Employee Scheduling Software

VSS PRO Scheduling Software Makes Scheduling Easy at the NOAA’s National Weather Service

“With Visual Staff Scheduler PRO, we were able to cut the time it takes to schedule our staff by two thirds.” 

Steven Schurr, Supervisory Meteorologist, NOAA’s National Weather Service

Customer Profile

The National Weather Service, a division of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), operates more than 120 offices across the entire United States of America. One of the offices is located in Omaha, Nebraska. With the staff of 24 employees, the National Weather Service in Omaha, provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Situation/Challenge

As a mission-critical and around-the-clock operation, the National Weather Service office in Omaha needed a more efficient way to schedule their staff. Creating and managing the schedule using pencil and paper was very time-consuming and prone to errors, especially in the area of monitoring staffing levels. In addition, any schedule changes meant cumbersome schedule rearrangements in order to ensure the required shift coverage. The office decided to abandon unreliable hand-made scheduling with the scheduling software that would allow scheduling more efficiently. The office selected Visual Staff Scheduler® PRO (VSS PRO) for its simplicity and ease-of-use. “’When I came to the office, I was presented with VSS PRO software. I was positively surprised to see how fast and easy the software was to use. I learned to use the program in very little time,” says Steven Schurr, Supervisory Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Omaha.

Solution

VSS PRO proved to be the right solution for the National Weather Service’s scheduling needs. “With VSS PRO, I can see instantly if we are under- or over-scheduled for a particular shift, or position,” says Schurr. “That allows us to better utilize our resources,” he adds. With the use of the scheduling software, Schurr can easily create the planning schedule for the entire year, or even years out. “With VSS PRO, I can easily copy schedule patterns and place them in future dates. That makes creating reoccurring schedules a snap,” Schurr explains. In order to create a work schedule, Schurr simply selects an appropriate time frame to print the schedule for upcoming weeks. In addition to printing the schedule, Schurr also posts the office intranet, for employees who prefer to view the schedule online. With no extra effort, Schurr also prints individual staff calendars that are being distributed to employees with a simple click of the button.

Benefits

Since the National Weather Service’s office in Omaha, started using VSS PRO scheduling software, they were able to cut the time it takes to schedule their staff by two thirds. According to Schurr, with Visual Staff Scheduler PRO, their staff productivity is at its highest level. “VSS PRO gives us everything we need to make sure we have appropriate shift coverage and the best staff utilization. I definitely recommend VSS PRO scheduling software to other public services that want to make their scheduling processes easy,” Schurr concluded.