Ascentis HR uses web-based management programs to help automate complex HR processes. Ascentis’ other services included customizable payroll, time and attendance and recruiting modules. Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022, and will be discontinued.
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Novatime (discontinued)
Score 4.5 out of 10
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From Ascentis, NOVAtime was a set of workforce management solutions providing timekeeping, payroll, leave management, and employee scheduling needs. Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022, and along with NOVAtime, will be discontinued.
We like the Ascentis annual subscription model and customer service. We've had ADP in the past which had horrible customer service and high monthly fees.
ADP - is a system for enterprise-level companies for 100+ employees. With us being a small company Ascentis pricing and options seemed to line up for what we were looking for and had the custom options we were looking for.
They actually ended up joining forces to make one platform for all timekeeping solutions. With Novatime and all other modules we have from Ascentis, everything flows very easily.
In working with Ascentis in payroll, the program makes my job so much easier. I am new to this position and the learning process has been so much easier with this product than those in the past. I appreciate the patience I am given when I call in for assistance as well.
We continue to remain the only professional baseball team that utilizes NOVAtime for our scheduling of staff, mostly because it was designed to schedule hospital workers. The lag time when updating the ASM is extremely time consuming and the inability to work in multiple internet tabs or windows makes it that much more inefficient. I am sure it is a fantastic system for other organizations but it continues to be a challenge for us.
Easy to use software. I have had several new HR employees comment on how easy the system is to learn!
Problem Solving- Ascentis is always problem solving! When we were in the process of selecting a new payroll company, we needed unemployment claims management assistance for our locations, something Ascentis did not currently offer. The sales rep went out of his way to find a unemployment claims management company that would work with Ascentis and us. That company has helped us keep an 80% win rate for our claims!
User conference- Engage is an awesome way to learn more about the products Ascentis has available as well and meet up with the staff you work with every day!
Updating the system so it is one platform and not two.
Create changes to the benefit enrollment process and upgrade the system so hire dates do not need to be changed to trigger benefits for status changes.
Focus updates on HR Admin, mobile application, ATS and transitioning to one platform. Larger areas of focus have been on the payroll portion of the system with a few updates to other areas.
When something is broken, quicker turn time on fixing the issue.
There does need to be more support and knowledge when it comes to alternate workweek schedule types (9/80, etc.), as there have been a few unique challenges with those.
This rating would be a 10 if it were not for some issues we have been having recently with the benefit carrier connections. The carrier connections are critical for us so how these issues are resolved will be key in our renewal decision.
The overall satisfaction within the organization has been luke warm, at best. The software may be more conducive for a hospital but I believe there is a reason why we are the lone baseball team utilizing it.
I'd give it a 7.5. If the modules were easier to access and not so buried (or placed in left field to find), I would give it a higher rating. As I said, as the potential to be great if ACCESS to other modules was easier.
On the employee's side of things, Novatime is pretty intuitive and fairly easy to use. All they have to do is either press a button to punch in or punch out. If they are entering in their hours, all they have to do is type in the number of hours per day. On the manager's side of things, Novatime is also fairly easy to use. It highlights in red any missed punches and in green any OT that the employee has. There are links on the homepage of the manager's page that will lead them to a list of all their employees' missed punches for a pay period and they can fix them all before payroll is due. Novatime becomes a bit more complicated on the administrator's side. The issues I have run into with Novatime normally come after updates/upgrades to their system. They have been getting better, but the administrator's side is still a bit clunky and takes a while to find what you are looking for. It is not as intuitive as the other sides and takes a bit of computer knowledge to figure it out.
They normally give you notice when an update will affect the use of the system. Otherwise, when we have an error , we send a message to the support team. Sometimes someone will get right back with you and sometimes it takes a while.
Support is attentive and quick to answer the call and get the answer for you. If they for any reason cannot answer right then, they are back to you within a day and always seem to have a sense of urgency. You truly get the impression that they are aiming to make you happy.
The program itself can be customized in many different ways to meet the needs of the company/organization that it is working with. The charts/graphs on the new homepage are somewhat helpful and link to useful information. It has some really nice scheduling features that allow managers to see the difference between hours expected to work and actual hours worked as well as overtime, absences, and non-scheduled shifts. Processing payroll is quite simple. PTO request off is straightforward.
First, to clarify our "in-person" training was done mainly through Web-X meetings and conference calls. It was the closest thing we got to as far as an "in-person" training for this software. However, for the large majority of it, this type of training worked out well. We were able to share our screens and the trainer was able to share his/her screen. We could follow along with what we were doing in our database in real time and see how different functions worked and how manipulating our information could produce different results. It was also nice in that it provided for real-time results if something hadn't been coded correctly or we were having issues as to why something wasn't working the way we thought it should be. However, it did have some downsides in that we often had to rely on a conference phone and that made it difficult to hear people on both sides. Also, sometimes the trainers had internet difficulties when working from home and that caused issues with the WebX meetings.
Ascentis HR has a number of online training videos to watch on a number of different topics. I gave it a lower rating because there is not much interactivity with the videos and it seems to cater to really only one or two learning styles. Plus, one has to be pretty motivated to go to a separate area to access the videos and then pull up a specific one to watch it and then learn. From my experience, people know that they are there, many just don't take the time and effort to go find them and actually watch them - especially since the username and password are different from their normal username and password.
It was very easy to implement, but the customization pieces should really be fleshed out in order to determine the full need of an organization at the time of implementation. I believe if a little more time was spent on the requirements, the recruiting module would not have to be customized again at a cost at a later date.
Ascentis has far better customer service and the implementation experience was also better. The ability to do a lot of customization is also easier with Ascentis as it's smaller organization. The payroll has positive and negatives compared to ADP but the accuracy is the same in both. Ascentis just started their community site which doesn't have a lot of traffic but hopefully can become more like ADP's community site, which was extremely helpful to me as an administrator.
HR DPT. is much more effective, as we can assess any employee information no matter where we are, etc. This helps to provide information immediately when requested!
Employees have access to Ascentis, and therefore to their timecard, open enrollment, etc., from anywhere at any time!
Time, PTO requests, employee goals, and evaluations can be approved from anywhere at any time!
Recruiting can be accessed any where at any time, and this helps with hiring, internal communication, etc.
