ScheduleAnywhere.com: An ASP for managers on the go

In this newsletter, we’ve covered a number of application service provider offerings with an eye on what works well and offers better value than you trying to implement the same functionality.

Today we have a fine example of just that, an ASP offering that works well, fulfills a useful role in your business processes, and does so at a compelling price. The service is ScheduleAnywhere.com from Atlas Business Services (see editorial links below).

Atlas Business Services has a lot of experience with scheduling products, having offered a number of titles for Windows since 1991, and boasts 60,000 customers. ScheduleAnywhere.com moves its expertise online.

ScheduleAnywhere.com is intended to scale from small businesses to large corporations, and you assign managers to schedule their own departments, allocate a single scheduler or use any combination you need.

After you set up an account on ScheduleAnywhere.com and enter in your staff names and access privileges you can assign work shifts, shift patterns and rotations, and track staff time off.  You can view schedules by position, department or location in one of four different formats – 1 Day, 7 Day, 14 Day, or 28 Day – and check coverage as staff availability changes.

Other than an Internet connection, you will need Internet Explorer 5.0+ or Netscape 6.0+ and a screen resolution of 1024×768.

ScheduleAnywhere.com is free for the first 30 days of use (there are no commitments or long-term contracts) and $19.95 per month for the first 25 employees and 50 cents per month for each additional employee.

At less than 50 cents per employee, per month ($6 per year) this compares very favorably with ABS’s $100-per-user for packaged version.