Shift planning tools?

[extraT]

Does anyone have any (preferably free) shift planning tools?

We have two shops and a number of employees which work between both sites. Until now we have always done the shift manually but I’m wondering if there is a better way?

E.g enter name/hours/ holidays of the employee and click for the plan to be generated.

Any ideas?

[vulture1]

Depends on the number. In food retail we have a program that should know everyone's availability to work, their holiday and what job roles they can and can't do. I could even auto populate it to cover the hols if someone is off. I have 35 people across 4 different skills sets (some are skilled in 1 or 2 even 3 of them. This tool could do it Instantly.

I use excel and some notes about preferred shift patterns everytime.

Them I populate the rota on the program..
Tech is good for some things but it also takes out the human element of knowing you had Bob working the last 3 weekends and you want to give him the next one off. The program can't really do that.