Library Desk Scheduling Software

We're not a technical team. Is it hard to set up?

No. A guided setup walks you through adding your people and service points, and you can paste in your existing roster to start. You can have a real week scheduled the same afternoon.

Will my staff and volunteers be able to figure it out?

Yes. They open a link, see their own schedule, and can sync it to their phone's calendar. They can also log in to check their shifts, request time off, or change their email preferences. No training, no manual. Volunteers who will never log in don't need an account at all.

Can I really edit the schedule from my phone?

Yes. It's a true web app, not a desktop program with a read-only website bolted on. Most people still build the schedule at a desk and use the phone for quick changes on the go. Either way, staff see the change right away.

Can people see the schedule without logging in?

Yes, two ways. Each person can subscribe to their own shifts in Google, Outlook, or Apple Calendar: they sign in once to copy their personal calendar link, and from then on their shifts stay up to date on their phone. You can also share one read-only link to the whole schedule, branded, printable, and shareable by QR code, for the staff-room board or a partner organization. Anyone with that link can view it without an account. You can replace either link anytime.

Can volunteers use it, and do they cost extra?

Volunteers are scheduled exactly like staff and never count as a paid seat. Each one can have their own login for self-service or be scheduled without ever logging in. Your call, person by person.

What happens to our recurring schedule?

You build it once and it repeats automatically. It skips the days you mark as closed, and any single shift can be edited as a one-off.

Does it build the schedule for me automatically?

No, and that's deliberate: there's no black-box auto-scheduler, because most libraries want a person deciding who's where. Kickstool makes that person fast instead. Recurring patterns build the week, every uncovered desk hour becomes a button that opens a pre-filled shift form, and the people list puts whoever is free and trained for that window first. You make the calls; Kickstool does the cross-referencing. To move a shift directly, drag it onto someone else's row in Day view.

Does it track hours worked or run payroll?

No. Kickstool builds the schedule and exports scheduled hours per person, which you can pair with your existing payroll or time-clock system. It isn't a punch clock, on purpose: staying focused on scheduling is what keeps it simple.

Can we get volunteer hours for grant and board reports?

Yes. Export volunteer hours, staff hours, hours by assignment type, and PTO used to CSV whenever you need them. Those are the totals grant applications and boards keep asking for.

We have more than one branch. Does that work?

Yes. All your locations live in one account, each with its own opening hours and schedule. Managers can edit the branches they run and view the others to coordinate shared staff. Filter to one branch or see them all together.

How do we keep desk time fair across staff?

The libraries that don't argue about this do two things: write the expectations down, and make the totals visible. Kickstool does both. Write your desk rules in settings, like no more than 2 hours in a row at one desk, and the schedule warns whoever is drafting when a shift breaks one. It warns; it never blocks a save. And the desk-time balance report shows each person's desk and off-desk hours against what's expected, so fairness is something you can point at, not something one person remembers.

What if we decide to leave?

Export all of your data anytime. There's no lock-in. Your data is backed up automatically, and it belongs to your library, not to us.

Not ready for software? Start with the free schedule template.

Wrestling with desk-time fairness? See how libraries decide off-desk time.