Sling: Employee Scheduling App Reviews

by WyoJoeJoe

When you spend more time getting tech support to try to make Sling operational than actually being productive with it, it’s a garbage app. If Sling were a phone and every time you tried to make a call but needed to go to the store to have them fix it, then every time people tried to call you but couldn’t so you have to go to the store to have them fix it, then sending a message……. (You get the idea), you’d get rid of the phone because it doesn’t work. This is what Sling is like. It only works while you call tech support every three or four days. My boss likes just one function of offers and that’s the “hour notice”. Who cares?! The employees should know their shift already. But my boss keeps hanging onto Sling saying “it works! We just need to keep calling tech support”… that means it’s NOT working! They should have worked out the bugs before releasing Sling .

It’s free but don’t waste your time with Sling. It’s more frustration than a help. Chose another app. You’ll thank me later.

by BRebmann

I have Sling since my employer requires us to, and the way we clock in is by taking a picture of a computer screen with the time and date on it, and messaging it to her. If I were to text her this, it would take mere moments, but on Sling it is an entire process that takes probably three times as long. Messaging on Sling is horrendously slow. Also, just to launch Sling takes a while, too. I think they just don’t have enough server room to host everyone, but this is a major issue. Also, I’ve had the red notification bubble on my app since I downloaded it, and it won’t go away. I don’t have any new messages or notifications, it’s just there and it refuses to go away. Overall, an app like Trello would be better, or really a host of the other workplace organization apps that are out there. The only reason I didn’t give it 1 star is because it does actually work, like 70% of the time.

by Livin On The Edge

I use Sling as an employee and it really makes scheduling easier but it has a some bugs in it that are really annoying. Most of the time when I try to change the times for my unavailability it never chooses the time I actually wanted and puts some other time that I scrolled over instead. Also every so often it won’t even let me put any unavailability in for certain days of the week other than all day unavailable which is very annoying. And forget about trying to look at the future schedules cause almost all of the time when trying to scroll to next week’s schedule or anything past that it’ll just pull you back to this week’s and maybe if you get lucky you’ll actually see it.

by Star7anne

Sling is quite nice overall and I really wanted to like it. It seemed like it would be a great fit as Scheduling things is pretty easy. It has a nice user interface and is functional. However the inability to integrate your schedule with an external calendar makes Sling useless to a worker. If you are a user/employee who is scheduling things ad-hoc and picking up different shifts, not being able to add it to your actual calendar is a dealbreaker. A worker needs to be able to schedule work and then put it their calendar. This is the most basic of an employee’s user story, it’s a shame this key feature has been ignored by Sling builders. Once this feature is created, I would upgrade this to a 4 Star app. Without it, it’s a marginally useful 2 Star app.

by Wheezamoss

I don’t like the way available shifts are set up (listed like line items), hard to track the new from old and it’s never the same order when logging on... Sling is not user friendly to employees. Examples:
1) Sling asked for feedback but I can’t see the window that it’s giving me to type in because the screen won’t scroll so my keyboard covers it.
2) Sometimes available shifts populate, so I check my calendar and when returning to the screen, the shift doesn’t populate. Getting out of Sling and back in, the shift is there... inconsistent.
3) The order of available shifts is constantly changing, different every time I log on.
4) Hard to visualize available shifts, a full month screen with a dot on days shifts are available would be nice.

by Scyanix

Sling is simple to use and the design is aesthetically pleasing, making it easy to see your shifts. However, there are a couple things that need fixed. Most notably broken is the widget; it simply displays, “We couldn’t find your shifts. Are you logged in the this app app?”. This function worked previously on my iPhone 6 running iOS 9.3.3, but has never worked on my iPhone XS running iOS 12.0.1. This was the main way I checked my shifts, and it made it so much easier. I don’t know if Sling version was different, or if there is just an unknown compatibility issue where the widget feature only works on some versions of iOS. Lastly, as mentioned by another reviewer, the notifications are inconsistent at best, and completely missing or useless at worst. Most of the time I forget I have it set to remind me of my upcoming shift, because it either doesn’t push a notification, or it notifies me when my shift is starting in under 5 minutes. While this has never caused me to be late to work (as it isn’t my primary method of time management and ultimately one should be responsible for themself in regards to getting to work), it would be nice to have peace of mind knowing you have a reliable backup alert. Overall, I enjoy using the this app app to view and manage my shifts, and I hope to see improvements soon.

by Willis Vegas

Sling is wonderful for the most part. I love how frequently they update it to fix bugs, and how available they are to answer questions. The only thing that get really irritating is some of their updates make Sling notify you up to 4 times that your shift is about to start. Sometimes they aren’t even helpful notifications, like a 1 minute warning?! Seriously?!? Can we make it an option to toggle those notifications to 1 hr or 30 min or both? After 30 minutes, nobody cares anymore! Lol 😂 I can’t get to work with a 1 minute warning, and I’m pretty sure I was aware of my shift starting from the other 3 notifications!

by Cincocola

Our small, family owned business has gone from a paper schedule to Sling for our 35 employees. It’s easy and user friendly. As a manager I would just like to see who the original shift belonged to after it was swapped or picked up. That way if someone forgot about picking a shift up, it can be traced by that person, possibly adding the date it was swapped or picked up as well. That way a staff member doesn’t think the manager messed up scheduling and they did in fact agree to picking up a shift. These type of schedule changes require a manager approval anyway. Thanks so much!

by Christmas Light!

Would love a function/ update to include options to choose “accruals” or type of leave-when requesting time off. This will enable management to type which type(s) of leaves are being used. Additionally, reports can be ran with this and the employees can keep updated what their accruals are in their bank. If they have 5 hours of vacation, and the employee try’s to take a 8 hour vacation, this app will prompt a conflict or error alerting management. Also, I highly recommend enhancing the work chat or messaging feature. It would be nice to make it function more like an IM rather than a email.

by Winery, Stroudsburg,PA

My staff & I have been using this app for a couple of years and find it extremely user friendly. It’s not only used to schedule shifts, but also for communicating to either the entire team or just a few with the message section. That also helps with keeping a record of communication. Would highly recommend. When using Sling , it does occasionally freeze up and if you’re trying to schedule a few weeks out, there isn’t a quick option to plug in a date, you have to scroll one week at a time. That’s when it typically freezes and you have to go out of Sling and back in. Still a great choice.

by Botfam

As an employee, Sling is a great idea. You can have your schedule accessible on your phone. You can easily provide your availability, ask for time off and give and take shifts. My main complaint it that you can’t see who you are working a shift with ( there is a tiny thumbnail photo that you can’t distinguish/ enlarge. Also sometimes you can dismiss notifications if for example you are a server and you don’t want a host shift. But sometimes you can’t and there are often 10-15 available. It makes it hard to see what you might be interested in. That’s all I can think of! Oh maybe as a bonus making this able to sync with calendars ( iPhone etc)...

by EmLo5

We use Sling to assign cleaning shifts to multiple people for our Airbnb listings. It has been so easy to use, customer service was really helpful when I had questions at the beginning, and our cleaning gals get notifications automatically for shifts they’ve signed up for. This has taken a huge burden off of me, assigning and reminding via text prior to using Shifts. Now I just put dates on the shift calendar, publish them for the employees, and they get notified there are new shifts, so they can hop on and claim the ones they want. I LOVE Sling!!

by Th'jeffro

They are awesome. Hey is there’s any info anywhere on this app or the vail epic “tiles” about the Attiude Adjustment Party tonight? It’s always a great event and raises money for local charities.
But I can’t find any info on it from any of the vail tiles. Kinda sad. But cool anyway vail. I’ll find info anyway on other social media. I hope it’s just me being dumb not finding it and not the dumbness of it not being posted by vail anywhere!? But, cool… thanks ski patrol for all off your great efforts not only for your traditional party tonight - but all your life savings efforts. You rock.

by Yocca28

I absolutely love this app. I fully believe if you have great product, don’t be afraid to give some of it away for free because people will inevitably beg to pay you; that’s exactly what they’ve done. There is nothing else like it on the market. It’s robust, intuitive and constantly improving.

To the developers, I would love to see more control for mangers in Sling . The ability to see and change employee availability similar to the web based application would be extremely helpful.

Keep up the great work!

by Poshinytgjhgtt Nauta

Thank goodness for you guys too sorry bro I’m just getting ready to go get some stuff to work on the beach lol I’m going back to the beach today to get my hair trimmed I’m sorry but if I’m still going back to the house I’m going to get some rest I need some more stuff to put on my face I don’t know what I want to say to me but I’m still good etc twitter twtit I’ll see you tomorrow if I’m not done I just got off my work I’m sorry but I don’t know what I mean but I’m still not interested but if you don’t know I can call him but if you want me he can come back and get it done I don’t want him I don’t know how much he wants me but I you know he is so sorry I didn’t tell him I didn’t want you to know I didn’t know titetw he was going with you and I don’t know what you mean

by Jenni2012

I’ve used a few different scheduling apps and this one is my favorite because it is so simple and straightforward. Employees can set and update their (un)availability and request time off. Sling notifies you when you’re assigning shifts if there’s a scheduling conflict with any time off requests or certain unavailable times. It also notifies the employee before the shift in case they forgot they had to work. Employees can swap shifts easily. Management is informed of all schedule changes because they have to be approved first by a manager in Sling . Finally , Employees can use the messenger feature to communicate without resorting to the obnoxious old group text.

by Lachmans

Love Sling. Easily one of my favorite tools as a small business owner. We have 12 people on staff, shifts vary, and there are many occasions where people need coverage.

this app makes it so easy to schedule ahead. Employees can easily manage coverage of their shifts without me having to jump in each time. this app gives helpful reminders so employees are almost never late.

Really helps with payroll too. And Sling is so great because you can do all essential things from your phone, including to create a shift or change the time of it, etc.

And you can clock in and out on your phone. Geolocation and time limits on the front and back of shifts is a big help to ensure no one clicks in before they actually start.

Seriously am thrilled with Sling. Employees love it too. No question that it is one of the most important and best tools for our operations.

by Jsis74

Do you offer, or will you be offering, the this app Employee Scheduling App for the Apple Watch soon, or are there plans to make a Apple Watch compatible app any time soon? Besides not having a watch compatible app, that’s literally the only possible downside I see with it. The iPhone, iPad and online arenas for this app are fantastic. Just would be nice to have a Apple Watch compatible app for it just to be able to see one’s schedule, doesn’t have to be much more than that. But to see your schedule on a watch would be fantastic!!

by .gem.

I love Sling. I have been using it for about nine months and has really made the process of scheduling my team so much easier.
The ability to repeat shifts, create positions, locations, and see accumulated hours for each week make scheduling fast and simple. The level of personalization to fit the needs of the business is fantastic.
I only have two hang ups: (1) there is not a simple way to block all schedules for an office closure/holiday. (2) weekends can’t be “hidden” on the web version.
That aside, I cannot say enough about how much this has transformed the way I schedule!

by LancSnap

I have tried many different scheduling apps but none compare to this app. Sling is so easy to use and my employees love it too. It reminds them when they have a shift and allows them to mark unavailable days and ask for time off. Our schedules are very complex with lots of “as needed” employees and this app makes it easy to know who is available when and to add them on the schedule. Employees are notified when you add them to the schedule and reminded when their shift comes up. Even better you can do all this on the free version. I have not upgraded to the paid version yet, but we probably will soon since we love it so much.

by ManicStorm

It fails to load things every time I use it. I’ll be scrolling through my schedule for the week and Sling often brings up the loading screen but nothing else happens. So I have to force-close Sling and start over. Or Sling will just close by itself altogether. And I know it’s not an issue on my end because coworkers have the same issue. Honestly I only have Sling because my employer uses this and only this to post the schedule. It makes me wish we’d go back to a paper schedule. It’s only getting 2 stars because having my schedule on my phone IS convenient, otherwise it would get 1 star. Hopefully these bugs can be worked out ASAP.

by PdxGreenGirl

Several things could be much easier for quick scheduling
The calendar could open to the day it actually is, the dates should have a day of the week below them, half shifts not showing on the full schedule etc, many small things that make people want to just not use Sling .
Glaringly-the biggest issue-is that it does not work the same way the laptop version does!
ALL INTERFACES SHOULD BE THE SAME!
Not an issue-try instructing 40 people what steps to take but you are on the computer and they are on phones-you look like an idiot right quick.

by Keiko M.

I've only been using Sling for a week or so now, but I like it so far! Interface is easy to use/pleasant looking, and it has handy features. Here's some suggestions for future updates: Add more reminder time options (like 24 hrs before shift, or custom/multiple reminders), edit: whoops! I see that viewing other employees schedules is an option, I just didn't see it. 😅 One more suggestion! I can see employee birthdays in the wesbite/browser version but not on Sling . Otherwise great app!

by John605

Been using this app for free for about a year now. I don’t think I’ll need to use the features for the paid version but if I did end up needing them it’s cheap and wouldn’t have an issue of paying it. I use it for mostly scheduling. I have 10 employees and it works great. The ease of filling out a schedule and the employees are able to review their schedule is great. We also communicate through Sling too. Just like group texting but all on Sling . I highly recommend.