Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm
Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm is a family-friendly tourism attraction in Henley Brook, WA — home to 400+ animals and 15 years of community experiences. Manager Linda King replaced manual staff text messages with RosterElf, choosing it because it's local, simple, and suited their business perfectly.
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Replaced manual staff text messages with digital rostering
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Saved hours every week across rostering and timekeeping
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Chose RosterElf for being a local Australian company
"Local company and it suited our business. Ease of use is my favourite thing — it saved time across everything: rostering, time tracking, and payroll."
How Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm stopped texting rosters and saved time
About Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm
Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm has been a beloved WA tourism landmark for over 15 years, welcoming families, school groups, and tourists to meet and feed over 400 animals including goats, rabbits, alpacas, and more.
The farm also offers tractor rides, birthday parties, mobile farm visits, and a Feed Shed Café — meaning the team's roster changes week to week based on bookings and events. Before RosterElf, Manager Linda King was manually texting each staff member their roster individually. It was time-consuming, error-prone, and there was no easy way to track who had confirmed their shifts.
Linda chose RosterElf partly because it's a local Australian company that understood the business's needs. The switch to digital rostering, time tracking, and payroll integration saved time across every area of workforce management.
Challenges before RosterElf
Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm was managing staff entirely through manual text messages — a slow, unreliable process that consumed too much of the manager's time each week.
Manually texting each staff member their roster individually — time-consuming, error-prone, and hard to track
No record of what roster had been sent — difficult to confirm who had acknowledged their shifts
Rostering taking too long each week for a tourism business with variable bookings and event schedules
Managing staff across multiple activity areas — animals, café, tours, and events — without a unified system
No digital time tracking — relying on paper or manual records for hours worked, adding more admin each pay cycle
Payroll process not connected to the roster — manual data entry required every pay period
How RosterElf helped Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm
- Digital roster staff can view instantly on their phones — no texting needed, no confusion about shifts
- Digital time clock replacing manual hours tracking across all activity areas
- Payroll integration connecting hours worked directly to pay — removing manual data entry each period
- Team communication built into the platform — roster updates, shift changes, and announcements in one place
- Local Australian support — a company that understands Australian business needs, employment conditions, and award compliance
- Built for tourism and recreation businesses — flexible rostering that adapts to bookings and seasonal demand
What Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm says about RosterElf
1. The before picture: manually texting every staff member
"Manually texting staff their rosters."
Before RosterElf, every roster at Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm was distributed via individual text messages. That means finding each staff member's number, drafting the message, sending it, and then following up with anyone who hadn't confirmed. Multiply that across a team with variable weekly shifts — animals, café, tours, and events — and it adds up to significant time wasted each week.
There was also no record of what had been sent. If a staff member claimed they hadn't received their roster, there was no easy way to verify. RosterElf replaced all of that with a single digital roster that everyone can view on their phone — instantly.
2. Why being local mattered
"Local company and it suited our business."
For Linda, the fact that RosterElf is an Australian company was a meaningful part of the decision. A local company understands Australian award rates, employment conditions, and the reality of running a small tourism business — not just in theory, but in practice.
When something goes wrong or a question comes up, you want support from a team that understands your context. That combination of local knowledge and a platform that genuinely "suited our business" was exactly what Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm was looking for.
3. The result: time saved across everything
"Saved time — all takes less time."
When asked how RosterElf has improved the business and what measurable results they've seen, Linda's answer was the same both times: it saves time, across all areas. Rostering takes less time. Time tracking takes less time. Processing payroll takes less time.
That kind of broad, consistent time saving is exactly what you hope for when switching to an all-in-one workforce management platform — and it's what Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm found.
4. The favourite feature: ease of use
"Ease of use."
In a busy tourism attraction with seasonal demand, birthday party bookings, and a team working across animals, café, and events, there's no time to learn a complicated tool. The platform either works intuitively, or it doesn't get used properly.
For Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm, RosterElf's ease of use is what stands out most. It's a platform the whole team can navigate without confusion — making every part of workforce management simpler than it was before.
Why Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm recommends RosterElf
Ease of use
Anyone on the team can use RosterElf without training — making it the ideal solution for a tourism business with a mix of full-time, part-time, and casual staff.
Local Australian company
A company that understands Australian businesses and employment conditions — not a generic offshore platform that needs to be configured from scratch.
All-in-one platform
Roster, time clock, and payroll integration in one place — saving time across every area of workforce management instead of managing multiple disconnected tools.
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Tourism & recreation rostering FAQ
- RosterElf's rostering software lets tourism businesses build and publish rosters digitally, so staff can view their shifts instantly on their phones. For businesses with variable weekly schedules based on bookings and events, this replaces unreliable manual methods like text messages and paper rosters.
- Yes. RosterElf eliminates the need to manually text each staff member their roster. Once a roster is published, all staff receive instant notifications via the app — with no manual follow-up required. Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm made exactly this switch, moving from individual text messages to digital roster notifications.
- Absolutely. RosterElf is used by tourism and recreation businesses across Australia, including animal farms and family attractions. It handles variable shift patterns, different activity areas, and seasonal demand changes — exactly the kind of flexibility that tourism operators need.
- RosterElf makes it easy to build and adjust rosters week by week based on bookings, events, and demand. Managers can quickly add or change shifts, and staff receive immediate notification of any updates. This flexibility is ideal for tourism businesses where no two weeks look the same.
- Yes. RosterElf's payroll integration connects hours worked directly to payroll processing, removing the need for manual data entry. Swan Valley Cuddly Animal Farm uses the full platform — roster, time clock, and payroll integration — saving time across all three areas.