Staff scheduling built for the staff who won't install an app.
Timely is the scheduling tool for group homes, IDD providers, and residential-care agencies. Publish a week in minutes — every DSP gets their shifts by SMS. No app downloads, no logins, no chasing confirmations.
Free for teams up to 5 staff · Set up in under 5 minutes
The scheduling tools you've tried weren't built for the workforce you have.
Most employee-scheduling software assumes a workforce that will install an app, log in every shift, and check a dashboard. DSPs are not that workforce — neither demographically nor practically. Your staff are working in clients' homes, often older, often non-tech-native, often Spanish-first. Asking them to install yet another app is the friction that turns a week-one rollout into a six-month project.
Meanwhile your EHR — Therap, Sandata, or whatever you're running — does a fine job tracking client care, documentation, and the EVV your state mandates. It does not build a schedule, send shift reminders, or let a DSP request a swap from their phone in under thirty seconds. So your ops team ends up running scheduling in Excel, Google Sheets, or a group text. Every week.
Timely fills exactly that gap. We don't replace your EHR — we sit alongside it. We own scheduling, SMS communication, time-off, and overtime detection. Your EHR still owns client care and Medicaid billing.
Why group homes pick Timely
No app for your DSPs
Your staff already have a phone. They don't need another app, and the older half of your team won't install one anyway. Publish the week and every DSP gets their shifts by SMS. Time-off and coverage swaps come back the same way — by text.
Built for high-turnover teams
Add a new DSP, type their phone, they're in next Friday's text. No invitation emails for staff to ignore, no onboarding wizard for the new hire to abandon. Designed around the reality of residential-care staffing — where DSP turnover regularly clears 50%.
Catches OT before payroll
Overtime, double-booked staff, and rule violations surface in the grid the moment you create them — not on Friday when you push payroll. Catch them while you can still swap, not after the timesheet is locked.
Three steps from sign-up to a published week
Total setup time for a typical 8-DSP group home: under five minutes.
Add your DSPs
Name, role, phone. Paste a list if you have one — Timely splits and dedupes it. No invitation emails for staff to ignore; the next published schedule is how they learn the schedule exists.
Build the week
Click a cell to set a shift. Smart Copy duplicates last week's pattern. Overtime flags in real time so a coverage-gap swap doesn't accidentally push someone over their weekly cap.
Hit Publish
Every DSP gets their week by SMS within seconds. They reply with time-off, swap requests, or coverage offers — same channel. No logins, no app, no chasing.
What changes for your ops team
Before Timely
- Schedule built every week in Excel or a spreadsheet template
- Group text or printed sheets to communicate the schedule
- DSPs text the manager directly with swap requests
- Overtime found on Friday when you push payroll
- New hires miss their first shift because they never saw the schedule
With Timely
- Build the week visually — Smart Copy reuses last week's pattern
- Hit Publish, every DSP gets their week by SMS in seconds
- Swap requests reply through the same SMS thread, logged automatically
- Overtime flags in the grid the moment you create the conflict
- New hires are in the very next published text — no app, no email gymnastics
We don't replace your EHR — we sit alongside it
Timely owns scheduling and SMS. Your EHR (Therap, Sandata, whatever you use) keeps owning client care and Medicaid billing. Your payroll provider keeps owning payroll. We integrate so the same hours flow through cleanly.
Square Payroll
Live
QuickBooks Online
Live
Gusto
Live
Toast Payroll
In build
Therap
Roadmap
Sandata
Roadmap
Need a specific integration? Tell us — IDD providers asking for it is what gets it built.
Common questions from IDD & group-home admins
Does Timely replace our EHR (Therap, Sandata, etc.)?
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No. Your EHR owns client documentation, ISP/POC tracking, behavioral data, and EVV. Timely owns staff scheduling and SMS communication. They complement each other, and we integrate where it makes sense (payroll first; Therap and Sandata integrations are on the roadmap).
What about EVV requirements?
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EVV (electronic visit verification) is a Medicaid requirement that lives in your EHR / billing system — that's where state-mandated EVV data is captured and submitted. Timely doesn't replace that. We do tell you who's scheduled, when, and notify them by text — which often closes the loop between schedule and EVV check-in.
How does this work if we run multiple group homes?
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Each home is a 'location' in Timely. You can blend them into one view to see staffing across the whole operation, or focus on one home at a time. DSPs can be assigned to a primary home but pick up shifts at others — the swap and SMS rails work cross-home.
Will our DSPs actually use it?
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That's the entire point of the SMS-first design. Your DSPs don't 'use' Timely — they receive text messages with their schedule. They reply to text messages to request time off or swap shifts. No app to install, no password to forget, no portal to log into. Adoption is whatever your text-message open rate is — usually north of 95%.
What does it cost?
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Free for teams up to 5 staff. Paid plans start at $29/month for up to 25 employees per location. Multi-location pricing scales linearly. There's no per-text fee on top — SMS is included in the plan. See the pricing page for full details.
How long does setup take?
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Under five minutes for a typical 8-DSP group home: enter the staff, drag a few shifts, hit Publish. If you have an existing roster in Excel or another tool, paste it in — Timely splits and dedupes. We don't make you sit through onboarding videos.
What if we need a feature you don't have yet?
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Tell us. We're actively building toward the residential-care vertical (state-specific compliance rules, EHR integrations, ratio-aware scheduling). DSP-admin feedback drives the roadmap — every feature request is read by a person, and the ones from real IDD providers move first.
Try Timely free for your group home
Five minutes from signup to a published week. No card, no commitment, no employee app to roll out.