AttendanceBot

AttendanceBot remains the most popular choice since Slack launched its app store back in 2018. While some of its popularity stems from its one-stop-shop integration of time off, hybrid work, time tracking, project tracking, and shift rostering, it remains the go-to choice for leave management alone. 

Designed for the type of organization that chooses and uses Slack, AttendanceBot is a great choice for small to mid-sized companies that value employee time and calendar visibility. If you’re growing fast and need a more sustainable leave process, looking to provide better transparency for calendars and balances, or just tired of managing everything with excel and email inboxes, AttendanceBot might be a good first step.

For small teams with simple needs, AttendanceBot offers a great off-the-shelf leave setup you can start using within minutes. With automatic manager routing and an option menu right inside Slack, you can start your team requesting and approving from the day you start, without any training or instruction. Even data and reports are available from directly in your Slack chat, without navigating over to the admin dashboard, and when in doubt – AttendanceBot has a shockingly responsive support team for its class of software.

For larger teams, international organizations, or really anyone with a complex leave policy, AttendanceBot shines particularly bright. One distinctive feature lies in its ability to configure rules and policies across employee groups, roles, and regions or countries. Given the ability to support accrual setups to match any set of local policies, AttendanceBot would almost be graded an enterprise-level software, though the laser-focus on time-off and timesheets typically makes it a better choice for departmental or operational deployments rather than a full global HR solution. Possibly for the same reason, AttendanceBot is still a popular choice for larger implementations exactly because it’s so quick to get off the ground and useful for a corporate workforce.

Price-wise, the design of AttendanceBot is often tempered by its ranking towards the high end of contenders. It has three pricing plans – standard, offering pretty much every piece of leave functionality except balances and accruals; pro, which adds in workforce segmentation, balance and accrual policies, and multi-level approvals; and premium, which adds extra layers of customization and support. The 14-day free trial is typically more than enough to explore and even pilot capabilities, especially given the high-level of free onboarding assistance offered by their team. 

Overall, this vacation tracker alternative is a best first bet for its comprehensive abilities and forward-thinking design.

BambooHR

BambooHR is a fantastic full-service payroll and HR solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Offering a comprehensive suite of tools, BambooHR lots of options for managing HR tasks, from employee information management, recruiting and hiring, onboarding, leave management, performance management, and employee analytics.

While its integration with Slack is limited, BambooHR does bridge some of its most popular features into Slack. Specific to time-off, BambooHR allows team members to conveniently check available time-off balances, calculate future time-off balances, submit new time-off requests, and stay informed about current out-of-office status. Although the workflows for requesting leave may evoke a sense of traditional software, BambooHR remains a fully-featured and user-friendly tool, especially tailored for small businesses looking for a full HR solution.

Regards cost, BambooHR offers two primary plans that bill based on staff size – Essentials and Advantage. The Essentials plan covers basic HR tools, while the Advantage plan extends to additional features such as onboarding, offboarding, applicant tracking, etc. One limitation is the lack of free trial or onboarding support before making a purchase decision.

As a final plus, BambooHR uniquely offers its own marketplace of integration partners, and for those looking for the best possible end-user experience, there are plenty of paid plug-ins to experiment with (including the aforementioned AttendanceBot).

Calamari

Calamari – like AttendanceBot – offers a bundled time tracking, time off, and employee documentation system. Calamari similarly facilitates easy planning and tracking of absences, while adding several functionalities on top of the leave basics offered by Vacation Tracker.

For those specifically interested in leave management, Calamari boasts an impressive range of integrations with other popular tools like JIRA, Asana, and Basecamp which are comparatively more rare among competitors. Calamari also allows for creation of flexible leave types, per the needs of each organization.

Unfortunately, despite a much wider range of functionality than Vacation Tracker, Calamari does have limited administrative and policy capabilities. Some users have found Calamari’s interface to be a bit less intuitive, with occasional descriptions of “clunky”. 

Despite these considerations, Calamari remains an economical choice for teams. Calamari offer a nice pick and choose a-la-carte style pricing, with two plans and three modules to choose from. And for teams in the euro zone, Calamari offers payment in Euros instead of USD.

Timebot

The most straightforward alternative for VacationTracker is TimeBot, with a similar but more limited set of features and pricing. If you like Vacation Tracker but want something even more barebones and lightweight, TimeBot might be your answer.

As another economical yet effective pick, TimeBot positions itself as the most budget-friendly option. TimeBot also has a free plan that’s limited to 20 time-off requests per month, which may be good for very small teams with modest needs. Otherwise, there are two paid options: the Starter plan at $1 per user per month and the Premium plan at $2.50 per user per month.

Time Off by Deel

The Deel’s Engage plugins elevate productivity by enabling teams to complete tasks within Slack, minimizing the need for context-switching. This Slack vacation tracker alternative, Time Off by Deel, seamlessly integrates the process of requesting, tracking, and reviewing time off directly into Slack. A particularly valuable feature is the plugin’s ability to help managers stay informed about employee time-off balances, facilitating a proactive approach to recognizing signs of burnout. Additionally, the tool provides the functionality to assign coverage, ensuring that business operations continue smoothly during someone’s time away. 

Time Off by Deel is an ideal choice for any Deel customer, and very seriously elevates the user experience of the Deel platform. As an emerging leader in global HR for startups and upstarts, Deel is another great choice for full-service HR, which offers a multitude of connected Slack plugins including time off.

If you’re thinking of biting the bullet on a full HR platform instead of Vacation Tracker, Deel is a fantastic option! But for those looking for more targeted or focused implementations, Deel might be a bit much. 

Conclusion

These alternatives offer a diverse set of options to meet the evolving demands of modern workplaces, ensuring effective time-off management regardless what type of organization you are. The quest for the exact perfect alternative never truly ends, but hopefully this guide saves you time finding where you’d like to start.

The post Top 5 Vacation Tracker Alternatives for Slack appeared first on AttendanceBot Blog.

In this blog, we’ll introduce you to 11 Slack games that you can use to engage your remote employees.

The Emoji Screening

The Emoji Screening is a simple game that challenges players to decode a TV show/movie described only in emojis. To play this game, simply create a #channel called “The Emoji Screening” where the quiz master drops the emoji puzzle and the first team/person to get the answer right wins. 

The quizmaster can use the Slack app Emojify to create the puzzles. 

An interesting example is:   = Pixar’s Up

Go forth and get those emojis decoded! 

Gif on Gif on Gif 

I don’t know about you but I know that there is an Office GIF to match any situation in my life. 

This game is sure to engage all the talented GIF-ers in your team. It’s quite similar to the engaging Cards Against Humanity. 

To play: 

• Simply install the Giphy app in Slack
• Create a designated channel for the game
• The quizmaster will post prompts 
• Participants have to respond to the thread with relevant GIFs 
• Once everyone has thrown their hat in the right, everyone votes on which GIF is the funniest 
• After all the votes are cast, the GIF with the most votes wins
• Some interesting prompts can be: 
  • Mondays got me like ______ 
  • ________ really gets me going 
  • The year is 2050. The President is _______
  • My lunch plan is ______
  • What never fails to liven up a boring workday? 

Guess Who? 

The traditional way is to stick a card to your head and ask questions to your partner to guess who the person is. In this Slack variation, we take it a step further and make it a bit harder. 

• Create a designated Slack channel for the game
• The quizmaster changes with each question and the person starting the game uses the Word Generator. Set the game to “Individuals” and choose any Category. Generate a New Word for Guess Who. 
• If you aren’t sure about who the person is, pull up the Wikipedia page and get ready. 
• Every participant is allowed to ask 2 questions, the person who first guesses the person you picked wins.
• If you are just too lazy to go down the Word Generator route, just pick any random celebrity, historical figure, or celluloid character. But be honest and stick to one! 

Remote Scavenger Hunt 

A game with a simple but extremely interesting premise. The game master creates a list of 10 items found in most homes. After creating a designated Slack channel for the game, they need to add the items one at a time as separate threads. 

The person who takes a picture of the item first and sends it to the thread wins a point. The person who wins the most points wins the game. 

You Should Know This- Trivia Game 

Not everyone is good at trivia games. Who knows what was Albus Dumbledore’s full name? Trivia questions can be random and often hard to answer if you don’t know the context. 

What if we created a trivia game that your department or organization should know the answers to? 

You can keep the questions department/function specific or questions related to the industry your business functions in. It depends on who is available to play on Slack. 

For instance, if you were to play this within the marketing team of a B2B business. Questions like: 

• A rel=canonical tag can be used to point search engines to a particular page when tackling these issues.
• True or false: Including search intent in reporting is helpful in understanding users’ behavior and thought processes.
• What does the directive “disallow” mean?
• True or false: Minifying your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files can increase your load time.

This game is a great way to get excited about upskilling opportunities and the winner/loser of the game should probably get a free upskilling class of their choice. 

Two Truths and a Lie: Management Edition 

Managers have to share three statements about themselves, two of which are true and one is a lie. Other employees have to guess which statement is a lie. 

It is a great way to break the ice between regular employees and upper management. 

Rock-Paper-Scissors (or even better, Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock) 

Remember the hours we spent playing rock-paper-scissors as kids? Your remote team can play a few rounds of that on Slack too! 

Once you install the Rock-Paper-Scissors app on your team, launch it with the slash command “/rps @mention” to play with an opponent of your choice. If you don’t want to play a public channel, you can also play in direct message by just texting “/rps” to your work bestie. 

And if you’re a Big Bang Theory fan who just loves everything Sheldon came up with, you’ll be happy to know that there is an extension to this game! 

Type “/rpsls” to play rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, instead of just the boring rock-paper-scissors. 

Tick Tack Toe

An old school classic that never gets boring. Install the Slack bot for tick-tac-toe to play a game on Slack. 

Just type “/ttt @mention” on any public channel to challenge a co-worker to a fun game. You can also direct message a simple “/ttt” to start a game in private. 

The game is not time-bound so either run a quick 5 minute game in rapid succession or play asynchronously with your remote team located anywhere in the world. 

Polly

If you’re company is in the serious business of employee engagement, why limit yourselves to piecemeal apps? Polly is a suite of of social team-building games designed for Slack. 

So what are some games you can play with Polly? 

• Trivia: Get your entire team to compete over trivia questions with a single theme of the quizmaster’s choice. 
• Hot Takes: This feature lets you run a random Hot Take poll, that is fun but not controversial. Let your hair down with a quick debate to get the blood flowing. 
• Surveys: Get feedback from your remote team using Pulse Surveys to see how they’re doing and ask for their opinions on important matters, in real-time.

Codenames 

We saved the best for last. 

Play the game you love natively in Slack, whether it takes minutes or days to complete a game, it’s right there waiting for you in the platform you’re already using! 

To start playing, simply type “/codenames” and invite your teammates to join their respective teams. Veteran players can jump right in and enjoy their favourite gameplay format, while newcomers can visit the Codenames website for step-by-step instructions and more.

Looking to spice things up? Try out the growing list of alternative game themes such as “/codenames harry potter” and “/codenames game of thrones” to take your gaming experience to the next level. Get ready to have fun and bond with your coworkers like never before!

Conclusion

In conclusion, Slack games are a fun and engaging way to foster teamwork, improve communication, and boost morale in the workplace. Whether it’s playing virtual charades, hosting a trivia night, or even just sharing memes, Slack games offer a break from the daily grind of work and provide an opportunity for coworkers to connect on a more personal level.

But it’s important to remember that not everyone may be comfortable participating in Slack games, so it’s important to create a culture of inclusivity and respect in the workplace. Additionally, it’s important to not let Slack games become a distraction from actual work tasks.

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For an IT or software company, a tech stack typically means the programming languages they use to develop a website or app.

Watch the YouTube Video to get a better idea of what a technology stack means: Tech stacks (Explained for recruiters in IT)

A company cannot function with a single application or tool. The business requirements could be managed better by building tech stacks. However, before building a tech stack, companies must audit the stack that they are currently using.

Why Audit an Existing Technology Stack? 

Companies must consider auditing their existing tech stacks due to following reasons:

• Centralizing data: Using multiple apps for similar tasks would lead to unnecessary wastage of resources and time. It would also be difficult for companies to maintain the data sourced from various applications and tools. Therefore, they might think of ways of centralizing the data by using a multi-purpose app that can handle multiple tasks. 

• Manage time and efficiency: The existing applications and tools might be inefficient in saving time for employees. Or else they might not bring in operational efficiency. For example, an attendance monitoring software that needs manual data entry will not only waste time but might also create inconsistent and inaccurate data. Businesses can replace the existing application with an attendance tracking system that fetches data from punch cards or biometric scanners to manage these aspects. 

• Saving money: Saving money is essential, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that cannot afford to spend a major portion of their capital on operations and data management. In this case, the companies might replace their existing technology stack with simpler tools and affordable and easy-to-use applications. 

As businesses grow, they might no longer need the same software and applications. Therefore, they can decide to switch to apps that align with their business strategies. Due to product changes, previously used apps or tools may no longer be needed. It might be the ideal time for businesses to invest in new technologies and tools. But first, they must audit their existing toolkits and apps to find the technologies that are still relevant to the business. 

How to Conduct a Tech Stack Audit?

Companies should analyze the relationship between an app and the business processes instead of only auditing the apps. To make the required changes, they need to take feedback and inputs from each stakeholder of the business. The opinions of clients, employees, team managers, and daily app users matter as these people will be connected with the apps at different levels. 

For example, a company that sells its products via a website can think of integrating a new portal to bring in work efficiency and better data control. Apart from taking views of the operations, sales, and support team, the website developer should also review existing customers who will be using the website in the future to place orders. 

Questions to Ask while Conducting a Tech Stack Audit

The following questions can help them identify the effectiveness and role of their current tech stack:

• Which are the processes that need apps or software solutions to function smoothly?

• Which apps are used explicitly by certain teams to complete their daily tasks?

• Are there any apps that serve multiple purposes? If yes, which purpose do they fulfill?

• What impact do the apps have on the business? Are the apps closely related to customer experience and employees?

• How often is an app used for business operations or administration? Is it used daily or only sometimes?

• How much investment is required to revamp the existing technology stack?

• Can apps that serve multiple purposes be integrated to reduce operational costs?

Who does the Tech Stack Audit?

Usually, a company will assign the auditing task to professionals in their HR team. While creating a list of such questions and answering them, they must store the data carefully in a spreadsheet or document. As new aspects related to an app are unveiled, they can keep adding new columns to the sheet. 

Copies of the original sheet can be created and passed on to all the teams for input. Once the sheets are filled and sent back, the professionals must analyze them and record them in a final or original sheet. It is recommended that the data of all the apps be saved in one sheet as it will help them create a concrete audit report in the end. 

The apps that have the most business aspects or are related to most employees can be retained or restructured as per new business needs. HR professionals might want to create pie or bar graphs to present the data’s implications visually. These graphs could be integrated into the audit report to provide meaningful insights to the company’s leadership. 

Also, recommendations for new apps or technologies can be made to revamp or remodel the existing technology stack. Once the leadership goes through the audit report, they may approve the recommendations or might ask for a new audit report by marking any inconsistencies in the existing one. 

How to Add new Tools to the Tech Stack?

Analyzing the technologies on which a tech stack is built

Each company needs a unique tech stack for conducting its business. Usually, the development team decides the apps or tools to be integrated into the processes. However, while shortlisting the tools, analyzing the technologies on which they are built is necessary.

Different technologies are required to build a website and mobile apps. Similarly, the operating system on which the tools are to be implemented can determine the kind of technology needed to build it. As technology stack examples, we can see that Android apps can be built using Kotlin, and iOS apps can be built from Swift. Therefore, companies must carefully understand the difference between mobile and web tech stacks before building or shortlisting them. 

It is also essential to choose a reliable technology that supports multiple platforms. Before developing an app, the developers must determine the front-end and back-end technologies. If a new tool or application is to be designed from scratch, it must be tested before being implemented. 

For instance, if an e-commerce app is designed, its ability to handle multiple users at a time should be tested before launching it. 

Categorizing tools as per the departments

Before adding new apps or tools to the existing technical stack, it is wise to categorize them as per their functions. Each organization has multiple departments like marketing, advertising, sales, e-commerce, customer support, etc. Each of these departments might have a tech stack of its own.

Therefore, while adding new tools or apps to the existing technology stack, one must focus on adding tech stacks for each department according to their requirements.

For example, a marketing tech stack could require lead generation tools, email marketing solutions, CMS (Content Management System), ASO tool, scalable web hosting, and SEO tools. Similarly, developer stacks would include programming stacks, front-end tech stacks, back-end tech stacks, IT stacks, coding stacks, etc.

An e-commerce stack would need payment processing software, an inventory management system, an online catalog application, and other tools. 

Brainstorming ideas

Before adding new tools in a particular process, the companies must engage with the immediate users to learn whether they have some ideas. If they do not have ideas, extensive research must be carried out to find tools and apps that the process needs. 

A comparison must be made on their features, pricing, and other details. If a free trial option is available, it should be tested for usefulness. 

Creating a budget estimate for the new tools

After analyzing the departments’ requirements and identifying the gaps, it is time to add new tools or applications. The companies must hire an expert to estimate the tools’ budget. If some old tools are replaced with new ones for cost-cutting, they should also be included in the overall budget planning. A separate budget could be created for each team by taking the input of the team leaders and managers. 

SMBs, i.e., small and medium-sized businesses, might not have enough budget to integrate new tools. However, they can benefit from the free, open-source community that offers many tools and applications. The developers wanting to contribute to the technological revolution have created tons of free technologies and tools that can be leveraged to build new products. 

The developer team can use open source software to build an application stack or developers stack. Taking assistance from open source platforms will enable small businesses to cut down on the cost of implementing new technologies or tools. Eventually, it will give them the required technical support to compete with the best companies or industry giants. 

Implementing new tools as pilot projects

The team managers will decide which tools to keep based on the budget constraints. Once all the teams finalize the tools, they must be implemented as pilot projects. It will not only help them to understand the new tools but will also help them to determine whether they add any value to the process or not. 

Measuring the business impact of tools

Once the pilot periods of the tools are over, their performance must be evaluated. For instance, if a new sales application was implemented, its performance in terms of percentage growth of sales after implementation should be measured.

If a new payroll app was installed, did it reduce the payroll processing time or improve operational efficiency?

Similar questions for each tool or application can be asked to measure their performance precisely. Team managers would have their suggestions and feedback regarding the performance of these tools. 

Inputs should be taken from employees and users who use the tools regularly. If a specific tool or application would fit in a particular process and fetch the desired results over the long term, it should be incorporated immediately. 

Preparing for the future

Some companies do not believe in hiring or purchasing existing technology. They trust their experts to create new and robust solutions to meet their ends. However, creating new technology from scratch can be a challenging task. The developers should not only consider the current requirements but also be able to scale. It could be challenging to make changes or add services to the applications as the company expands vertically or horizontally. Therefore, all the possibilities should be considered while designing a new application or tool. 

Also, building multiple tools and apps to create a comprehensive tech stack will need time and resources. Companies usually rely on trusted apps and platforms due to the same reasons. 

Conclusion 

These were some ways to ensure that the best tools are integrated into a tech stack. Small businesses usually run on a single tech stack, but they may incorporate additional stacks as their business scales. If they don’t have a dedicated team of developers at their disposal, they can outsource this. Budget constraints can be set after creating a detailed plan for adding new tools to the tech stack. Also, creating a plan for adding tech stacks without taking input from the end users is not a good idea.

B2B companies should take suggestions from their clients before making any significant change in their existing technology stack. Finally, everyone using the new tools and technologies should be accounted for and, if required, be trained to handle them.

The post How to Choose Your Tech Stack? appeared first on AttendanceBot Blog.

The Slack App Directory has over 2400 apps. While each one of them is created to enable your team to do more, how do you choose the best Slack apps that suit what your company really wants to achieve?

To make things easier, we surveyed our customers and our network to discover the Slack apps they really like using and why. Here’s the list of must-haves!

The best Slack apps for your company 

1. Drift 

Talk to website visitors and customers in real-time without leaving Slack! The app is designed to give website visitors an experience similar to the one you get when you visit your favorite store. Drift tells you who is visiting your site and adds powerful context like their industry, company size, revenue, and even their technographic profile to it – thanks to the integration with Clearbit.

2. Standuply 

Run asynchronous standup meetings in Slack and Standuply will send you the collated responses on Slack and email. Teams are using it to make standup meetings more productive and efficient. You can use any of the built-in templates or define your own set of questions to make the functioning better.

3. AttendanceBot

AttendanceBot is frequently featured in various lists for Slack time tracking and absence management. It is one of the highest-ranked apps to track time, employee attendance, and leaves (employee time-off). The Slack app enables you to measure your team’s productivity by tracking time spent on projects, tasks, and billable hours with clients. All your employees need to do is send simple messages to the bot to mark their attendance or track time. Managers can then generate timesheets and reports for the team in real-time to identify roadblocks and offer solutions to overcome them.

4. HeyTaco!

A fun and simple app for Slack that lets you recognize teammates for their efforts and accomplishments. You can give tacos meant for cultural values and even track performance using leaderboards! After all, if you want your team to do their best, you need to keep them motivated – even if that means a few tacos.

5. StatsBot

As Lord Kelvin once said, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.” Statsbot is one of the best Slack apps to get data and powerful insights from Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and SQL databases. You can also set up automated reports, predictions, and smart alerts with it.

6. Polly 

Polly makes polling via Slack seamless and fast. Use messages to run surveys for any purpose and your team members will be able to respond with a single click. Polls can be open-ended, multiple-choice, or even have a numeric scale. Great for times when you need your team’s opinion on little things like even deciding a place to go to for a movie!

7. Zapier

Zapier lets you integrate Slack with several hundreds of other apps like Jira, Salesforce, Zendesk, Gmail, Basecamp, HubSpot, Evernote, Google Sheets, and more! You can get information from the apps or create automatic task workflows to save time. Automation is the hack to getting more done, efficiently, and in lesser time.

8. Meekan Scheduling 

Are you wasting time checking availability in your or your colleague’s calendars? Do you go to and fro trying to schedule even fifteen-minute catchup with employees? Meekan Scheduling app makes this easy. It is your scheduling assistant that will find the perfect meeting time, and an available room and message the team members to book a slot that suits them the best too.

9. Tettra

Tettra is your powerful company knowledge base. Organize crucial information used by your team on a daily basis in a central, searchable place. You can also organize documents like company policies, new hire onboarding, technical documentation for developers, etc. This is one of the best Slack apps to get your documentation game on point!

10. Mention 

Mention helps you track brand, industry or competition mentions on the web. It sends you real-time alerts that you can even customize by the source to receive notifications. We love the way it shows an ‘influencer score’ and the tone of each mention. Better to know who’s saying what about your brand than let situations get out of hand, right?

While these are some of the best Slack apps that we are crushing over, we want to hear which apps are you making use of and should be on this list. Let’s create a resource for the best Slack apps together to do more every day!

Also read: How to use Slack in HR and make it your best friend

With these apps and following the best Slack practices, you’re all set to do more! Your team will be able to communicate and collaborate better in no time.

The post Get More Done With This List Of The Best Slack Apps appeared first on AttendanceBot Blog.