Likelihood to Recommend Well suited to tracking aid needed and provided to people; to developing a plan for helping - a roadmap. We use it to also identify which volunteers can help on various projects, to try to leverage volunteer experiences and linking to specific client needs.
Read full review It's simple to use even for non-technical employees, making it very simple to install even for a workforce that hasn't grown up in the digital age, and for that People HR is the best option to fit in. I haven't got in any situation yet where I see People HR as less appropriate except Applications Tracking Systems as I have never worked on that module much.
Read full review Pros Apricot by Social Solutions does a great job of making database administration simple and effective. It is easy for someone in the non-profit sector without much prior experience in similar programs to work on the back end of Apricot by Social Solutions building forms and doing reporting. Apricot by Social Solutions is a generally user-friendly program that our staff of many different ages and abilities are able to utilize effectively. The buildability of the program is a major plus for our organization, allowing us to cater Apricot by Social Solutions with exactly what we need for our programming and services. Read full review Complex reporting is made easy through the reporting capabilities of the system. We have been using reports for the past year and absolutely trust the accuracy of the data produced. The reports are generated easily through the system and can be exported into an editable Excel spreadsheet which is great. The self-service of data is great for freeing up HR time. Employees can update their personal information themselves quickly and easily. The App is a great feature of People HR. A large proportion of our employees work in our warehouse and as such don't have their own computer at work. The app allows those employees easy access to the system on the go. Read full review Cons Almost every year I get a new customer care support person, and it can be hard to reorient each new person to my unique business case and use of Apricot by Social Solutions In the past, I have had issues with communication from different departments in Apricot by Social Solutions about what I was getting as part of my contract. In my experience, when I had my initial meeting to kick off upgrading our Apricot by Social Solutions instance, the majority of the information the project consultant had was incorrect. I had to send an email to someone else to rectify the situation. If Apricot by Social Solutions was compatible with phones that would be really helpful. I wish the font size and formatting were more customizable when building out forms in Apricot by Social Solutions (e.g., more similar to how customizable Surveymonkey is with different surveys). Read full review The UI could do with being more Up to date, i find it easy to use but is quite cartoon like. More Details for skills is required, I have some certifications but the system does not recognise the Brand Emails that are sent out could use an overhaul as they don't stand out as much as i think they should Read full review Likelihood to Renew I went to the Summit a few weeks ago to learn about the future expansion and vision of Social Solutions. I already been with Apricot for 5 years and researched other products I still come back to Apricot and where it can grow with us.
Read full review Usability Without any formal IT education, I was able to utilize their articles and videos to teach myself how to configure and customize the software to our organization (although I do recommend their Apricot Admin training to polish your skills). The majority of users are able to adapt immediately with minimal training.Staff that have challenges with technology in general do adapt to using the system once you can create buy in and engagement (although it does take time and training)
Read full review Reliability and Availability It is usually available when I need to use it
Read full review Performance The system does tend to run slowly when pulling more complex reports
Read full review Support Rating This is a difficult question to answer because when I hear the word "support" I think of this in multiple levels. The customer service on the front end, with my account manager is pretty good. There was a time for about a year and a half where I didn't even want to get to know this persons name because they wouldn't be there there long enough for me to get to know them. For the past 8-9 months we've had the same account manager, and this is helpful as a way to grow our trust in Apricot social solutions as well as the account manager understanding the needs of our organization. The technical support is also fine. The issues we most have problems with is how the technical support is calculated and the lack of roll-over of technical support time. If our account has 1 hour of technical support per month, but we don't need any technical support for 4 months, it would be great to have the ability to use those 4 hours (as time allows per the IT calendar) when we need them, even if it falls within one month. We've also had instances of working with IT persons who didn't seem to care at all about our issues, and seemed eager to put our call behind them and get onto the next without much thought as to why we were calling them in the first place. We've also had instances where the IT person didn't seem to really be listening to what it is we needed, and was heck bent on what they THOUGHT we needed rather than listening to what we actually did need. While we also have had experiences of working with IT persons who were absolutely great at working through issues. They were patient and understanding and would explain why a solution (c)would or (c)would not work. We even worked through those options in real time if they were unsure whether a data solution would work or not. That was great because we felt heard.
Read full review In-Person Training Online training only
Read full review Online Training There are good training guides.
Read full review Implementation Rating There need to be specialists who know how to best work with an organization developing a new program, not just transferring existing forms to a digital format.
Read full review Alternatives Considered The ability to customize Apricot and the simple interface is incredibly appealing.
Salesforce CMS may be more well known, and cheaper for nonprofits, but it's also seen as the "Cadillac" version and is overwhelming for many small to mid sized organizations. The build out can be expensive as well, although there is a more general knowledge about the product and integration options.
Read full review Prior to initially taking out our PeopleHR contract i reviewed many HR systems and PeopleHR seemed the best option as it seemed to have the most functionality for the best price. However that was many years ago now and since being a customer of PeopleHR and now going with
Timetastic , i wouldn't recommend PeopleHR. The costs have increased substantially but there hasn't been any significant improvements in the software that we've seen/utilised. There's also a lot of system issues that seem to occur frequently. Not to mention the service has taken a total nosedive since PeopleHR were taken over by Access. Whilst
Timetastic is a much more basic system and really just a holiday planner, the cost is cheaper than anything I've seen on the market. For the more HRIS functionality, we've opted to utilise our O365 and create a Sharepoint HR Management Site which is much more cost effecitve us and we can avoid having to deal with Access which is a huge plus
Read full review Scalability This software doesn't work well for our organization
Read full review Return on Investment Our data reporting capability. We're able to do the most robust reporting we've ever done. Was able to handle our rapid expansion (doubling program in 1 fiscal year). We did have a loss of data near the beginning of our use of the system and never got a clear answer why it happened. Data was never recovered. The cost to add additional users is really high, and there aren't many options to bundle or review user licenses to ensure we're getting the best deal. Read full review PeopleHR has reduced the amount of holiday queries coming through to the HR Team. This has saved us around 2 hours per week. PeopleHR has increased visibility to line managers of their team and indirect reports for holiday / time management. The ATS has enabled us to automate responses/templates to all candidates applying for roles, send updates, reject, invite to interview etc. in a much quicker time frame. This has reduced hours of work writing emails per week. PeopleHR has given more responsibility and ownership to our managers to do their roles. Read full review ScreenShots Bonterra Case Management Screenshots Access PeopleHR Screenshots