Every workforce management feature list has the same ticks, and the ticks mean different things. This page is about reading one without being sold to: the four features that actually differentiate, and for each one the question that reveals what the tick means in the product in front of you.
Feature one: forecasting
Every product ticks it. The question is what method, on what history, and what happens when your pattern changes. A product that will not tell you its method is asking you to trust a number you have to defend to somebody else, which is not a position to be in.
Feature two: requirement calculation
Also always ticked, and the question is whether you can see and change the occupancy and shrinkage assumptions. If they are buried in a configuration screen or fixed by the vendor, the product will produce a number you cannot explain, and explaining it is the job.
Feature three: scheduling
The question is what constraints it can honour: availability, skills, contracted hours, minimum rest, multi-site. This is where products genuinely differ and where an implementation's difficulty is decided.
Feature four: reporting and export
The question is whether the export needs reformatting before anybody can use it. Every plan ends up in a board deck or a budget model, and a tick beside the word export means nothing at all until you have seen the actual file open in the actual tool it has to land in. Ask for that in the demo.
Questions people ask about workforce management features
Which features should be dealbreakers?
Visible occupancy and shrinkage assumptions, and an export you do not have to reformat. Both are cheap to check and both are commonly disappointing.
Do we need multi-skill scheduling?
Only if you actually run multi-skill. It adds implementation difficulty out of proportion to its value for a single-skill queue.
What does Orgplanly tick?
Requirement calculation with every assumption visible and editable, and a plan record with versions. Not forecasting and not scheduling, and it says so.