ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based HR platform for mid-sized businesses. It features customizable modules of various HR services that businesses can tailor to their specific needs, as well as regulatory monitoring and alerts to help businesses remain compliant.
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SmartSearch ATS
Score 6.6 out of 10
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SmartSearch is an enterprise-grade native recruitment platform that unifies applicant tracking, CRM, onboarding, and reporting. Purpose-built for staffing and talent acquisition teams, it automates workflows, improves visibility, and reduces reliance on disconnected recruiting tools.
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Pricing
ADP Workforce Now
SmartSearch ATS
Editions & Modules
Essential
Contact sales team
Enhanced
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Complete
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HR Pro
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Payroll Essentials
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HR Plus
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Hiring Advantage
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Performance Plus
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ADP Workforce Now
SmartSearch ATS
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
No setup fee
Additional Details
Please contact ADP for a product demo and ask about a hands-on "test drive" of Workforce Now.
The ease in which you can process payroll and year end (T4s). Ability to maintain payroll - enter upcoming changes (e.g. pay raises for a certain date) ahead of time. While we don't use it in my current company, in past ones the time & attendance integration with timesheets is fabulous. Our company uses a 3rd party scheduling & timesheet platform which also integrates with one click but is a little more work to maintain time off balances within ADP Workforce Now. We use the 3rd party platform (Evolia) for scheduling and timesheets as the management here wanted the ability to see salaried employees on site, have a chat feature, and some self-management on the employee side with the ability to swap shifts.
I think our environment has stretched SmS and their capabilities (positively) but we have grown together and developed an enormously capable system together that is now very well integrated into our business. For doing applicant tracking, requisition management and offer management that has really been strong. I think we can partner together and build some better analytics and reporting capabilities that would be better suited for our business.
The search functions are outstanding. It is the reason we originally went with SmartSearch many years ago. The ability to do very simple or complex searches gives the recruiting staff great flexibility in how they look for and narrow down candidates.
The hire and onboarding traks allow us to create very specific processes we want our staff to follow to insure a consistent and repeatable result. I can create traks that can be very general or traks that literally provide emails and reminders to all of the players (recruiters, managers, candidates, etc...) every step of the way. This is particularly helpful where we have customers who have extremely stringent contractual guidelines that must be followed.
Support. Their customer support is second to none. We always joke that they are our favorite vendor to deal with.... Anytime we have an issue or question. They are there to walk us through it. The training is on target and the staff has always been friendly and more than eager to help make us successful with the tool.
SmartSearch has a steep learning curve if you want to extensively use the features like automated tasks and the report writer
Technical support is spotty and sometimes very frustrating, they don't respond for weeks at a time.
SmartSearch user interface is old and has far less ability to customize the interface than other tracking systems
SmartSearch has virtually no ability to connect directly with other software and allows now other software to connect in - so no Microsoft Flow, no Zapier, no mail parser, etc. and since Smart Search capabilities are limited, not being able to integrate it with other platforms easily is unfortunate.
Due to the lack of support from the sales and service center we are looking at other options outside of ADP. Again it is a good system, it just lacks the support it deserves from the company employees. It is just unimaginable that you will need to reach out to a service provider several times for the same issue and not get it resolved.
I believe over the past 30 or so pages (or so it seems), you have every reason for my business to continue as a SmartSearch ATS client and user. The support is off the charts great the few times I need them (generally not even once per year). My business has been a client since 2004. That should say it all.
I would give it a 10 however I do not like when ADP does facelifts in Workforce Now which does not add any value other than having to relearn navigation. I am also not a big fan of being forced to refer to the Bridge. We have Google which gives the same results. If I understood the answer I would not contact our Account Rep.
There are so many facets of SmartSearch, that to know everything about it is nearly impossible. While it is mainly straight forward, there is a lot. After using the program for a while, you become pretty comfortable with the basics and can start adding some of the other features.
My license for SmartSearch goes back to 2004. It has always been available for me - don't remember a single time it was not available in all of those years.
Overall, I think the functionality of the program works pretty well. Sometimes, certain browsers do not work well for the policy function of ADP, but that is the only issue thus far
Kelly La Rosa and Brian McLaughlin have been exceptional partners over the last few years and a tremendous source of support in my role. They are consistently solution‑oriented, highly responsive, and proactive in identifying opportunities to improve our processes. Both regularly brought forward thoughtful recommendations, including suggestions for new ADP products that aligned well with our evolving needs. Their expertise, reliability, and genuine commitment to client success have made a meaningful impact on my work and on our overall experience with ADP.
Once you get the 1 person on the phone they are very knowledgeable and tend to solve the problem. The issue is there are not enough resources to handle all the clients. Their primary clients are "recruiting firms" and I think that is where most of the their support resources go
In-person training was pretty good - I think this significantly depends on the trainer. Our trainer was really good and showed what ADP can do - but I know that all trainers are not the same - and this truly makes such as difference. Overall, our training went pretty well.
At the time training was not as expansive as it is now. If it could go wrong it did for me so the process was difficult and lengthy. I needed to have more in person walkthroughs of things to ensure the transition was done correctly. Not sure what else I can say, we were part of the initial move to Workforce Now when it was introduced.
Either assign more than one specialist to the implementation process, or assign less clients to the implementation specialist. The process requires attention to detail and the ability to test and re-test as well as verify the information. It also requires a lot of back and forth between the client ant the implementation specialist, so they need to be readily available during the whole implementation process.
Using the basic functions of SmartSearch is an easy implementation. But consider carefully what your organization needs to really drive placements. Because we only did a basic implementation first, we were caught off guard when later trying to implement more functions and realizing that the capabilities were limited or were difficult to learn and implement and realizing that tech support was not going to be consistent.
I also used UltiPro (way back -- it didn't even appear in dropdown). Recommend ADP Workforce Now above all others. Paycor and Paycom were both very clunky. I even helped implement Paycom and could never get it to work how the business needed it to.
Functionally, SmartSearch is not on the same page as ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter as a platform is much more geared toward helping applicants and is essentially a glorified resume database. SmartSearch offers so much more in terms of features and abilities, that would not really be appropriate to try and compare the two. Similarly, the overall use of SmartSearch is an apples and oranges comparison to LinkedIn Talent. LinkedIn is great for sourcing and attracting talent, but in terms of tracking candidates all the way through a hiring process and tracking a heavy volume of job orders across a variety of states and locations, the two just don't really compare.
We have several departments that utilize the reporting, utilize the timecards and the system. We also have self service that is nice for all of our employees. This system allows us to designate what each group can see, and what employees can change, or who can clock in and out offsite
ADP WorkforceNow has provided a positive ROI for our company. It has saved me countless hours in the time I used to spend preparing reports, managing benefits, and annual enrollment, recruitment tracking, and much more.
The integration with Payscale has allowed our company to take every position in our organization and benchmark it to industries and job titles. This has allowed us to be more competitive on recruitment and retention.
We have used the new DE&I dashboard to provide valuable information on the landscape of our workforce, as well as areas of our organization that may not be as diverse.
That's easy - they have helped us grown and make more money. The core element of their technology (e.g. the ability to search for, identify and contact candidates is excellent).
They are a business partner and do their very best to help us succeed.
