Are you struggling to find the right resource management software for your business?
Look no further than this in-depth comparison of two of the top tools on the market: Float and EmployPlan.
While both platforms offer valuable features and functionality, EmployPlan sets itself apart by offering a more comprehensive approach to resource management. With a focus on talent development and skill planning, EmployPlan streamlines the resource management process and saves you time, allowing you to make better business decisions without overthinking talent.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the features and benefits of both tools, highlighting specific use cases where each proves to be the superior choice. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of which platform is the ultimate resource management tool for your business.
What is Float software?
Float is a resource management software suitable for companies of most sizes. Float is heavily focused on scheduling concrete project resources around tasks.
What is Float good for?
Float is exceptionally good if you need to plan shifts for multiple low-skilled workers or when you want your resource management platform to take over responsibilities from the project management app.
When you want to handle complex project structures and need to drill down as low as a task with a Gantt chart, Float could prove a nice tool. However, Float scheduling features leave a lot to be desired.
What is EmployPlan?
EmployPlan is a semi-autonomous talent planning platform. It’s an all-in-one resource management software that takes care of developing the talent of your teams while you schedule resources.
It’s a very visual tool. EmployPlan focuses on project skills rather than the total Float approach that deals with looking primarily at tasks in a project.
With an intuitive interface, EmployPlan automates a lot of the mundane HR tasks, which allows you to make much more adequate business decisions without spending unnecessary time overthinking talent.
What is EmployPlan good for?
EmployPlan allows you to save your team’s time significantly by reducing time spent on talent management and skill planning.
Choose EmployPlan if you are looking for something that will handle your project allocation needs while effortlessly caring for talents in your company.
The advantage of using EmployPlan is that by using it, you also build a database of skills in your organization. The system automatically recommends your employee’s education and handles upskilling for you.
The product has far more functionality than Float but, in essence, requires you to do the same work to achieve far greater benefits.
EmployPLan vs. Float: Five use cases to consider
There are certain scenarios where EmployPlan will most definitely be better than Float. Both of the tools tend to have their strengths and weaknesses, which unveil as you start working with complex project structures.
When you operate in a high-skill industry
Float is great! It really is. With custom work hours and a time tracking tool that allows you to log hours, Float works great if you just need to know who is working on what, down to such details as tasks visible on a Gantt chart.
It starts lacking when what you are trying to plan is not just low-skilled workers but highly qualified consultants and engineers with diverse skill sets.
Then it might no longer be enough, as skill matrices tend to be complex, people have their own preferences in terms of work, and it’s difficult to define requirements. You want to ensure that the right person is assigned to the right team.
You eventually need a separate tool for skills management, separate for training management, and the list goes on and on.
EmployPlan solves that for you.
When you are using a project management tool like Jira or Asana
If you are using a tool like Asana for project management, you probably just want a bird’s eye view of project allocation and team availability to understand who is on what project and when.
On such occasions, the approach Float takes in regard to tasks schedule might be daunting, as this feature set will duplicate across Float and Asana making Integration more difficult.
When you need perfectly aligned people recommendations
For low-skilled staff, all you need to know is the availability of people. Things get trickier if what you are looking at are experts in multiple fields.
You end up setting up company meetings, calling managers, and spending days browsing CVs. To think of the entire project to select the few people who can do the job can be tricky, and the client is not waiting. EmployPlan here brings one click-recommendations that allow you to dump CVs altogether.
When you want resource planning to be simple
If all you care about is the project completion date and want to leave the subsequent tasks of defining project management tools to the project authorities.
If project tracking is what you need and you want to simply know who is on what project and when while keeping it simple, choose EmployPlan.
When you already have a great time-tracking tool, and all you need is the planning team’s availability
Sometimes all you want to know is who is on what project and when. Float scheduling gives you robust timesheet tracking that allows logging hours for scheduled tasks.
But sometimes you really don’t need it. That might be if you are already using a more robust time-tracking solution such as Tempo Timesheets or Clockify.
Comparison of Features
Both resource management software have their ups and downs, with their specific feature set, neatly tailored to their audience.
While Float is an all-around tool to schedule resources & tasks in projects, EmployPlan is a more robust solution that offers talent planning for high-skill professions.
Automatic Skills Tracking
Unlike Float, EmployPlan allows you to automatically track how your employee’s skills change as they are assigned to projects and finish education.
This, combined with upskilling and course recommendations, allow your resource scheduling system to replace all your skill management software completely.
EmployPlan does that autonomously, in the background, without you having to do a thing.
Float is only about the resources, while EmployPlan is about the bigger picture.
Automatically Manage Upskilling
The critical path to a high-performing team is how they can evolve to what their project team needs. EmployPlan allows you to build professional upskilling trees, which help the employees easily define what they should learn next. Float does not have any form of upskilling functionality.
Resource Management
Let’s not chant, “oh great, google calendar, google calendar!” as there are better resource scheduling tools available.
Resource planning can be one of the most challenging tasks. You want to make sure you can schedule resources and be able to manage all of my project team’s time efficiently.
Both of the products enable the project manager to schedule resources with multiple allocation periods and project timelines easily.
Project Tags
EmployPlan lets you tag your projects, which in terms, allows you to filter for the project allocations you need easily. Float does not differ here in functionality.
Project Timelines
With both EmployPlan and Float, you gain access to project timelines that help you easily schedule projects.
Float focuses more on tasks in project management and Gantt charts, while EmployPlan is focused on concrete project team allocations and how they match their project roles.
Visualized with both a dashboard and a timeline graph.
Education Recommendation
As you plan projects and know who is going to work on what, you would likely also want to make sure the people can upskill swiftly to the roles they are assigned to.
EmployPlan analyzes your project structures, the skills of your employees, and their gaps to automatically recommend them the best fitting courses from over 100 major online schools (I.e, Pluralsight, Coursera, Udemy).
Float lacks a feature set of this kind.
People Recommendation
EmployPlan is smart enough to figure out the best matching person for the job in a matter of seconds.
It does so by analyzing in-depth the education of all of your team members, their availability and preferences, and the needs of the business.
This way, you can see some more options and get a better insight into your organization.
With Float, you are forced to learn by heart the skills of every single person in your team or use labels in order to be able to schedule them.
Analytics and Reporting
Both EmployPlan and Float grant access to a variety of visual options to track the changes in your projects and teams.
While Float has more visual options related to tracking project budgets, EmployPlan primarily focuses on skill utilization.
With reporting, visual analytics, and exports, your critical path to success is simple in both cases.
Task Management
Tasks management refers to being able to schedule tasks and monitor their progress.
EmployPlan will not let you track and assign tasks down to actual hours spent.
Choose Float scheduling if you need advanced project management features like project budgets, tasks, milestones, or determining the critical path for your project management project so you can track progress. Total Float scheduling is your answer here.
Time Tracking
While Float is focused on time, EmployPlan does not offer time tracking or timesheets out of the box. Instead, it relies on available on-the-market integrations with tools like Tempo or Clockify
Plan Vacations, Sick Leave, Personal Leave, and Time Off
Both Float and EmployPlan allow you to take into account vacation and personal leave. You can add time off easily through a person’s calendar.
Public Holidays
Both allow you to handle public holidays. In Float, you have to define when a public holiday happens, while EmployPlan automatically determines it based on the location of the person.
Integrations
“The software lacks integration not” – is what you want to hear when looking for the right tool to schedule resources in your company. The good news is that both EmployPlan and Float integrate either natively or through Zapier with almost every business app available on the market.
Unlimited Training
When you need support and want to get the best value for the buck, EmployPlan is a clear winner.
Not only does it offer unlimited free training, but your EmployPlan live rep will actively help the company to customize the product free of charge.
It allows you to land more specific feedback with the EmployPlan team and get a product much better tailored to your project needs. Float does not offer any form of unpaid customization support
Pricing Comparison
The standard price of EmployPlan is $7, for which you get all the features.
Float pricing tends to be high. Float pricing schemes can vary. You can either pay $7.5 monthly for the basic features or $12.50 for the advanced plan.
In both cases, you can choose to be billed annually and claim a 20% discount.
There is no free float plan available. Float does not come with a free float plan.
EmployPlan is free for up to 10 users and afterward billed $7 per active user.
In both cases, there is no need to set monthly cost limits. The apps run on monthly subscription fees. There is also no fee associated with archived users.
Summary
Float is a great tool for task scheduling low-skilled workers in shifts and log hours, while EmployPlan lets you easily track project allocation, manage the team’s time, and schedule projects while giving you robust talent management tools out of the box.
EmployPlan is more tailored to high-skill companies that want to manage talent effortlessly and handle project allocation, while Float is more about resources and tasks in projects.
If cash flow is what matters to you, with a lower starting price and multiple free benefits, EmployPlan is definitely a more affordable, robust option that lets you drop other systems you use and need to pay for.
References:
https://www.softwareadvice.com/project-management/float-profile/
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1222203/float-resource-management
