Orquest
Orquest is a Spanish SaaS platform that applies machine learning to retail and fast-food workforce management, forecasting store demand, generating shift and task schedules automatically, tracking attendance and monitoring store KPIs across international chains.
What is Orquest?
Orquest is a workforce management platform built for shops and fast-food outlets, published by ORQUEST SOFTWARE, S.L. in Madrid. It is sold as software as a service and runs on Amazon AWS infrastructure. The pitch is narrow on purpose: rather than a general HR suite, it handles the specific loop that decides how many people stand on a shop floor at 4 p.m. on a Thursday. That loop runs in four stages the company labels Predict, Plan, Perform, Boost. First, machine learning reads each store's historical data to spot seasonal patterns and predict customer behaviour, weighing seasonal, inter-weekly and inter-annual trends and flagging special days. The forecast keeps improving on its own as new data arrives. Second, the platform translates that demand into real coverage needs — how many staff, doing which tasks — and this can be set store by store or section by section, using productivity parameters the client defines. Third, it assigns shifts and tasks automatically, respecting each employee's skills, contract and availability alongside regulatory and business constraints; a last-minute change can be absorbed and the schedule rebuilt in one click. Around that core sit three further modules. Time & Attendance captures clock-ins through the employee app and an in-store clocking application, and also works with ID cards, fingerprint or facial recognition; it raises real-time alerts on unjustified absences, compares assigned hours with recorded ones, splits ordinary and overtime hours, and exports consolidated records to payroll. Staffing projects hiring needs up to a year out, letting managers simulate scenarios and add virtual employees to cost a strategy before committing. KPIs Tracking follows indicators such as sales volume, conversion rate and average basket, charts them and compares stores against each other. Two mobile apps complete the picture: one for employees, covering shifts, tasks, availability, time-off requests and open-shift offers, and Orquest InStore for clocking in at the till. The platform connects to ERP, HR, payroll and point-of-sale systems by API or file transfer, and compliance with local labour law is claimed across more than 42 markets. There is no self-service sign-up: everything starts with a booked demo.
What it does
- Forecast each store's future demand from its own sales history
- Turn that forecast into the hours and tasks the store actually needs
- Generate shift and task schedules automatically, within legal and contractual constraints
- Record clock-ins and compare worked hours against the assigned schedule
- Build a hiring plan up to a year ahead by simulating staffing scenarios
- Track store KPIs such as sales, conversion rate and average basket, and compare stores
- Push consolidated attendance data into an existing payroll system
When to use Orquest / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Orquest is the right fit.
When to use Orquest
- Retail chains that need demand-driven scheduling repeated across dozens or hundreds of stores
- Quick-service restaurant operators trying to hold labour cost down without thinning shift coverage
- HR and workforce-planning teams juggling different local labour rules from one market to the next
- Store and restaurant managers who still build their weekly rotas by hand
- Operations leaders who want staffing decisions and store KPIs to sit in the same tool
When not to use Orquest
- Single-site businesses, since the licence price is tied to the number of points of sale
- Companies outside retail and fast food, a scope the terms and conditions state explicitly
- Buyers who expect a published price list before they agree to a sales conversation
- Teams shopping for a self-service product with a free plan or a free trial
- Organisations that need payroll processed for them rather than clock-in data fed into payroll
How to use Orquest
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Book a demo through the form linked from every page of the site; there is no self-service sign-up
- Agree the scope with the sales team and sign a purchase order and statement of work
- Import your historical store data so the forecasting models have something to learn from
- Connect existing systems — ERP, HR, payroll, point of sale — by API or file transfer
- Define store sections, productivity parameters, business goals and employee constraints
- Let the platform forecast demand and generate the first shift and task schedules
- Review, adjust and publish those schedules, rebuilding in one click when plans change
- Roll out the employee mobile app so staff see shifts, request time off and take open shifts
- Set up clocking, either through the app, the in-store application or badge and biometric readers
- Track store KPIs and export consolidated attendance data to your payroll system
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Deliberately vertical: built for retail and quick-service restaurants rather than sold as a generic workforce suite
- Covers the whole chain from forecast to coverage, schedule, clock-in and KPI in one product
- Local labour-law compliance handled with local experts, claimed across more than 42 markets
- Serious references, including McDonald's Spain, Zara, Norauto, Arcos Dorados, Azadea and Douglas
- A complete data processing agreement is published openly inside the terms, not held back on request
- Contractual commitments worth having: 99% monthly availability with service credits, breach notification in 36 hours, no processing outside the EEA without written authorisation
- An employee app that is genuinely deployed, with more than 100,000 downloads on Google Play
Cons
- No public pricing whatsoever: no rate card, no order of magnitude, and prices are contractually confidential
- No free plan and no free trial; the only way in is a demo followed by a signed purchase order
- Prices are re-indexed to Spanish CPI automatically at renewal, and can rise by up to 10% on new periods
- Fixed-term contract with automatic renewal and 90 days' notice to get out
- No subprocessor list is published, and no hosting country or region is ever named
- ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 are claimed in a policy signed by the CEO but with no certificate number or certification body
- No legal notice page exists in any of the site's four languages, and the English legal pages are visibly broken machine translations
Pricing & Plans
Orquest publishes no pricing. There is no rate card, no pricing page and no indicative amount anywhere on the site, and no free plan or free trial is offered. The product is licensed by subscription under a signed purchase order, and the terms and conditions state that agreed prices and discounts are confidential and may not be disclosed to third parties. The licence fee varies with the number of points of sale, among other parameters, and includes software updates and technical support. Invoices are issued in euros unless another currency is agreed, payable by bank transfer within thirty days, with a 1.5% monthly late charge. Fees are automatically re-indexed at renewal to the consumer price index published by Spain's National Statistics Institute, and Orquest reserves the right to raise them by up to 10% at the end of a term with thirty days' notice. Because no entry-level amount is published, no starting price, currency or billing unit is recorded for this tool. The two mobile apps are free to download but require an employer-issued account.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Orquest handles your data.
GDPR overview
Implementation is concrete rather than declarative. Orquest is established in Spain, so the GDPR applies directly and no Article 27 representative is needed. Article 12 of the terms is a full processing agreement, published in the open: it names the roles, the data categories, the processing operations, the duration, the security measures (pseudonymisation, encryption, resilience, periodic review) and the fate of the data at the end of the contract. Breaches are notified to the client within 36 hours, tighter than the regulation's own 72. Data-subject requests are relayed within 48 hours. A data protection officer is reachable at dpo@orquest.com, rights are exercised through derechos@orquest.com, and the supervisory authority named is the Spanish AEPD. Processing outside the EEA requires the client's prior written authorisation.
Who owns the data?
Under the terms and conditions, the client keeps full ownership of all rights and interests in its own data. Orquest acts only as a data processor on the client's behalf, while the client remains the controller of its employees' personal data. Orquest retains ownership of the software, its improvements and any technology built during implementation, plus data derived from client data, provided that derived data cannot reveal confidential information or employee personal data. A separate clause lets Orquest collect and analyse usage and performance data to improve the product, and disclose it to third parties only in aggregated or anonymised form.
Reuse rights
The client may reuse its own data freely: it owns it outright, and nothing in the contract requires Orquest's permission to extract, export or exploit it. The product is in fact built to push data back out, notably consolidated clock-in records exported so that payroll can be calculated elsewhere. Orquest's own use is far narrower. As a processor it may only act on the client's documented written instructions, for the purpose of delivering the service, and it states that if it ever used the data for its own ends it would become a controller for that processing. It must flag any client instruction it believes breaches data protection law. The one broader permission it reserves covers usage and performance data, which it may analyse to improve the software and share only in aggregated or anonymised form. Clients are warned not to put sensitive information into the free-text employee identifier fields, where responsibility falls on them alone.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The terms state that the software is delivered as a SaaS solution from cloud infrastructure provided by Amazon AWS. That is the only hosting detail given: no country, no region and no data centre is ever named on the site, which is why no hosting location is recorded for this tool. What the contract does commit to is a restriction on where processing may happen. Orquest undertakes not to process client personal data in third countries outside the European Economic Area without the client's prior written authorisation, unless required by Union or member-state law, in which case it must inform the client. Where an international transfer is genuinely necessary, it must obtain the required authorisations and put adequate safeguards in place, which may include the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, and in any event comply with Articles 44 and following of the GDPR. The website privacy policy separately states that no international transfers are envisaged for site data, beyond what third-party cookies may generate. Jurisdiction is Spanish, with the courts of Madrid competent.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Orquest.
- Algorithmic scheduling decides when real people work. A rota optimised for coverage and labour cost can still land badly on the person receiving it, and the site's own promise of fairer shift distribution is a design goal, not a guarantee
- Managers who stop building schedules by hand can lose the feel for their own store. The forecast is only as good as the history behind it, and a manager out of practice is less likely to notice when it is wrong
- Attendance features reach into sensitive territory: geolocation and device identifiers in the employee app, and fingerprint or facial recognition at the clocking terminal. All require a lawful basis and, in the app's case, consent that employees may not feel free to refuse
- The client, not Orquest, is responsible for the personal data typed into free-text employee fields. The vendor explicitly recommends against using sensitive information as an employee identifier, which is worth passing on to whoever configures the system
- ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 appear in a policy signed by the CEO with no certificate number and no certification body named. Treat this as a statement of intent about the management system, not as verified certification, and ask for the certificates
- Nothing about pricing is public and the contract makes the agreed price confidential, so benchmarking against competitors is difficult by design. Automatic CPI indexation at renewal and a possible 10% increase deserve attention before signing
- Documentation quality is uneven: the English legal pages are damaged machine translations of the Spanish originals, and the employee app privacy policy still names an unrelated third company in its description of the right to object
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Moderate to high, and it is a project rather than a sign-up. Expect a demo, a signed purchase order and a statement of work, then import of historical store data, connection of existing ERP, HR, payroll and point-of-sale systems by API or file transfer, and business configuration of store sections, productivity parameters, goals and employee constraints. No public API documentation exists to prepare that work in advance. A dedicated multilingual Customer Success team supports the rollout. For employees the burden is trivial: install a free mobile app. Optional clocking hardware, from badges to biometric readers, adds its own logistics.
Deployment
Apps stores
Supported languages
Behind Orquest
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Orquest actually built for?
Where does the AI actually come in?
What does it cost?
Is there a mobile app?
Can it connect to the systems we already run?
Who owns the data, and is there a DPA?
Where is the data hosted?
How hard is it to get running?
Which languages are supported?
What service levels are committed?
Should you pick Orquest?
Orquest is a focused product from a company that decided early not to be a general HR suite. It forecasts demand store by store, turns that into coverage needs, and writes the schedule itself — then follows through with clocking, hiring plans and store KPIs. That end-to-end coverage of a single narrow problem is its real differentiator, and the customer list, from McDonald's Spain to Zara and Douglas, suggests it holds up at scale. The contractual side is stronger than most tools of this size manage. The data processing agreement is published openly inside the terms rather than promised on request. Breach notification is committed at 36 hours, well inside the regulation's 72. There is a numeric availability target with service credits attached, and an undertaking not to process personal data outside the European Economic Area without written authorisation. For a buyer whose legal team will read before signing, that is unusually little friction. The reservations are about transparency rather than capability. Nothing about the price is public — not a rate card, not a range, not even the shape of a plan — and the contract makes confidentiality of the agreed price an obligation, so comparison is structurally difficult. ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 are described in a policy signed by the chief executive, but without a certificate number or a certification body the claim cannot be checked. No hosting location is named. No subprocessor list is published. And the site has no legal notice page in any of its four languages, with the English legal texts visibly damaged by machine translation. For a multi-store retail or quick-service operator with real scheduling complexity, Orquest deserves a place on the shortlist. Just expect to discover the price the slow way, and to ask for the ISO certificates in writing.
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