Nowsta Reviews

We started using NOWSTA almost 2 years ago and it has made scheduling so much more efficient. We use it throughout our company - from servers and bartenders, to kitchen, warehouse, and office workers. The platform is user friendly for both schedulers and staff. Our Staffing Coordinator of almost 13 years says we have never been fully staffed so early for our events! And she doesn't have to rely on temporary staff as much anymore because we are staffed more efficiently.
Bonus - Nowsta's email newsletters are very informative and concise in the topics of labor laws, staffing trends, and other topics related to our industry.

Nothing major that I am aware of! Overall, it works well.

From an Admin stand point, I love how Nowsta is so easy to edit; staff information, times, position costs, literally everything! I love the availability checks that can go out as whatever I want, they do not have to be attached to an event. I love the multiple ways that I can inform my staff of shifts available via shifts requests and publishing to a first come first serve deal. It's so easy to make announcements to staff members who are scheduled for event shifts. Staff members get notified instantly of any event changes. I can set preferences to where I receive emails every time a staff member accepts/declines a shift, when new events are entered into Nowsta (we have the Caterease interface), when staff members do not clock into their shifts on time and so on. I could go on and on...

From an employees stand point, Nowsta gives me all the information that I need for an event. Its linked with Google Maps and with one click, I get GPS directions to my event. I can get notifications of upcoming events I am scheduled for. I clock in and out with my phone, no company timeclock box needed. I can easily add breaks to my shift. I can clock into an unscheduled shift, like for kitchen/office staff members who work daily yet do not have schedule kitchen or office hours. It is soooo easy! Makes everything soooo easy!!

Hands down the BEST Customer service crew I have ever worked with! I love chatting with them even tho I try not to have to. :)

The only thing at the moment that I wish Nowsta could do is have flat rate delivery options. I currently use normal staffing hours to calculate deliveries but they should be flat rates that do not affect employees hours but we make it work. Looking forward to the upgrade that includes flat rate fees.

Ease of scheduling. Response time from my employees.

Does not cross integrate with TPP. I thought it did...but it does not seem to do this. MAybe I am doing it wrong. Secondly, the cost of the employee per month adds up quickly.

Nowsta is a full service scheduling program that integrates with our catering software. It is an amazing tool for scheduling different levels of staff for multiple events at multiple locations. But it does not stop at the scheduling step. Nowsta is also our time clock and produces all the reports we need for direct import into our payroll system. It even allows our employees to cash out prior to our regular payroll date. Nowsta is also a fantastic data bank for our employee records and it has great tools for communicating with our entire staff at one time and/or the staff of a specific event. We used to have a program for scheduling, one for time and attendance, and none for employee communication. Now we have Nowsta and we love it!

I do not like the mileage feature in Time and Attendance. It is based on time instead of distance. I would love for Nowsta to be able to calculate the driving distance from an employee's home to the venue they are working at so we could compensate for miles driven.
Also our tips are often not received until after an event has taken place. I'd like to have a way of entering tip income for employees when we get it but still have it associated with the event they worked.

I have been using the software for over 2 years now and have seen it develop into the great product that it is today. What I like most is that the Nowsta team is dedicated to really understanding the needs of their end users and developing a system that is perfect for event industry professionals.

We have been able to really cut down on overtime in every department, have a much higher response rate from staff who are receiving offers to work, and management is able to track hours and run payroll reports much more efficiently with this system in place.

The many different levels of permissions allow me to customize what each person using the system is able to see and access in the system. My Sales team can see schedules, but not pay rates and are not able to adjust times/ shifts. Department head can see pay rates, and enter schedules, but are not able to create or remove another admin user. Event staff can not access the admin portal at all.

There are many great features that this system has that several others on the market simply do not consider or offer, and I would highly recommend taking a look at it if you are not already a user.

As with any system that is still in development, there are still a few hick ups in the program. The Nowsta team works diligently to iron out the kinks but this causes the system to go down for unexpected periods of time and staff is unable to clock in/out.

Nowsta easily integrates with other systems that make scheduling events a breeze for our company. The interface is extremely user friendly and is not cumbersome like many other systems that have been used in the past.

There needs to be an attendance (point based) system in place that keeps track of an employee calling in, being late, etc. Progressive attendance based systems are important for companies where hourly employees are expected to maintain an acceptable level of attendance. I would like to see a system added to Nowsta in the future that will make it easy to track attendance so employees can be held accountable for poor attendance.

We love being able to create and assign numerous roles and hourly rates to our team members; the timeclock tablet feature is great for onsite clocking in and out and the tracking/reporting tools are incredibly useful for budgeting purposes as well as budget to actual comparisons. There are just so many great features to this software and it continues to improve.

I don't believe there is anything that we like least about the software but this is more of a wish list in that we wish we could house more employee information. Again, this is not the purpose of the software but to have it all in one central location would be super convenient.

Nowsta streamlined our event staffing through the app and the way we communicate with our crew. It's been a game changer for us.

We have been using Nowsta since it launched. The tech support has been wonderful at reviewing our feedback and making changes that really helped the app and our team use it. The software has had issues from time to time but it's always been resolved. The only downside on our end was setting up a direct bank debit weekly versus our original bi-weekly pay system.

Nowsta is great for real-time staffing, planning upcoming events for clients, and for tracking attendance and employee times. I've worked with several different software packages over the past 5 years, and this is the one that I'm going to stick with because it does everything I need it to in a user-friendly way.

I would like to be able to add a little more customization to employee pay rates (not only by position, but by client as well). It would also be helpful to be able to customize overtime rules a little more.

This software keeps me organized, keeps the associates organized. I love the systems, I love the real time notifications ~ I just love everything about it!

It took me a little while to get use to the software, but it was a small learning curve for me. When I send out a message to the team ~ and then go look at the announcement in my announcement tabs, it's difficult for me to find it after I've read it, doesn't seem to be in chronological order once a message, or announcement is read. ~ Also it's very difficult to get on my nowsta page as an administrator on my phone when i'm out of my office ~ this is very frustrating and hope to find a solution for this.

Nowsta cuts my scheduling time at least in half. It also takes me a quarter of the time to do payroll. Easier for employees to punch in and out.

Some issues with the app freezing. People with android have had issues using the app. There is no way for staff members to put in extended periods of time off in the app (vacatin or PTO or what not)

Nowsta is extremely easy to set up and use. The interface for the administrator is effective, while the app and interactions with the users make it easy for them to stay current with scheduling. The customization options for roles and permissions provide a high level of precision in accomplishing specific goals.

I would like to see the ability to categorize groups of positions together with one click, to save the time of clicking each individually for each employee. I would also like to be able to edit email addresses in the system in the cases where I have made a typo or the employee is locked out of their email account.

The user interface is very clean and easy to use. Our entire organization has rallied around the software and thoroughly enjoys using it not only to check their schedule and clock in/out, but also to communicate with their teammates, view pertinent information relating to their event, and the ability to rate staff (even us old folks born before the age of smartphones find it easy to use)! Clocking in/out is now a breeze, and the process of approving shifts for time & attendance has reduced our labor and errors tremendously. And perhaps most importantly, the customer support is extremely fast and responsive. If you ever have any question, they are certain to receive your message and get you an answer in a very timely manner!

There really aren't any cons to list here as things that we think could be improved are being addressed by their team! So, what we like least is that we didn't have it years ago!

1) the willingness of the Nowsta team to help with anything you need and make the requested changes to create a more efficient user experience
2) the convenience of having everything in one place! So nice that we can do scheduling, labor projections, payroll, and communication all from one easy to use software.

1) the speed of refreshing the pages is slow sometimes, but nothing that is really bothersome.
2) it is a new software, so there are things about it that we don't like. While the Nowsta team is great about making the requested changes, they have what I can only imagine is a long list of requests that they are trying to accommodate. With that being said, some of our requests are not always met.

This software is easy to use and fast! I can update a schedule and the employee is instantly notified by text and email! It's so efficient and effective. I love it - it has really had things faster on the scheduling end.

No cons yet - I have found everything very easy to use!

My staff and I love using this app! I enjoy the option to send out a message to all staff and them being able to get it instantly. I appreciate the Geo-Clock in feature also, this keeps my staff on task when we work events. They can see how many hours worked and can calculate their paychecks with ease.

All features are pretty seamless, maybe an option to take a picture in the app. My staff has reported that they can't clock in periodically due to low signal, but maybe that is a phone carrier issue.

We have been extremely happy with the ease of setup and training. The support team have been great to work with and super responsive when we have questions or concerns.

No real cons to address. It is still a work in progress and we look forward to the future changes that are coming.

My favorite feature of Nowsta is the ability to publish available shifts to prequalified employees. I save so much time and send far less emails and text messages!

Some improvements could be made on the weekly view section. It is sometimes challenging to read the overall schedule for all departments, and there is not a way to easily print the schedule. Also, copying shifts should be faster. Maybe like a copy & paste function.

When we implemented Nowsta, we saw immediate benefits. We saved a tremendous amount of time and work scheduling employees for events. Once we integrated Nowsta into our sales platform, Total Party Planner, we were speechless. This powerful one-two punch is instrumental in allowing us to get our focus off scheduling and admin, and onto growing our business.

Honestly, not much. It is easy to use, and now minimizes what was once a difficult task.

how easy it is to use and how its even easier to get support from the Nowsta team at any point. The Nowsta team is always keeps it real professional and if they cant help with a solution on their end, they offer to help make one in the near future, which generally is executed in record time.

Anything I haven't liked, the Nowsta team has been able to integrate into the software for the most part.

It is very easy to use for all employees. It's easy to integrate with TPP and pay roll software. It's super easy to pull reports to check overall hours or who is on which event. I like that it tracks where people clock in and out so you can see

I haven't found anything that I dislike about the product. Whenever we have any issues the customer service has been great to assist us and try to find solutions.

I was one of the first users to Beta test this product and helped with the integration of the product. The Nowsta team always listens to my feedback and tweaked a lot of the elements to fit my particular needs. It's like having my own team of engineers to customize the product for my individual needs.

There were growing pains at the beginning, but within the past year it's been smooth sailing.

Nowsta addresses and solves all the issues and shortcomings of trying to use non-event based software for an event based company like ours.

The existing reports are great, but I wish that customized reports were more readily and quickly available.

I really like having the ability to upload documents to events. This feature has made it incredibly easy for our team to communicate about event logistics through the app.

I wish there was a way for our managers to "Rate" our event staff after our shifts so that our Director of Hospitality could know how each staff member is performing without having to be at every event.

Since switching to Nowsta, it has become so much easier to keep staff organized and get them scheduled. The rating system also helps managers communicate about individual staff members whom may need a little extra training, or who really deserve a pat on the back. Keeping track of hours at mulitple sites is also a great asset. I really appreciate having this software available for us to use.

When an event cancels or postpones, it is difficult to remove it from the system. I've had the software reinstate staff when I went through and deleted them. I believe the administrator has brought this to your attention.