Residency scheduling service or software: why not both?

Chiefly is both residency scheduling software and a service, so your chiefs get the time back without giving up control. Our homepage puts it as “A dedicated scheduling advisor who knows your program, plus fast, flexible software you control.” Here is who does what:

• Our team. We load your rules from last year’s schedule and your requirements, along with the hundreds of nuances we’ve built up over many GME clients, and we work to your program’s timeline. Every program gets a dedicated scheduling advisor who stays with you year after year, training for each new chief class, quarterly check-ins, and a re-run whenever you ask. We also format the Excel download for whatever your hospital publishes in.
• The software. Chiefly builds the block, daily, clinic and call schedules as one integrated system of record, so a change on the block side carries through to the rest. It re-runs the year around leave, late starts and off-cycle residents, checks every swap against your rules, saves every version, and keeps your rules in place each year for the next chief class to keep or edit. Dashboards for program directors track each resident’s progress year over year.
• Your chiefs. They review drafts, make the calls and keep full control: they re-run the schedule themselves and get the result in minutes, test what-ifs in a sandbox, edit by hand with every edit checked against the rules, and approve swaps in the Swap Portal. No emailing a vendor and waiting.

Chiefly is used by residency programs across many specialties. Boston Children’s, with 188 residents across two hospitals, saved more than 3,600 chief and admin hours in its first eight months (case study). Its scheduling manager on the setup:

At Children’s National, one chief built the 2026-27 block schedule in a week of tinkering and released it on February 18, three months earlier than the year before, then gave residents a month to trade blocks in the Swap Portal (case study). At Augusta University’s family medicine residency, the two people who build the rotation calendar made every change themselves and called their scheduling advisor for questions (case study):

More on how Chiefly builds the block schedule, or see how Chiefly works.

Scheduling falls on chief residents because it comes with the job. Chiefs have just worked the rotations they’re scheduling, they know the services, attendings and residents, and they hear residents’ requests firsthand. In a national survey of internal medicine chief residents, 71% said they were the people primarily responsible for resident schedules (JAMA Network Open, 2022). Chiefs and program directors have long seen scheduling as the least satisfying part of the job (JGME, 2011).

The chief resident scheduling burden shows up in three ways:

• Time. About half a chief’s year: that’s how long chief residents tell us scheduling by hand takes them.
• No training. Most programs rely on administrators or senior residents to build schedules, often with no formal training in scheduling, working from rules of thumb handed from one chief to the next (JGME, 2015).
• Yearly turnover. Every year a new class takes over. In one emergency medicine program, resident satisfaction dropped with the first schedule built by new chiefs, then recovered over the following months (Healthcare, 2024).

Chiefs are the right people to decide the schedule, because the judgment it takes builds up quickly in the role. Alexandra Martinson, MD, who ran scheduling as a chief resident at Children’s National in 2025-26 and has advised Chiefly since February 2026, put it this way:

The question is whether chiefs should also build it by hand every year. With Chiefly they don’t have to: they decide, and the software and our team do the building. If you’re building it yourself for now, see how chief residents make the block schedule, step by step.

Programs make the residency schedule in one of three ways: with Chiefly’s software and service, by chiefs in a spreadsheet, or in self-serve software. The other two make you choose between chief time and control; Chiefly doesn’t.

1. Software and a service (Chiefly). Our team does the setup, the software builds the schedule, and chiefs stay in control, as described above.

2. Chiefs in Excel or Google Sheets. Still where most programs plan and build the year, because it’s flexible and gives chiefs control. It costs about half a chief’s year, every rule lives in formulas or in someone’s head, and each mid-year change is reworked by hand (Chiefly vs Excel).

3. Self-serve software the program configures. Most of these tools, such as Amion and QGenda, are used to publish a schedule that was built elsewhere, usually in Excel, and the setup falls to the program: Amion’s Residency plan is self-serve, and G2 reviewers report about four months on average to implement QGenda. See Chiefly compared with Amion and QGenda.

They differ most in who does the work: who builds the schedule, who changes it during the year, and who keeps the rules when chiefs graduate.

Because the changes never stop, and residents need answers in days, not weeks:

• Changes come every week. Weekend switches, family emergencies and residents rethinking their career plans keep coming after the schedule is published, and residents need answers in days, not weeks.
• Leave is routine. ACGME requires institutions to offer residents at least six weeks of approved medical, parental and caregiver leave once during training, at full salary for the first six weeks (ACGME Institutional Requirements 4.8). Each leave reshapes the rest of the year.
• Chiefs want to test options. Seeing what a change would do before deciding takes a tool chiefs can run themselves. At Children’s National, working out where to move residents when one is pulled from a rotation at the last minute went from a week or more to 15 to 30 minutes once the chief could run the schedule herself (case study).

That is why Chiefly is both software and a service: your chiefs make changes themselves in minutes, and our team is there to take on as much of the work as you want. In 2024-25, with the ACGME changes to plan around, Boston Children’s chiefs leaned on Chiefly’s team for most of the work:

In Chiefly, nothing is lost: your rules stay in place each year, so the next chief class can keep or edit them, and rules, residents and settings roll over in minutes with your incoming matched residents added. We call Chiefly “the TurboTax of residency scheduling” because what you set up last year carries forward. Every version stays saved, each new chief class gets its own training, and your scheduling advisor stays the same (what happens when chiefs graduate).

Elsewhere, the rules go wherever they were kept: in a spreadsheet they leave with the outgoing chiefs, with a service they stay with the vendor, and in self-serve software they stay only if someone kept the setup current. Emergency medicine schedulers surveyed for a 2024 study named the steep learning curve each new chief class faces as a pain point (Healthcare, 2024). Whatever you use, a good handoff covers:

• The rules and the reasons: every rule, and why each exception exists.
• The calendar: when requests are due, when drafts go to the program director, and when the schedule is published.
• What’s still open: upcoming leave, off-cycle residents, and swaps that haven’t been paid back.

Ask every vendor these questions, whether it sells software, a service or both. The answers show who does the work in the middle of the year and what happens when your chiefs change, not just what setup looks like. Click any question to see how Chiefly answers it.

1. 1.When a resident starts parental leave mid-year, can our chiefs re-run the schedule themselves, or do we wait on you?Chiefly’s answer

   Your chiefs re-run it themselves in Chiefly and get the result in minutes, with every rule intact and the previous version saved. No ticket, no email thread, no waiting on a vendor while the resident waits on you.
2. 2.Can our chiefs test a what-if and compare versions without asking you to?Chiefly’s answer

   Yes. What-ifs run in a sandbox next to the live schedule, every version is saved, and your chiefs compare them and decide on their own time.
3. 3.Do our rules and history stay with our program from year to year, or with your team?Chiefly’s answer

   With your program. Your rules stay in place in Chiefly for the next chief class to keep or edit, rollover brings in your incoming matched residents, and dashboards for program directors track each resident’s progress year over year. Nothing has to be rebuilt or re-explained when chiefs graduate.
4. 4.Does a change to the block schedule carry into daily, clinic and call on its own?Chiefly’s answer

   Yes. Chiefly builds the block, daily, clinic and call schedules as one integrated system of record, so a change on the block side carries through, with no separate files to chase down.
5. 5.How do residents request swaps, and who checks each one against our rules?Chiefly’s answer

   Residents request swaps in Chiefly’s Swap Portal. Chiefly checks each one against your rules before a chief sees it, and the chief approves in seconds.
6. 6.Who loads our rules, and how much of our program’s nuance can you handle?Chiefly’s answer

   Our team loads them from last year’s schedule and your requirements, in whatever format you have, along with the hundreds of nuances we’ve built up over many GME clients. We work to your program’s timeline.
7. 7.What support is included, and does it change when our chiefs do?Chiefly’s answer

   A dedicated scheduling advisor who stays with your program year after year, training for each new chief class, and quarterly check-ins. Your advisor stays the same when your chiefs change.
8. 8.Can we download everything to Excel at any time, in a format other tools accept?Chiefly’s answer

   Yes. Every schedule downloads to Excel, and our team formats the file to match the upload format of the tool you already use, such as Amion or QGenda.

To weigh specific products, see how to choose residency scheduling software.