There are three versions of the scheduling spreadsheet, each designed to meet the needs of a different style of labor scheduling.  These versions are:

Basic version: This spreadsheet provides the basic capabilities required to assign staff to scheduled time slots in a weekly schedule.  It includes the ability to designate certain days and times as unavailable for a specified individual.  The basic version allows you to customize the skill categories for your staff and to specify the opening hours for your business on each day of the week.

Planner's version: In addition to the capabilities provided by the Basic version, the Planner's version allows you to establish a plan for the number of resources of each skill type that you require for each hour of each day.  As you schedule personnel, you will be provided a clear picture of where you have shortages and where you have assigned too many people.  The Planner's version also provides auto-scheduling capability.  Having entered your plan into the spreadsheet, the auto-scheduling capability can automatically assign staff to time-slots, providing an excellent starting point for your plan, which you may then refine manually to meet your needs.

Call Center version: The Call Center version of the spreadsheet expands upon the capabilities of the Planner's version, by supporting staffing plans in a call center environment where staffing needs are based upon projected call volumes.  The call center version of the scheduling spreadsheet allows you to enter daily projected call volumes and to derive a weekly staffing plan directly from these numbers.  The spreadsheet incorporates support for staffing based on hourly call rates, target call answer times, required service levels and staff shrinkage using the Erlang-C algorithm.  It also allows for manual adjustments to the output of these calculations so that the results can be fine tuned.

Retailer's version: The Retailer's version of the spreadsheet expands upon the capabilities of the Planner's version, by explicitly recognizing that staffing plans in a retail environment are frequently based upon projected sales volumes.  The retailer’s version of the scheduling spreadsheet allows you to enter daily projected sales figures and to derive a weekly staffing plan directly from these numbers.  So, for example, if you were scheduling staff for a restaurant, you could enter your sales projections for each day of the week and the spreadsheet would determine the number of personnel of each skill type (cook, cashier, wait staff etc.) that would be required for each hour of each day of the week.  The relationship between the sales projections and the staffing requirements can be configured to meet the specifics of your business.

Important: All versions of the Labor Scheduling template for Microsoft® Excel require Excel 2007 or later running on a Microsoft Windows platform (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10, Windows 11). 

These templates will not work with Excel 2003 or earlier nor on any version of Excel for Mac.