Microsoft today declared the general availability of its StaffHub scheduling app. The app is accessible for customers of Microsoft’s Office 365 K1, E1, E3, and E5 plans on Android, iOS and the web.
StaffHub was initially launched by Microsoft in September, in the form of a public preview of the application. It is basically a cloud based platform which provides tasks — as well as tools to complete it — to the Manager and his employees. It allows the workers view schedules, swap shifts, and request time off, whereas, managers can create schedules, approve requests, and share information.
The program is basically aimed towards users who don’t spend all their time over desktops. The biggest beneficiaries of the app would be folks who operate over different schedules over different weeks such as workers in retail, hospitality, restaurants and similar industries. While their managers would be able to create their schedules over desktop, workers themselves would be able to access it over mobiles and mark the changes made to their schedules.
Managers can also add stuff like day/night shift, include notes for the kind of work that should be performed and so on and so forth.
As per Office 365 General Manager Bryan Goode,
There’s half a billion frontline staff workers in the world. Most companies, though, haven’t actually provided digital tools for these folks…but companies are starting to recognize the benefits of moving some of these offline processes and taking them online.
The mobile-oriented nature makes StaffHub a perfect example for the kind of app Microsoft is investing in these days. It is the app that would help a lot of people to work in groups and produce more productive results. But these applications don’t have a notable spot in Microsoft’s own operating system.
This fact is also true for Microsoft Office apps, like Outlook, Word, Excel, and OneNote. The company has also acquired MilelQ, WunderList and SwiftKey. Microsoft recently launched a team collaboration app which stacked iOS and Android apps.
VentureBeat has been notified that the claims about StaffHub being partially based on a scheduling app, called Shiftr, are untrue and StaffHub has been produced privately and doesn’t draw on technology from any acquisition.
StaffHub is automatically enabled for qualified Office 365 customers, and the administrators can turn it off at their will. However, an Office 365 account is mandatory for using this app, by any employee or manager. The app is presently available in 14 languages, which are- Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Danish, Dutch, English (U.S.), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
