Jan 21
For long it was thought that HR software is for larger organisations – but things have started to change and small businesses have started realising the need for HR software.
While there are obvious challenges in large organisations due to high headcount, small organisations have different but equally important challenges to manage. To start with many of the small business do not have a HR professional managing the affairs on full time basis ; those who do have one – have to be content with a fresher out of some MBA school.
Nothing wrong with the lady with fresh ideas – but then you need one who can first put day-to-day things in place, particularly when you do not have much time to spare for her and guide her on routine matters.
In this context, how does one ensure that proper policies are in place, they are monitored, data is being maintained properly, attendance and leave is being tracked, confirmation dates are not being missed, new joiners are being given proper induction etc
That’s where a mature HR software comes in handy – with loads of automation, best practices and workflow built-in – which allows most of these activities to run on auto-pilot! This helps when you a HR person as well as when you don’t!
Came across this interesting article by Denis, on a similar subject – I am sure this would be of interest to most of you.
Justifying HR software for the small business
Tagged with: hr software • small business • sme
Jan 19
A true subscription based software should be multi-tenancy capable. This has profound implications on scaleability, performance and security of the system. Most vendors simply create ‘virtual’ instance of application for each customer and are not able to scale. Read this commentary on EBizq for an expert perspective:
Click here for EBIZQ commentary on multi-tenancy
Tagged with: Multi-tenancy • performance • security
Jan 05
The Leave query and reporting functions provide as-on date status of leave balances / absence details. Now you can get the same information at blazing fast speeds, thanks to new optimization technology used when you have large number of leave and absence records.
Leave / Absence tracking in Emportant HRMS provides you not just the current leave balances but also the balances and absence history as on any previous date. What’s more, the unique Leave Calendar provides a calendar view showing number of team members on leave during each day of the month. Our customers have found this indispensable for Leave planning for their team / department / branch offices.
Tagged with: absence • Leave • performance
Jan 03
Our feature on triggered alerts is being enhanced. We’d like to know what are the actions on which HR would like to be automatically notified through triggered alerts. E.g., auto-alert on new joinee, etc.
Tagged with: actions • alerts • email
Dec 05
We received feedback from our users that initial setup – specifically creating first few key users and setting up enterprise structure required learning the system.
We have worked on your feedback and made it easier. Now you can create first few key users for HR and Payroll from Setup page itself. Just enter the email ID of the users you want to grant access to Emportant for the HR and Payroll role and click save – they’d get access to the system instantly.
Another improvement is creation of enterprise structure. Now it takes just one click to enable/disable the enterprise stucture components you need to implement. For example, if you do not have branches and divisions, simply un-check them and save – they’d disappear from your setup.
We look forward to your inputs to make it a breeze to setup Emportant.
Tagged with: emportant • setup
Oct 23
We are proud to announce the launch of community support forum for the users of Emportant – Freedom edition.
We are deeply committed to ensure that Emportant customers irrespective of whether they are on a paid edition or on Freedom edition get quality support. While for paid editions we are able to provide better personalised service thru email, phone and sophisticated ticket mechanism – we had to find a viable and vibrant support platform for Freedom customers as well.
This forum will be actively monitored and manged by our support executives to provide timely support to our valued customers.
This is designed to be a community support forum and hence we expect our experienced customers and partners as wel – to be actively participating in issue resolutions and discussions.
We have also created exclusive board for you to share your ideas and suggestions to keep the community growing. After all Emportant exists because you are important.
Check out – Freedom support forum
Tagged with: emportant • forum • freedom • support
Oct 11
Before we get into the debate – let’s admit – people like us from IT industry love creating new phrases – faster than we develop software. While we can not change that - we are trying to make it easy for you to understand this. For the un-initiated here is a quick description of the two terminologies :
On-premises – This is the way you have bought and used business application/software so far. Buy the license, procure a server, install, test and go-live. On-premise means – software which is installed a hardware box you have procured and possibly runs exclusively for you. Read more on wikipedia
On-demand – This is also known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This is the new way of using the software. You learnt it first when you used web mail – that was the first popular SaaS (though wasn’t called so!). In this case you do not buy the license, nor do you procure the hardware – all you requires is a web browser to use the software. Most of the time – you’d pay for a subscription fee to use the software. Read more on wikipedia
Most often we are asked – how do you choose between the two. Here is a quick comparison between the two:
| Item |
On-premise |
On-demand |
Software
license |
Need
to purchase |
Not
required |
Database
license |
Need
to procure |
Not
required |
| Server |
Need
to procure |
Not
required |
IT
infrastructure management |
Required |
not
required |
Data
backup |
Required |
Not
required |
Control
over IT infrastructure |
Complete |
None |
Integration
with Other systems |
Tight |
Loose
or negligible |
| Customisation |
High
possibility |
Limited
feasibility |
Upfront
investment |
Substantial |
Negligible |
Annual
fee |
Moderate |
Nil |
Monthly
subscription fee |
Nil |
Low |
As you’d notice from the table above – On-demand v/s On-premise debate is not about functionality – but about application management. I have compiled a small list of leading questions which would help answer this question – which is right for me?
- Do you have a IT team to manage your server, database and application infrastructure?
- Do you have the budget to invest in server, database and application software licenses?
- Do you have the need for tight integration ( automated dataflow ) between various applications?
If you have answered Yes to most of the questions above – then you are ready for On-premises software. If you answered No to more than one of these questions – then SaaS is a better choice.
Having said that – being ready for On-premises software does not mean – you should not evaluate on-demand options – it might still present a better value proposition for your organisation.
But this is just the starting point – we’d bring more on this topic in coming days.
Tagged with: on-demand • on-premise • SaaS
Sep 28
Now, when you signup for a new account, the common leave types like PL, CL, SL are created for you automatically. Just update the eligibility days etc and get started immediately.
