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Employee Scheduling

When I Work

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 1 of 4 dimensions proven

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

by When I Work, Inc. · wheniwork.com

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

The Frontline Employee

Weighted verdict

Works part-time shifts next to a second job or a degree and never opens a laptop at work. Judges the product by its phone app: can she mark availability, swap a shift without three calls, see her hours, and read it in her own language. A roster she learns about from a photo in a group chat has failed.

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

Scored by The Frontline Employee

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 Frontline Employee

Shift templates, skills and certification tracking, open shifts and labour sharing across unlimited sites are all shown, and the auto-scheduler proposes matches by eligibility, availability and preferences — a real proposed plan, not just a grid. It stops short of the top: forecasting compares scheduled hours to unnamed "future demand" with no till-revenue or footfall source named, and I found no public information on staffing counts per shift or coverage gaps being shown before publication. 1 2

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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 Frontline Employee

The only rule-adjacent things anywhere are generic overtime and break tracking, and the terms state the service is designed for United States workplaces. I found no public information on the German daily-hours maximum, the 11-hour rest period, Minijob limits or collective-agreement surcharges — the rules stay in the planner's memory. 2 4

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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 Frontline Employee

The phone side looks real: a mobile app with time-off and availability management, swap reviews, open-shift claiming, shift confirmation alerts, GPS clock-in and built-in messaging instead of a photo in a group chat. But I found no public information on the app's languages, offline handling, or swaps being checked against qualifications and rest rules before approval — for someone who reads the roster in her own language, that silence matters. 1 2 4

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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 Frontline Employee

Admin, supervisor, manager and employee roles are described and "advanced privacy and data controls" are claimed, but the privacy policy presents GPS location collection with no statement that a workplace can switch it off. I found no public information on retention or deletion of employee records, an audit log, a published data processing agreement, or anything a works council could work with. 2 3 4

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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 Frontline Employee

Four payroll systems are named — Rippling, ADP, QuickBooks, Gusto — said to receive attendance and labor data, alongside a documented API and a claimed POS integration. But no POS system is named, and I found no public information on how surcharges or absences are mapped or on any check before transmission. 1 2 4

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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 Frontline Employee

This is an American product end to end — a Minneapolis entity, primary data centres in the United States, terms stating it is designed for US use; the captured pages even give different entity names (When I Work, Inc. and When I Work, LLC), both American. The subprocessor list is not published, no certifications are stated, and nothing documents where my availability and GPS data legally sit. 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 Frontline Employee

Two headline prices are public — plans "starting at just $2.50 per user per month" and "Multiple locations or schedules $5 /user/month" — with monthly or annual billing, no setup fees, no contracts, and every plan said to include full access. The enterprise tier is contact-sales only, and I found no public information on tax treatment or how seasonal and inactive staff are counted. 1 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

1 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 US by default ⚠ unverified 0/3 pts 3 Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited 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.

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Sources (13)

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

  1. 1 Vendor homepage wheniwork.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing page wheniwork.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy wheniwork.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Terms of service wheniwork.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Roster building & demand planning — found from sitemap wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Roster building & demand planning — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Working-time law & collective agreements — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Working-time law & collective agreements — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Mobile self-service for deskless staff — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Mobile self-service for deskless staff — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Works council & employee data — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Payroll handoff & integrations — found from sitemap help.wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Payroll handoff & integrations — found from sitemap wheniwork.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →