Clients

Native Education College – Powering Ahead with info:HR and Powerpay Plus!

The Native Education College (NEC) is an academic institution located in Vancouver, BC that provides culturally relevant education, training and personal growth for Indigenous learners.  They have been a client of HR Systems Strategies Inc. since May of last year. Nancy Xue is their Director of Finance and has been leading the implementation and use of the info:HR solutions. They have 100 employees and purchased info:HR, Employee/Manager Self Service, Online Timesheets, and a payroll interface to Ceridian Powerpay Plus.

As a Ceridian client, it was natural for Nancy consider Ceridian’s HRIS solution, however info:HR had certain functionality she was looking for, including flags and follow-ups, and email notifications for upcoming reminders. She also likes that HRSS offers custom programming options that make daily tasks easier for them.  Nancy said, “The solutions from HRSS fit my budget and I could tell they really wanted me as a client.  For example, Michelle Beasley, Business Development Manager, and the President Andy Staniewski took the time to meet me at my office in South Vancouver.”

Training took place on-site as Michelle lives close by NEC’s office. ”This was a huge plus as it gave us the personal touch,”  Nancy said, “Michelle was and is always close by to provide training and ongoing support.  HR System Strategies has been great to work with overall.  Michelle, Jerry Rowland, the Chief Technology Officer, and Hemu Mistry, Manager of Application Development, have been a huge asset for training and implementation.  They are all very knowledgeable and have provided tremendous support to us during the entire process.”

“There were two primary things I was looking for with our investment in the HRSS solutions.  Firstly, the time and cost savings we would realize from the functionality of info:HR, ESS, and Timesheets.  And secondly, avoiding dual data entry and associated errors with having info:HR and Powerpay Plus integrated together.”

Of the HRSS solutions Nancy said, “We are using pretty much all of the basic functionality of the system.  Things that I love?  We can look online to see whose timesheets haven’t been submitted yet, or who has pre-booked vacation until the end of the year. Senior managers are happy that they don’t have to manually track employees’ time requests. Implementing info:HR has allowed us to get rid of spreadsheets such as benefit analysis, seniority analysis, and pension and union reports. It has also improved our employment history tracking, as I now have it at my fingertips – items like turnover reports are just a few clicks away.”

The Ceridian Powerpay Plus interface project went very smoothly. HR Systems Strategies’ approach to working with payroll systems is unique in the industry. Rather than providing  generic off-the-shelf connector software or an API, HRSS works in tandem with each client to develop an integration that is unique to that client’s requirements. Jerry Rowland summarized it very well, “In my 30-plus years in the industry I have seen countless interfaces to Ceridian, ADP, Sage 300, and others. What we are doing is building on our knowledge, expertise, and the software building blocks we have for each flavor of interface and taking the client’s input as to how they want the data flows to work, together with the data they wish to transfer, to deliver an integration that is unique to them. An easy way of explaining what we do is to use an analogy of going into a subway shop and ordering a sub. You tell the server you would like a ham sub and then proceed to say which bread and how you would like it, and all the various toppings to make it your sub.  That’s what we do.  Our competition at best provides a ham and cheese sub shrink-wrapped in plastic wrap!”

Jerry continued, “Working with Nancy and Native Education College was great.  We had done many Powerpay Plus interfaces before so I had a good idea going into the project.  And Nancy was great.  She was knowledgeable, eager and always available when we needed to schedule her time.”  The first step was the data mapping.  Here, they reviewed the main areas of data transfer – employee master data, benefits/deductions, and timecard data.  After Hemu Mistry programmed the interface testing could begin.  As each area was tested, Jerry would check to see if there are any discrepancies between expected and actual data values in Ceridian.  If and when there is a discrepancy, Jerry has the interface configured to resolve this issue.

Nancy summarized the payroll project – “What I really liked about the Ceridian integration is that it is unique and specific to my and NEC’s own requirements.  Hemu and Jerry were great to work with…knowledgeable and very thorough in their work and communication.   I’m happy to report the interface is now live and I don’t have to worry about duplicate data entry or errors that were a problem for us in the past.  I would highly recommend HR System Strategies to any other users of Ceridian Powerpay Plus.”

Nancy had the following to say for other potential and existing clients, “To existing users – if you are not using HRSS support, I encourage you to do so.  They are available to me, transparent, friendly and very knowledgeable. And if you are considering HR Systems Strategies’ solutions, I would highly recommend them.  I know the saying goes, no one ever got fired for going with IBM and HRSS might take a leap of faith, but I did and very happy with my decision!”

Looking ahead, Nancy has seen some of the upcoming enhancements that will be provided.  “I am very excited about some of the newer features of ESS and have shown those to some of my employees, who are equally enthusiastic!”