a named data source (POS revenue, footfall, occupancy or bookings), automatic roster proposals the planner can accept or adjust, labour cost shown against budget while planning, and cross-location staff sharing.

10 — Planning closes the loop: forecast, proposed roster and actual hours compared in one place, the proposal explains which rule or demand figure drove each assignment, and the vendor documents the forecasting method rather than calling it AI.

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The Works Council Advocate

Templates carry a role field and a staffing-requirement number, and a generator proposes a roster the planner can accept, reject or regenerate; but we found no public information on qualifications, multiple locations, coverage-gap warnings, or any demand source such as POS or occupancy feeding the plan. As a works council I also note the automation is advertised for saving planning time, with no statement of which rule drives an assignment. 1 5 6

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Working-time law & collective agreements

How this is scored

Whether the roster knows the rules it is subject to — ArbZG rest periods and maximum hours, youth and maternity protection, Minijob earnings limits, Tarifvertrag and works-agreement rules, surcharges — and whether it enforces them, warns, or leaves them to the export.

0 — No working-time rules described anywhere; the pages mention no check on daily hours, breaks or rest periods.

3 — Compliance is claimed as "supported" but the pages name no specific rule, or only a generic overtime warning exists.

5 — Named checks for the ArbZG daily maximum, the 11-hour rest period and breaks, plus a Minijob earnings warning, shown to the planner before publication; whether the check blocks or only warns is stated.

8 — Configurable rule sets per contract or employee group covering Tarifvertrag surcharges (night, Sunday, holiday), time accounts, youth-protection limits and works-agreement rules, with the planner's override of a violation recorded and reasoned.

10 — The rules are modelled as law, not as warnings: maintained rule sets for named collective agreements, sector-specific exceptions (care, hospitality) documented with the statute they rely on, every override attributable, and published guidance mapping each feature to the provision it serves.

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The Works Council Advocate

Break rules and rest periods are named as configurable settings and overtime is tracked, which is more than a bare compliance claim; but no statute or ArbZG provision is cited, no Minijob or youth-protection check appears, and nothing says whether a violation blocks publication or only warns. Collective-agreement surcharges and works-agreement rule sets are entirely absent from the captured pages. 1 2 8 9

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Mobile self-service for deskless staff

How this is scored

What the employee on the shop floor actually gets: a mobile app to read the roster, enter availability, request and accept swaps, claim open shifts and clock in — in their language, on their own device or a shared one.

0 — No employee access; the roster is printed or sent as a PDF.

3 — A read-only app or web view of one's own shifts, with changes still requested by phone or chat.

5 — Mobile app with availability entry, absence requests, shift-swap requests with manager approval, open-shift claiming and push notification of changes.

8 — Swaps and open shifts resolved under the rule set (qualifications and rest periods checked before approval), clock-in by app or shared terminal with offline handling, multilingual interface, and team communication that keeps shift talk out of private messengers.

10 — Self-service is designed for people who never open a laptop: swap and cover flows that resolve without a manager where the rules allow, accessibility and language coverage stated, use on a shared or personal device both supported, and employees able to see and export the data held about them.

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The Works Council Advocate

The app gives staff availability entry with start and end times, vacation requests with automatic account adjustment, swaps under manager confirmation, open-shift applications, push notifications, chat and clock-in by phone or tablet station — solid self-service on paper. We found no public information on whether swaps are checked against rest periods or qualifications before approval, on offline handling, or on language coverage, and nothing on employees exporting the data held about them beyond a generic rights list in the privacy policy. 1 9 10

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Works council & employee data

How this is scored

Whether the product can be introduced under co-determination (BetrVG § 87) — role-based visibility, what is logged, which monitoring can be switched off, retention of availability, absence and location data — and whether the vendor supplies what a works agreement needs.

0 — No roles or visibility settings described, no statement of what is stored, logged or retained, and GPS or activity tracking presented without any mention of switching it off.

3 — Basic admin and employee roles exist, but visibility of absence reasons or location data is not configurable and retention is unstated.

5 — Configurable roles limiting who sees whose data, GPS and similar tracking optional and off by default or stated as switchable, a published DPA, and a retention or deletion statement for employee records.

8 — Fine-grained visibility (absence reasons hidden from colleagues and line managers where not needed), an audit log of who viewed and changed an individual's data, configurable deletion periods, and documentation the vendor offers for works-council approval.

10 — Data minimisation is designed in and evidenced: a model works agreement or feature-by-feature data inventory published, no performance or behaviour scoring of individuals, monitoring functions individually deactivatable, and deletion executed automatically per configured period.

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The Works Council Advocate

Three permission types, a change log, a mandatory data-processing agreement, a 14-day log deletion and a stated renunciation of automated decision-making are a start, but location-precise time capture via geolocation and geofencing is advertised without a single word about switching it off. We found no public information on who may see absence reasons, on an audit log of who viewed an individual's data, on configurable deletion periods for employee records, or on any documentation offered for works-council approval — I could not co-sign a works agreement on this evidence. 1 2 3 9

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Payroll handoff & integrations

How this is scored

How planned and worked hours, surcharges and absences reach payroll — DATEV, Lohn und Gehalt, the tax adviser — and how the roster connects to the POS, HR and time systems a shift business already runs.

0 — No payroll path and no integrations; the month leaves as a spreadsheet someone retypes.

3 — Generic CSV export said to suit payroll, with no named payroll system and no surcharge handling.

5 — A named payroll integration or documented export (e.g. DATEV Lohn und Gehalt or LODAS) covering hours, absences and surcharges, plus at least one named POS or HR integration.

8 — Vendor-maintained payroll integrations with a lock step before transmission, wage types mapped per surcharge, POS integrations feeding forecasting, an HR master-data sync, and a documented API.

10 — Payroll is designed for, not exported to: several named payroll systems maintained, retro corrections after the close handled, the tax adviser given scoped access, and a versioned public API with webhooks and a deprecation policy.

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The Works Council Advocate

Hours and evaluations leave as CSV, PDF or Excel and the employee list imports and exports as CSV, but we found no public information on any named payroll system such as DATEV, on surcharge or wage-type handling, on POS or HR integrations, or on a documented API. The month is still something someone retypes. 2

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the employee data lives, who the contracting entity is, who the subprocessors are, and whether that is documented rather than assumed. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; weighted seriously here, because a scheduling tool holds availability, absence and often location data about employees who had no say in the vendor.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting region unstated or non-EU, subprocessors not named.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option or claimed without a provider, while the contracting entity is non-EU or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but the subprocessor chain (messaging, push notification, analytics, support) includes non-EU providers without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU or DACH hosting with a named data-centre provider, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, and any non-EU processing — push notification services included — named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor in the EU, certification published, and a DPA that covers the employee data the app collects on personal devices.

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The Works Council Advocate

Aplano is a German GmbH with development in Germany and a published privacy policy naming its service providers and an external German data-protection officer. But we found no public information on where the application's employee data — availabilities, absences, stamped times, locations — is actually hosted, and the disclosed chain includes US companies such as Microsoft and Mailchimp for tracking and newsletters, so the sovereignty picture is assumed rather than evidenced. 3 4

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual invoice for their headcount and locations — including the time clock, payroll export, forecasting and other modules sold as add-ons — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-employee headline exists, but which features sit in which tier, the add-on modules, or a minimum seat or location count are unpriced or unmentioned.

5 — Per-employee or per-location prices public for the main tiers with the billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed piece (time clock, payroll export, forecasting, terminal hardware) is an unpriced add-on.

8 — Every tier and add-on priced publicly with the per-employee maths, how inactive or seasonal staff are counted, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; only genuinely custom work lacks a number.

10 — Complete price computability: a calculator or table producing the annual invoice for a given headcount, location count and module selection, including hardware, onboarding and renewal terms.

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The Works Council Advocate

All three tiers carry public per-employee monthly prices with a one-month minimum term, deactivated users are not billed, and the trial requires no payment details — a buyer can compute most of the invoice. We found no public information on VAT treatment, on pricing for the terminal hardware with fingerprint or RFID reader, or on which tiers include the time clock. 1 2 9

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors EU only ⚠ unverified 2/2 pts 3 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Sources (10)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.aplano.de Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing page www.aplano.de Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy www.aplano.de Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Legal notice www.aplano.de Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Roster building & demand planning — found from sitemap help.aplano.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Roster building & demand planning — found from sitemap help.aplano.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Working-time law & collective agreements — found from sitemap help.aplano.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Working-time law & collective agreements — found from sitemap www.aplano.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Mobile self-service for deskless staff — found from sitemap www.aplano.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Mobile self-service for deskless staff — found from sitemap www.aplano.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →