There are two types of employee scheduling and two types of employee scheduling software:
Static (often called shift-based) is a type of scheduling that deals with work shifts that practically never change. Businesses that do static scheduling typically have two or more shifts in a 24 hour period that need to be covered by employees. Employees are rotated through those shifts with some pre-defined periodicity. An example of shift-based scheduling business would be 24 hour restaurants where waitresses are covering three 8 hour shifts.
Another important aspect of static scheduling is that any given shift is typically permanently attached to specific location or client. For example: cash register 1, 2 and 3 in retail store, need to be covered by employees from 8am - 8pm.
Dynamic scheduling deals with work shifts and locations/clients that constantly change. Home Care and Employment agencies, Pet Sitting services and HVAC technicians would be an example of businesses that deal with dynamic scheduling. Employees are typically scheduled to service different locations/clients at different times.
Any given employee scheduling software would cater to one type of scheduling or another.
So, the first important question that you need to ask yourself is what type of scheduling do you do? Static or dynamic?
About 70% of employee scheduling software on the market today is geared towards static shift-based scheduling and only 30% including TimeCurve Scheduler were developed to tackle dynamic scheduling.