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.
The Operations Director
Smart Planner's automatic proposals are documented in method, not just marketing: constraints default from the collective agreement, daily amplitude and weekly rest are set, and assignment rules that favour the lowest hourly rate are published, with staffing forecasts in the top plan and multi-establishment management. But we found no public information tying the forecast to a named demand source such as POS revenue or footfall, none on labour cost against budget while the plan is still editable, and none on sharing the same staff across sites — the loop I plan by stays open. 2 5 6