Best Practices for Time and Attendance Software Integration
•Transferir como PPTX, PDF•
3 gostaram•1,090 visualizações
When you think of integrated software, you expect multiple software platforms to be able to communicate appropriately in ways that ultimately make you more informed and help you make better decisions for your business. Nearly every labor management software solution available today promises easy integration among HRIS, ERP and payroll systems. The trouble is, according to a 2013 report from Bersin, poor integration among systems remains the most common pain point cited by HR technology users and managers. Why? Unfortunately, integrations are not treated equally among all companies, and some software solutions that offer integrated platforms are unfortunately using antiquated technologies for sharing information between systems. In this free webinar, time and attendance leader nettime solutions will share best practices for successful time and attendance software integration to ensure your payroll, HRIS and ERP integrations are of the highest quality and deliver reliable data to help you make better workforce decisions, while exposing some of the common mistakes that often come with inefficient integration technologies.
Recomendados
Recomendados
Mais conteúdo relacionado
Destaque
Destaque (15)
Mais de nettime solutions
Mais de nettime solutions (8)
Último
Último (20)
Best Practices for Time and Attendance Software Integration
- 1. Best Practices for Time & Attendance Software Integration April 23, 2014 @nettime #integrations
- 2. Webinar Presenters Jennifer Spencer Director of Marketing @jenspencer Bob Riley Senior Software Engineer @bobriley99
- 3. Webinar Overview • Importance of Software Integration & HR Software Platforms • Best Practices for Software Integration • Integrating with stratustime • Q&A
- 4. ”72% of organizations’ workforce management initiatives are driven by cost and efficiency.” Employee costs can easily exceed 50% of your total operating budget. © 2014 nettime solutions
- 5. When workforce management is automated & integrated … 5% unplanned overtime 9% compliance 17% manual transactions 30% processing errors
- 6. Quick Poll: Your Integrations Do you currently … • integrate time & attendance with scheduling? • integrate time & attendance with payroll? • feel the ability to integrate with your existing systems is crucial?
- 7. Let’s see how we compare …
- 8. Hiring Software • Recruiting • Applicant Tracking • Candidate Screening The Goal: Organize & streamline your hiring process.
- 9. Scheduling Software • Auto-Schedule • Multiple Locations • Assign Skill Levels Scheduling software is often integrated with time & attendance software.
- 10. Benefits Administration Software • Health Insurance • Retirement Plans • Profit Sharing • Compensation Benefit administration software is often integrated with payroll software.
- 11. Payroll Software • Customized Wage Calculations • Automated Year-End Reporting • Direct Deposit • Electronic Tax Filing Integrating payroll with time & attendance bridges the gap between hours worked and hours paid.
- 12. Time & Attendance Software • Clock In & Out • Request Time Off • View PTO Accrued • Reduce Over- Payments • Alert Managers Time & attendance software greatly reduces the number of hours spent on processing payroll.
- 13. Cloud-Based Time & Attendance • Lower IT Costs • Access to Innovation • Increased Security • Seamless Integration Share data unilaterally or bilaterally Share in real-time Share every night, or every hour
- 14. Importance of Integration “The biggest benefit is that they (multiple software platforms) are in sync.” © 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com
- 15. Integration Best Practices Flexibility Security Documentatio n
- 16. Integration Flexibility File-based • Start/stop communication Web Services • Constant communication flow
- 17. Integration Security Secure Line •SSL • SFTP Audit Trail Ability to disable integrations
- 18. Integration Documentation Access to web services layout structure Quick start guides Software development kits
- 19. Integrating with stratustime Utilize various technologies Single sign-on Web services Import of data from payroll systems Export of data to payroll systems FTP/file based transfer
- 20. High Level Integration Flow Setup account Create policies Implement SSO Initial import System Execution
- 21. stratustime Single Sign-on Two options • ‘Basic’ single sign on: Involves calling into a web service, retrieving a URL which is used for redirection • SAML: Open standard covering exchange of authentication and authorization data To implement, payroll developers work with nettime developers
- 22. stratustime Web Services Types XML REST Usage JSON REST • User calls API to receive token • That token is used in all future calls SOAP
- 23. Importing into stratustime Data types • Employees • Time off balances When • Initial system setup (employees) • Normal system operation (employee changes, time off balances) Methods • Payroll system calling stratustime web services • Custom importers: Payroll web services, ftp local/remote
- 24. Exporting from stratustime Data types • Time card data • Time off balances, used time, adjustments When • End of pay period Methods • Payroll system calling stratustime web services • Custom exporters: Payroll web services, ftp local/remote
- 25. Helpful Links Web service reference https://centralservers.com/Service/Home/About Integration overview (SSO, web services) https://centralservers.com/Service/Help/downloads/Strat usTime%20Integration.pdf Interactive web service tool https://centralservers.com/Service/Home/Library Web service api documentation https://centralservers.com/Service/Help/Docs/
- 26. Questions?
- 27. Best Practices for Time & Attendance Software Integration For more information, call 800.561.6366 or visit nettimesolutions.com to request a customized demonstration of our time & attendance software.
Notas do Editor
- Hi and welcome to Best Practices for Time & Attendance Software Integration. Attendees are still gathering, so we’ll begin in just a few minutes. Welcome everyone to Best Practices for Time & Attendance Software Integration, presented by nettime solutions. If you’re on Twitter, our marketing team will be live tweeting throughout the webinar, and you can contribute to the conversation by following us @ nettime and using # integrations. Also, this webinar will be recorded and will be emailed to all registrants. And, it will also be made available on the videos page of nettimesolutions.com.
- My name is Jennifer Spencer, and I’m the Director of Marketing here at nettime solutions. I’m also joined today by Bob Riley, who is our Senior Software Engineer.
- In today’s webinar, first we’ll look at the importance of software integration, including data from recent research studies and a closer look at the various types of HR software platforms that professionals like yourselves are likely integrating for your company. We’ll also briefly cover the types of time and attendance platforms available and the value of a cloud-based platform when it comes to powerful integration. Next, we’ll jump into some of nettime solutions’ best practices for software integration, and then Bob Riley will take those best practices one step further by showing us the various technologies that can be used when integrating with stratustime and what the overall process looks like from a development perspective. And finally we’ll close with a Q&A session, so feel free to enter your questions directly into the question field of the GoToWebinar control panel, and we’ll be sure to answer those questions at the end of the webinar.
- It’s probably not surprising to hear that 72% of organizations’ workforce management initiatives are driven by two things: cost and efficiency.” At many organizations – perhaps even yours --- employees have become the most costly asset, and personnel costs for expenses like salaries, benefits, training, and other staff-related resources will easily exceed 50% of the company’s total operating budget. Workforce management technology can help reduce costs and improve efficiency and overall productivity. And, if properly implemented, this technology can track and retrieve workforce information by providing you with forward-thinking analytics that will help you determine where and when change is needed.
- According to a research study from Aberdeen Group, when workforce management is automated and integrated, companies will see … A five percent decrease in unplanned overtime costs … A nine percent increase in their overall compliance … A seventeen percent decrease in HR manual transactions … Which undoubtedly contributes to a thirty percent decrease in their payroll processing error rate.
- Again, according to research from Aberdeen Group, seventy percent of organizations are currently integrating their time and attendance software with scheduling software. (That compares to our ___ %) Sixty-six percent of organizations currently integrate their time and attendance software with payroll software services. (Which compares to our ___ %) And, fifty-eight percent of organizations feel that their ability to integrate with their existing systems is crucial. (Which compares to our ___ %) Now, if you’re pleased with current systems, then obviously adding additional software services that can integrate with those current systems is going to be more important than if you’re looking at a massive overhaul. Next, let’s take a look at some of the HR software you may currently have in place in your organization.
- Hiring software can encompass recruiting, applicant tracking, candidate screening as well as other features. The goal of this software is to organize and streamline your hiring process so you can get the right people in the right jobs as quickly as possible.
- Among many other features, scheduling software gives you the ability to auto schedule, schedule at multiple locations, and assign skill levels. This type of software can also provide conflict warnings, and shift planning. With employee self-service as a feature it will also allow employees to bid on shifts, swap shifts with another employee online, and sync their calendars. We find that scheduling software is often integrated with time and attendance software. At nettime solutions, the scheduling features in stratustime have actually eliminated our clients’ need for any other scheduling platform. If you want to learn more about the scheduling features we have in stratustime, you can email sales@nettimesolutions.com for more information, or feel free to make a note in the Q&A field right here on the webinar, and I’ll have someone get back to you later today.
- Benefits administration software brings health insurance, retirement plans, profit sharing, and compensation together in one neat package. It can provide an alert for when an employee becomes eligible for a benefit. And benefit administration software is often integrated with payroll software.
- Payroll software reduces the time you spend on payroll with features such as customized wage calculations, automated year-end reporting, direct deposit, and electronic tax filing. Payroll software can include accounting software, or be integrated with QuickBooks, which allows you to complete more tasks without leaving the system. Integrating payroll with time and attendance bridges the gap between hours worked and hours paid.
- Time and attendance software allows an employee to clock in and out, request time off and view PTO accrued. This type of software can keep labor expenses in check by reducing over-payments, and providing alerts to managers before an employee hits overtime. Time and attendance software can greatly reduce the number of hours spent on manual timesheets, as well as post-work that is completely eliminated. The 5 key HR software systems not only provide analytics, reduce errors, and keep you compliant, they also provide you with time – Time to tackle new projects and stay focused on the work that is most mission-critical to your organization.
- Within in each type of HR software, you’re going to find options for different types of software solutions. Some might be on-premise systems that users would have installed on their computers, while others might be software services that are accessed via the Internet – also referred to as the cloud. Since nettime solutions specialized in cloud-based time and attendance, let’s learn a bit more about the benefits of this type of software solution. With cloud-based time and attendance, you avoid the overhead that is associated with implementing conventional software and purchasing and maintaining servers to store your data. You have quicker access to innovative technologies because there’s no need to maintain and improve hardware or install software updates, as they are updated regularly by your provider without any interruption to your organization. Should some form of a disaster unfortunately strike (such a natural disasters or security breaches), your data will be safe and secure, and you’ll be able to get up and running easily from anywhere in the world via the Internet. And, when you’re integrating multiple software platforms like payroll or benefits administration with time and attendance, cloud-based solutions with sophisticated web services will allow you to seamlessly share your data between platforms, either unilaterally or bilaterally, and this integration can be real-time or can be scheduled every night or every hour – all depending on the needs of your business.
- Integration is extremely important to us, because one of the aspects of our business is providing the time component that complements another company’s suite of products. Our partnerships can take many forms, such as referral partner, or co-branded reseller, and we even have white-label partnerships where we provide the time and attendance engine that’s branded as our partner company. One of our partners recently shared with us just how important software integrations are to her company, a PEO here in the United States. Her company provides human resources, employee benefits, payroll, and risk management services on an outsourced basis for other organizations. Of all of the elements that our partner shared with us, the biggest benefit she noted was that her multiple software platforms were in sync. A lot of vendors can offer integration that requires you to manually import data — she noted that you can import just about any data in a file, right? But keeping in sync, having the data communicate in real-time is probably the most valuable aspect of a strong integration. She also noted that considering how many clients she has, if she was relying on a file-based integration and they were exporting and importing data for all of their clients, she would need to hire a couple of people just to import data. A more advanced integration allows her to be more productive and efficient while maintaining the integrity of her data.
- When it comes to integrating cloud-based software, there are some best practices we recommend to help ensure that your integration will be successful. These practices can be categorized in terms of flexibility, security, and documentation.
- Today’s software integrations are typically either file-based integrations or are achieved via web services. With a file-based integration, you determine what data sets you would like to share between two different software platforms. Data is exported out of one software platform and then imported into another. Today’s best integrations are done via web services. Unlike file-based integrations, the communication stream between software platforms isn’t start/stop; rather, the data flows naturally between the two platforms to achieve optimal integration. As a best practice, we recommend that if you are starting with a file-based integration because that’s what you need now, you should be able to move into a web services integration as your needs change. Make sure your provider can grow with you in this respect.
- We cannot stress enough the importance of security in successful software integrations, so make sure your integration takes place over a secure line such as SSL or SFTP. SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. Also, for security purposes, all integrations should be audit trailed. An audit trail is simply a security-relevant chronological record that provides documented evidence of any sequence of activities so you can know what is being performed on your system. Finally, you should be able to disable your integrations at any time. If you were to discover that someone is using your web services to pull data out or push data in, you should be able to immediately cut off that activity.
- You always want to have the ability to view the integrations that will be taking place between your systems. Sophisticated web services integration should give you access to every type of web services layout structure. In just a bit, Bob will speak about the API library we have that allows you to test the web service and see how it will work within your platform before you take the time to write your integration. Other software providers offering integrations may require you to write your program first before beginning testing. Other documented resources such as quick start guides and (software development kits can help you connect efficiently by providing simple copy and paste code samples that require minimal adjustment and will get you up and running relatively quickly. And with that said, I’m going to let Bob take control here so he can show us what it’s like to integrate directly with stratustime.
- A high level overview of setting you up with stratustime. Although this is shown in a strict sequence some of these steps can be done in parallel. First we setup your account, then we create payroll and overtime policies. Policy creation is outside the scope of this webinar, so if you are interested in this please check out our other webinars, online documentation or feel free to discuss with a nettime representative. After policy creation, we work with you to integrate with the payroll system so a single signon will allow one to login to the payroll or HR system and stratustime. Finally, at the system execution stage this is just the ongoing usage of the system. During this period you will have imports and exports occuring which I’ll describe in a couple slides.
- Time off balances is an option if you have an external time off accruals system. If you use the stratustime system you won’t need this. A highly desirable method is the stratus time web services because your payroll developers are in control – you have your own logic that can be tightly integrated into your system and requires less coordination with nettime to create custom code. Custom importers require logic to be added to stratustime by nettime developers working with your team. Payroll web services means this is a web service residing on your server that you want stratustime to call into and retrieve data from. ftp/file can be a local file that has been uploaded by the payroll system or remotely retrieved from the payroll system. The payroll web service and remote ftp/file method typically requires a scheduler to be included in the custom importer nettime creates.
- Here are three links that people will find very helpful. Firstly the web service reference is the central point where you can find out everything about nettime’s web service’s offerings. We also have an integration overview document that covers single sign-on, and web services Additionally, we have an interactive web service tool that allows you to experiment with the APIs by calling them from within your browser for the XML and JSON rest interfaces and a quick way of generating a SOAP client. Finally, the last link documents exactly what APIs are available
- Do you outsource any of your integration work? How long does it take to complete an integration? 2 answer: We have already built integrations to over 90 different systems; need to build, take anywhere from a few hours to a week or more. Depends on complexity and your needs. 3. I’ve had integrations in the past, and when there is a problem, everyone is pointing fingers and no one takes responsibility for things going wrong. What makes you different? 3 answer: We built our tools; we use trace logs to pin point an issue.
- Thank you for joining nettime solutions for “Best practices for time and attendance software integration.” We’ll be emailing all registrants a recording of this webinar, and we’ll also be providing you with a free copy of our e-booklet, “[insert here]” If you’d like to learn more about stratustime and see if it’s the right automated time and attendance system for your organization, you can give us a call at 1-800-561-6366 or visit us online at nettimesolutions.com to request a customized demonstration. Thanks, and have a wonderful rest of your day!