Following is a portion of an email sent to one of our customers in March 2010:
Re more expensive, this is possibly true, but I'm reasonably sure that processing some or all of your rostering via
www.RosterCoster.com is not apples with apples with anything else that is available
The key perhaps is that there are a number of systems for human services out there, which makes for healthy competition, and that we have recently finalised:
Each of these hosts tools (or functionality, if you like), and each has certain tools that no one else can replicate. For example, with the "fully networked" RosterCoster.xls tool they use down here:
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Does not have "files" that you can "save", but rather, it is networked so that the shifts are stored centrally. So, no such thing as "files" that can corrupt etc. Fresh blank file opened "every session"
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Users open RosterCoster.xls via EMSGateway, and do not close it during a session - they just import / export rosters via buttons at the top of the spreadsheet
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The rosters are stored in a database centrally, which makes the shifts, costs etc ready for export to multiple other tools, for example, into
www.RosterCoster.com or similar for staff availability and shift replacement
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This exporting of data is standard: whichever tool(s) you go with, staff details / shifts etc will most likely be trading with separate payroll and / or finance tools: the key is that the user does not perceive this
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One last thing: this tool reads work locations, staff names and client names from separate databases that you inevitably have (or will have, depending on what client care package you buy for example). This is is a simple but major benefit: it allows shifts etc to be sent "back" into those other packages
In summary, with RosterCoster.xls tool they use down here (though feel free to keep using your standalone version, of course!):
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We retain all the benefits of Excel, and of the annual costing tool; and
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Add to that the benefit of having all shifts for all historical and current rosters in a database, ready to be "read" by any other package.
Etc.