Best Practices for Time and Attendance Software Integration

Best Practices for Time and Attendance Software Integration

Table of Contents Best Practices for Time and Attendance Software Integration... 1 5 Types of HR Software to Free Your Time... 3 Help! I m Implementing HR Technology and I Don t Speak the Language... 5 3 Keys to Successful Software Integration... 7 Why Integration Should Matter to Your PEO... 9 FAQ for Integrating stratustime... 11 Want More Information?... 12 Contributors... 13

5 Types of HR Software to Free Your Time When we think of the Human Resources Department, we think of people. We think of a team working diligently to make sure that everyone else within the organization is able to succeed in their own positions without having to worry about extraneous paperwork. Sounds demanding! HR Departments are able to keep up, and even have a minute or two to pursue goals of their own, when they take advantage of HR software. Here is some quick information about common types of HR software that can give you time back into your workday. 5 Types of HR Software: Hiring 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. Scheduling 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 provides conflict warnings, and shift planning. With employee self-service as a feature it also allows employees to bid on shifts, swap shifts with another employee online, and sync their calendars. Scheduling is often integrated with time and attendance software. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 3

Time & Attendance 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. Payroll Payroll software reduces time spent 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 allowing you to complete more tasks without leaving the system. Integrating payroll with time and attendance bridges the gap between hours worked and hours paid. Benefits Administration Benefits administration software brings health insurance, retirement plans, profit sharing, and compensation together in one neat package. It provides an alert for when an employee becomes eligible for a benefit. Benefit administration software is often integrated with payroll software. These types of software not only provide analytics, reduce errors, and keep you compliant, they provide the opportunity for human resources to have the time to tackle new projects. When integrated with each other, they pack an even bigger punch, allowing an increase productivity and efficiency. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 4

Help! I m Implementing HR Technology and I Don t Speak the Language API, FTP, SOAP, REST and XML If you re not a computer programmer, it s enough to make your head spin. And yet, in today s technologically advanced workplace, these acronyms may be bubbling to the top of your HR integration conversations, regardless of if your role is in payroll, IT or even finance. For those of you who are interested in a deeper dive into integrating cloud-based software, check out 3 Keys to Successful Software Integration. The article covers the areas of flexibility, security, and documentation, with web services being a common thread throughout all areas. Did we lose you at web services? If so, then stay put because if you re an influencer or decision-maker for the purchase and implementation of any HR technology for your business, you re going to need to know what web services means and how this technology is going to help you be more effective in your role and in helping you achieve your goals. Let s start with the basics. Web services is a general term that represents certain technologies that can be used to transmit data across a network. Simply put, it s a method of communication between multiple devices over the Internet that doesn t require human intervention. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 5

There are many different types of ways software integration can occur, but most of them require some kind of human action. For example, you download or export a report from your time and attendance software platform, save it as a.csv file, and then import that file into your payroll software platform. While fairly simple, if the file isn t saved properly or any fields are altered, the import will fail. And, let s remember, we re talking about people s paychecks... Everyone wants that data to be exactly where it needs to be. With web services, your company can integrate software platforms seamlessly. Your systems can share data, either unilaterally or bilaterally, all depending on the needs of your business. Web service integrations can either be real-time or scheduled every night or every hour. Web services are also extremely flexible because they are both platform and language independent, and they allow organizations to communicate data without intimate knowledge of each other s IT systems behind the firewall. Honestly, before web services existed, sophisticated software integration was very limited and extremely cumbersome. What s really important is that you don t try to understand how software integrations work AFTER you ve already selected your software provider. It s imperative that during the discovery process all key decision makers and influencers know the true integration capabilities of the software that is being reviewed so they will be able to see a true picture of what an end user s experience will look like. Our founder and CEO, Bahan Sadegh, wrote an article called Before You Buy: Top 10 Tips for Cloud-Based Software, that we encourage you to read before you enter into any software as a service (or SaaS) transaction. You can download it here. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 6

3 Keys to Successful Software Integration When it comes to integrating cloud-based software, there are three keys to ensuring your integration will be successful in helping you achieve your end goals. These keys are flexibility, security, and documentation. Flexibility 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. If you re planning on using file-based integration, it s important to make sure this can be done manually, if needed, via FTP (file transfer protocol), or via SFTP (secure file transfer protocol). 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. Unfortunately, some web services may not support all markup languages, and the most flexible web services should be able to support SOAP and REST standards. The linchpin here is that you should be able to start with a file-based integration but be able to move into a web services integration as your needs change. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 7

Security Security is paramount 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. 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. You should also ask your software provider if they offer SSO (single signon) via SAML (simple access markup language). SAML is a secure single sign-on protocol that the most security conscious enterprises in the world rely on, and if security is of the utmost importance to your organization, this should be a significant factor in all of your integrations. 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. Documentation 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 and schema. In fact, here at nettime solutions, we offer an API library 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 SDKs (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. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 8

Why Integration Should Matter to Your PEO As a specialized cloud-based time and attendance company, one of the aspects of our business is providing the time component that complements another company s suite of products. Partnerships with nettime solutions can take a variety of shapes, from referral partner to co-branded reseller or even white-labeled partnership. Regardless of the partnership, software integration is always key in ensuring successful collaboration. We recently sat down with Kim Lathrop, payroll operations project/training manager at one of the largest PEOs (Professional Employer Organizations) in the United States. Kim s company provides human resources, employee benefits, payroll, and risk management services on an outsourced basis. So Kim, how important is the role of software integration when you are partnering with another organization? When I m working with a vendor, the API is vital a requirement, in fact. I can t live without it. From my perspective, if the API doesn t work, then I can t function and, from a production standpoint, our business is at a standstill. Interesting. We imagine quite a number of companies promote their software integrations, but what have you learned from working with a number of vendors? What I typically find with vendors is they are either completely engaged and understand what I need, or they are the exact opposite. I appreciate a vendor who gives me the opportunity to interact with many different members of the staff, so I am able to form a strong working relationship with the people who are going to be working with my platform and who will be serving my clients. This is one of the things I love about nettime solutions. The people involved have a good understanding of what we need and what we are trying to do, and they want to know how to help us reach our goals. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 9

That s great to hear. From a technical perspective, what data points are you integrating currently with your platform? We currently have communication back and forth with our client structure, including labor levels; all employee information; and all client paid time off. The integration is flexible enough to handle a variety of client needs. For example, most of our client data is shared nightly, but we designed the integration so that if a client wanted, say, data every hour, I have the ability to do that for that one client. What s next in terms of integration for time and attendance at your company? We re working now on a payroll API. At the moment we are exporting payroll data from the time system via.csv and importing that data into our system. But, when the payroll API is complete, we won t have to deal with the exporting and importing of data, which will greatly reduce user error from things like missed fields that can make the files come out all wrong. And, when you re talking about people s payroll information, there really isn t any room for error. Well, we certainly know how important it is to have accurate payroll data. Obviously you are a big fan of API integration. What do you think is the biggest benefit of this type of integration? When you re integrating multiple software platforms, the biggest benefit is that they are in sync. A lot of vendors can offer integration that requires me to import data I can import just about any data in a file but keeping in sync, having the data communicate in real-time is probably the most valuable aspect of a strong API integration. Also, when I consider how many clients we have, if I was relying on a file-based integration and we were exporting and importing data for all of our clients, I would need to hire a couple of people just to import data. A more advanced integration allows me to be more productive and efficient while maintaining the integrity of our data. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 10

FAQ for Integrating stratustime Integrating two software systems can seem like a daunting task to many. Read these three frequently asked questions to learn how integrating with stratustime can be a breeze. What is stratustime Web Services (STWS) API? stratustime Web Services (STWS) API is designed to allow external systems to connect with the stratustime SaaS engine. stratustime can import and export data from its data store in multiple different ways including flat files, FTP, and web services. The STWS API is designed for end users to consume and send data via XML, JSON, or SOAP. How does the API work? STWS is composed of three different web service URLs. Users can use any language to interact with the STWS API as long as XML, JSON, or SOAP is the standard for sending and receiving data. How do I set up Single Sign-On? Enabling SSO can be done in a few simple steps. When in stratustime, navigate to the configuration interface and select General. Under General, the SSO options can be found in the Web Services section. Proper permission levels in the system are required to enable SSO. When under Web Services, you can check the box to enable SSO. At this time, a Shared Key GUID will be issued. After you enable SSO, you can choose to have web access & SSO, or SSO log in only. If SSO log in only is selected, stratustime login will be disabled. 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 11

Want More Information? To learn more about HR software integration check out a recording of our webinar, Best Practices for Time and Attendance Software Integration by clicking here. Click here to schedule a custom demonstration of stratustime or contact a nettime solutions sales representative at (800) 561-6366 to learn now stratustime can integrate with your existing HR software 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 12

Contributors Jennifer Spencer Director of Marketing Jennifer Spencer leads the development and execution of nettime solutions marketing initiatives, specifically as they relate to stratustime, the company s next generation application. @jenspencer Bob Riley Senior Software Engineer Bob has experience in progressing software products through the entire lifecycle from requirements gathering through development, deployment, and maintenance. @BobRiley99 Nicki Allen Marketing Manager As Marketing Manager for nettime solutions, Nicki manages the company s social media presence and oversees all trade show activities. @NickiAllen Brittney Kinley Graphic Designer As nettime solutions graphic designer, Brittney is responsible for designing and creating marketing content for everything from trade show booths to t-shirts and infographics to blog posts. @brittneykinley 2014 nettime solutions www.nettimesolutions.com 13