How CAST Uses ZoomShift to Make Scheduling & Time Tracking Easier

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) is a small nonprofit with a team split between in-office and remote employees. Their mission is to produce science-based agricultural publications, a process that requires careful tracking of time spent on different programs and projects — especially when reporting to donors or billing against grants.

But keeping track of employee hours wasn’t as simple as it should have been. CAST’s existing time-tracking system — a free, home-built tool — was starting to show its limitations.

As the organization grew, Anne Owens, CAST’s Director of Council Operations, found herself spending more and more time wrestling with the system:

• Logging hours took longer than it should
• Running reports required extra steps
• Every month ended with a scramble to collect timesheets from employees who were reluctant to use the tool

Anne knew CAST needed a better way — something easier for employees, reliable for leadership, and flexible enough to handle their multi-project work structure. That’s when they found ZoomShift.

We spoke with Anne to learn what made ZoomShift stand out (from all the tools on the market) and how it helped them turn time tracking from a monthly headache into a simple, stress-free process.

Read on to learn how ZoomShift helped CAST work smarter — and how it could help your team do the same.

Why CAST Chose ZoomShift

When CAST started looking for a new time-tracking solution, they knew exactly what they needed: something secure, flexible, and simple enough that employees wouldn’t avoid using it.

They wanted a tool that could handle their project-based work structure without adding extra steps. Cost was a consideration, too, as many paid platforms stretched beyond what CAST, as a nonprofit, could justify.

ZoomShift stood out immediately.

Our nonprofit pricing removed the budget concern, but what sealed the deal was how well the tool met CAST’s needs:

• Setup was simple — ZoomShift was quick to set up and easy to customize, even for CAST’s complex project structure
• The tool had an intuitive design, which meant employees could pick it up fast without needing constant help
• Reporting was easy and quick, which saved Anne from running multiple reports just to get a clear view of project hours

It was the right fit from every angle. ZoomShift promised to save CAST time, reduce frustration, and give their leadership the reliability they’d been missing.

And it delivered.

5 Ways ZoomShift Made Life Easier for CAST

Here are five ways ZoomShift helped CAST become more efficient:

1. Time Entry Became Simple and Fast

Time tracking used to be a chore that everyone dreaded at CAST. For Anne, a typical day involved juggling up to seven different tasks across several projects.

Under their old system, each task had to be entered separately — and every single one required clicking “Save” (this is important) before moving on to the next. There was no option to batch entries together, which meant Anne often spent more time interacting with the system than actually logging her work.

With ZoomShift, that entire process was replaced with something far simpler.

Now, when Anne logs in, she selects the day she’s entering time for and sees a clean, user-friendly grid. She clicks on a time slot, adds all the tasks she worked on that day, picks the project and position from dropdown menus, and enters her hours.

Once she’s filled everything in, she hits “Save” — just once — and all her entries for the day are logged. There’s no need to save after every task. No repetitive clicking. No waiting for the system to catch up.

2. Employees Submit Timesheets Without the Chase

Before ZoomShift, getting employees to complete their timesheets was a monthly struggle — and Anne was always the one left chasing them down. As the end of the month approached, she’d send out her usual reminder email and the reaction was immediate — but not in a good way.

Staff put it off as long as possible. And when the deadline finally arrived, Anne had to track down the stragglers — sending follow-up emails, knocking on office doors, and reminding people in passing conversations.

The problem wasn’t that her team was unwilling to track their time — it was that the process was so tedious with their old system that everyone avoided it. They knew opening that system meant clicking, saving, and waiting over and over again, so they pushed it off until they had no choice.

ZoomShift eliminated this friction.

The simple interface made logging time quick and easy, and the frustration that once led to procrastination was gone. Staff started completing their timesheets on time — without needing to be chased.

And those who missed the deadline were genuinely busy. As Anne put it, “We all have a better attitude about tracking our time. People aren’t avoiding it anymore.”

3. Reports Are Ready in Minutes, Not Hours

Funders often require detailed breakdowns of how staff hours were allocated across various initiatives, and Anne needed accurate data to make sure CAST’s payroll and grant reporting were correct.

But their old system turned this into a tedious, multi-step process.

If Anne needed to know how much time was spent on five different publications, she couldn’t just pull a single report. She had to run five separate reports — one for each project — export them to Excel and then manually stitch them together.

That meant cross-checking names, combining hours, and reformatting data — hoping she didn’t overlook anything along the way. This process easily ate up hours every month, and any adjustments — like adding a new project or shifting staff responsibilities — only made things more complicated.

ZoomShift changed this overnight.

Now, when Anne logs in to pull her reports, she can just select multiple projects at once and generate a consolidated report in seconds. Filters help her break down the data by project, position, or employee all without the hassle of combining files by hand.

4. Security Risks Are Gone

Protecting employee data is a priority for any organization, and CAST wanted the reassurance that their time-tracking system could keep up — both in functionality and security. If their server went down or simply stopped working, CAST could lose access to their data entirely.

The system was also shared across other nonprofits in their network, which meant that removing a former employee from CAST’s records could accidentally delete that person’s work history from another organization using the same tool.

Anne and her team felt unable to fully control their own data.

ZoomShift gave them full control over their records. They could add new employees or adjust team assignments without worrying about unintended changes elsewhere.

As Anne noted, “With ZoomShift, we feel secure. We know our data is protected.” They could finally trust their time-tracking system to work quietly in the background without wondering what might go wrong.

5. Onboarding New Employees Became Effortless

Hiring and training student workers is a regular part of CAST’s operations. These employees often join for short periods — usually while studying — so Anne needed a system that wouldn’t slow them down or require hours of training just to log their time.

Their old system, however, was anything but intuitive.

New hires needed hands-on guidance to understand its clunky interface and any small mistake (like forgetting to save an entry) could mean lost work.

Anne found herself spending extra time walking students through the process or troubleshooting errors. Onboarding became an extra task on her plate every time a new person joined.

When CAST brought on their first student worker after adopting ZoomShift, Anne immediately saw the difference: “Getting people onboarded to ZoomShift was super slick. Our student workers took to it immediately.”

Setting up their account was quick — just adding a name and email address, and assigning the right position. The students received an invitation, logged in, and started tracking their time right away with little to no help.

Instead of fielding questions or walking people through multiple steps, Anne could trust that new hires would get up to speed on their own.

Final Thoughts

For CAST, ZoomShift changed how their team approached time-tracking. What was once a monthly source of frustration became a quick, seamless process:

• Reports stopped eating up hours
• Employees stopped dreading their timesheets
• Security concerns faded away
• Onboarding new hires became effortless

Anne sums it up best: “[ZoomShift] gets the job done. It’s easy. And it’s saved me a ton of time.”

For small teams, nonprofits, or any organization tired of clunky, outdated timesheets, CAST’s story shows that time tracking doesn’t have to be a headache. With ZoomShift, it can be simple, flexible, and actually work for you.

JD Spinoza

JD enjoys teaching people how to use ZoomShift to save time spent on scheduling. He’s curious, likes learning new things everyday and playing the guitar (although it’s a work in progress).