What is Calamari?
Pros from reviewers
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Excellent customer support: Calamari's customer service team is always ready to assist. They are extremely responsive, often responding within minutes and going the extra mile to help users. They even assist in setting up complex accrual rules and provide screenshots to guide users
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Ease of use: Calamari is incredibly user-friendly, making it easy for employees to request time off, approve these requests, and monitor coverage for any given day. The timeclock is packed with features and the software is simple to integrate, clear, and intuitive
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Integration with other apps: Calamari can seamlessly integrate with other apps such as Slack, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Jira, Optima, and Office365. This integration significantly cuts down approval times and keeps everyone updated on employee availability
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Affordable and reasonable cost: Calamari offers great value for money with its monthly subscription cost. It is affordable and the simplicity of its setup and maintenance is appreciated by users
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Environmental friendliness: By using Calamari, companies can minimize their environmental footprint by not printing leave requests. This is a crucial advantage for companies that prioritize sustainability.
Cons from reviewers
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Bugs in the system: While the support team is quick to resolve issues, some users have reported encountering bugs in the system. These bugs, however, are fixed promptly upon reporting
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Confusing user interface: While Calamari is praised for its affordability and ease of setup, some users find the user interface, particularly the calendar view and the navigation for administrators, to be confusing. At times, lists refresh unexpectedly, causing a discrepancy between what the user expects and what is displayed.
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Lack of comprehensive reporting: While Calamari is appreciated for its simplicity and ease of use, it falls short in the area of reporting. Companies often require a signed record of timecard approval to ensure fair pay for employees, and currently, this data has to be manually exported and configured
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Difficulty with .csv importer: Some users find the .csv importer challenging to use and often require Calamari's support to complete an upload task
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Dull interface: Despite being user-friendly, some users find Calamari's interface to be dull and not very helpful. It lacks an auto clock in/clock out feature, which could be a beneficial addition
Main features
Starting Price
Free Plan
Keep your team informed
Insights for better decision-making
Seamless integration with payroll
Complete customization
Streamline your HR processes
Starting Price
N/A
Free Plan
No
Keep your team informed
Insights for better decision-making
Seamless integration with payroll
Complete customization
Streamline your HR processes
How Calamari compare to similar software?
Product
Price
N/A
Free plan
No
Main features
Pros
Cons
Alternatives
Deal
No available deal at the moment
Who is Calamari best for according to our reviewers?
Small businesses seeking affordable HR solutions: Calamari's reasonable monthly subscription cost and ease of setup make it a cost-effective choice for small businesses, despite some room for improvement in the interface and reporting features
Environmentally conscious organizations: Calamari's online leave request system helps reduce the environmental footprint by eliminating the need for printed leave requests. The software is also easy to integrate and user-friendly, even for employees who have never used similar tools before
Companies looking for a simple leave tracking system: Calamari offers an easy-to-use platform for requesting and approving time off, with a user-friendly interface and daily notifications to keep the team updated on who is out
Expanding teams needing a time and PTO tracker: Calamari is a great value for money for growing teams who find spreadsheets too burdensome for tracking time and PTO. The software's responsive support team and integrations with Slack and Google Calendar are particularly appreciated
Companies with complex leave policies: Calamari allows for detailed control over the setup and automatic enforcement of leave policies, despite a steep learning curve during implementation. The software's excellent customer support and policy integration features are highly valued.
Calamari Reviews
4.7
Calamari rating
4.5
Ease of use
4.5
Customer service
4.5
Value for money
4.5
Likelihood to recommend
4.7
Features
29 Calamari Reviews
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Terry Williams
Tested Multiple Leave Management Software, Here's Calamari
I tested multiple leave management systems before discovering Calamari. All of them wrongly assumed that everyone begins their holiday year on the same date. Many thought that the entire company used the calendar year, which is impractical for us as everyone would rush to take their holiday in December, leaving us understaffed. Calamari was the only system I found that allowed holiday accrual on the anniversary of the employee's start date. Besides this, it also offers many advanced features and excellent support.
October 22, 2024
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Jonathan A
Excellent Policy Integration Capabilities
I appreciate being able to incorporate our leave policies into Calamari, as it allows the software to automatically enforce the rules. It offers detailed control over the setup and is intuitive and smooth once set up. However, the detailed control options create a steep learning curve during implementation. Thankfully, the customer support staff are excellent and very helpful. I wish Calamari would introduce an "edit" feature for approved leave requests, as it would be more convenient than cancelling and resubmitting. I chose Calamari for its superior policy integration, as we have a variety of policies for different leave types. I switched to Calamari from a homegrown system that was overly complicated and could change at short notice.
October 14, 2024
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Madison C
Calamari: Empowering CEOs with Transparent Attendance Insights
As a CEO, I appreciated Calamari's transparency. The software provided clear, real-time insights into our company's attendance data, helping me identify trends and make strategic decisions
October 5, 2024
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Patrick Jones
Effortless, Quick, and Affordable: Calamari Experience
I find Calamari to be a straightforward and easy tool for tracking each employee's daily time without the need for project-based time tracking. It took me less than 48 hours to install and set up the entire system. The overview for holidays and PTO is excellent and greatly helps everyone in planning their time off. However, it's crucial to understand how the platform operates to fully leverage its capabilities. One drawback is the lack of integration between the Calamari Agenda and our Mac Agenda. Currently, we have to manually update our booking calendar and the Calamari calendar. I switched to Calamari because I was unhappy with the previous service, which was bug-ridden and only tracked time, not holidays or PTO. It was also quite costly for the service provided. The vendor responded to my review, thanked me, and suggested I reach out to their Customer Success team for better calendar synchronization. They responded in July 2022.
September 28, 2024
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Walter D
Efficient Leave Approval: Calamari's Multi-Level Feature Streamlines the Process
As a department head, I found Calamari's multi-level approval feature very useful. It ensured that all leave requests were properly reviewed and approved by the right people
September 21, 2024
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Richard E
Effortless Integration with Jira, Slack, and HR Payroll: A User-Friendly Tool
Overall, Calamari has significantly enhanced our corporate life. Now, everyone in our organization is aware of their annual leave allowance. We value this tool as it integrates with other tools we utilize, such as Outlook Calendar, Jira, Optima, Slack, and Office365. It's highly user-friendly, intuitive, and adaptable to our requirements. We have various agreements and absence types, and Calamari enables us to set everything up accordingly. We're also very satisfied with the customer support.Although the system's customization options (absence types, calendars, working shifts, approval processes, etc.) make it initially complex to set up, understanding its dependencies and structure makes it less challenging. The customer support is exceptional, always responsive, and extremely helpful.We selected Calamari because it was the only system that had all the features we needed, including integrations with Jira, Slack, Optima, and Office365.
September 17, 2024
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Adam Rodriguez
Adore this software!
I find Calamari easy to use and its customer service extremely helpful. I am satisfied with this software because it's fully customizable and integrates with Slack, making it simple for employees to request time off and check their balance. I would recommend Calamari to anyone interested in trying it.
September 9, 2024
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Raymond Johnson
Calamari - Streamlining Team Availability Management with a Few Clicks
Overall, I'm quite satisfied with using Calamari and would consider adding more modules, as long as they're as flexible as the leave management module and allow for customization according to our needs. I appreciate its affordability and the simplicity of its setup and maintenance. I also value its integration with Slack and the open API that we could use to connect to Float. The customer service is commendable (thanks, Kasia!). However, the user interface could be improved. The calendar view and the way administrators have to navigate can be confusing. Sometimes, the lists refresh unexpectedly, causing a discrepancy between what I expect and what is displayed. I chose Calamari for its affordability and ease of setup and maintenance.
September 2, 2024
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Kenneth M
Efficient Workflow Management: Calamari's Seamless Integration with Slack and Jira
As an operations manager, I was impressed by Calamari's seamless integration with other tools we use like Slack and Jira. This made it much easier to manage our workflows and keep everyone on the same page
August 27, 2024
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Nancy R
Comprehensive Leave Management Solution That Delivers
I consider Calamari an exceptional tool for leave tracking. In the two years my company has used it, we've only received positive feedback from employees and managers. Its approval flow and integration with Slack have significantly cut down approval times. The calendar and notification features keep everyone updated on employee availability. Even setting up complex accrival rules is simple. The Calamari customer service team is always ready to assist. It's a top-tier platform that meets our needs perfectly. I recently suggested including archived employees in the reporting tool for exporting historical data on time off trends. Calamari implemented this feedback promptly. I appreciate their responsiveness. The .csv importer can be a bit challenging to use and I often need Calamari's support to complete an upload task. However, they always respond quickly and help me resolve the issue.
August 19, 2024
