Epicor HCM supplied human resource management system (HRMS) capabilities, but Epicor has stopped offering this functionality and company's HR applications are no longer available.
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Oracle PeopleSoft HCM
Score 7.2 out of 10
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Oracle's PeopleSoft HCM is a complete, customizable suite including Global Core Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Workforce Service Delivery, and Talent Management. PeopleSoft can be integrated to run on the Oracle Cloud.
While Epicor HCM is functional for enterprises with many branch locations, I feel that is best suited out of the box for locations with corporately centralized HR. This overcomes some of the shortcomings of security capability and the need to spend a lot of time in configuring routing. The CSS portion of Epicor HCM is not as robust as competing systems and should not be used if corporations are actively looking to onboard at a high rate.
Oracle PeopleSoft HCM is great for tracking most HR related information. The customization for the company is great, as well as the ability to integrate with a wide variety of complimentary software. For example, ours is integrated with our ATS (Taleo) for recruiting, Kronos for timekeeping, and Vemo for workforce insight reports. Given it's overall ability, it is probably overkill for smaller companies that may want a more focused HRIS that can handle everything without the need to integrate with additional software.
Security is always an issue with payroll/HR software. Security in Epicor HCM is very robust. In our manufacturing facility it is important that supervisors have access to their employee's information and the software allows me to limit access to only the correct department. There is also menu security that will allow me to remove access to features by user and grant access only to what they require to do the job.
This software is the repository for many different types of employee information. For example in the past we have tracked skills training by employee in either an Access database or an Excel spreadsheet. We are currently in the process of loading individual employee skill information which will allow us to query the database to pull any information that is not already a canned report in the system.
Payroll tax reports are handled by the system seamlessly. In our old system I had to keep confidential employees in a different "company" which meant I had to combine the two companies and do quarterly and year end tax reporting manually. The confidential flag in Epicor HCM allows me to utilize reports directly from the system and also creates the files needed to file online for both my quarterly SUI and W-2 reporting to SSA at year end.
Oracle PeopleSoft HCM is one of the best product and has helped implement the complex Business functionalities in the Higher Education business in a very streamlined process.
Oracle PeopleSoft HCM helped in moving from 34 different legacy system to one centralized system which helps immensely in maintaining the data and reporting purpose.
Oracle PeopleSoft HCM also helps immensely in data analytics and trend analysis which helps immensely in preparing for the resourcing and planning for the peak season in advance and be better prepared to handle the quarterly on annual activities.
Administrative set-up is a nightmare --> Set-up such as e-mail templates (routing, candidate communication, alerts) and configuring security rights for users, includes looking at list of approximately 100 fields some of which seem like duplicates. Interestingly, you may find that the field you need is missing. You'll need to create a work-around or pay Professional Services to get it set-up correctly, even though they should logically be available. Another alternative is that you need to go to an obscure task under Utilities that you've never used before so you can uncheck a box.
Auto alerts seem like a great idea, but the set-up is limited in such a way that you will probably need a Filter SQL statement to get it the way you want. (Ex: No way on the birthday alert to simply filter to active employees. Get ready to send out over 500 alerts for ALL employees and dependents.) You can either ask someone in your IT department or again, go to Professional Services ($$$).
Routing also seems like a great idea but if you make too many changes in the routing set-up, it errors out and doesn't allow you to submit changes. Instead you must make only a few changes, submit, then go to the task again. Efficiency is not a concern for HCM. If you have more than 5-10 routes in the system for certain tasks, this can slow down the entire routing page, making you wait between 20-40 seconds to approve and go to the next route. This will make for a fun time during your annual review process when you've got 100+ reviews routed to you.
Epicor staff (except for customer support) are salespeople--first and foremost --> Glassdoor reviews show that Epicor "emphasizes billable hours above all else" -- we've experienced this firsthand. Most account managers, implementation and interface consultants will try get you on the phone (at a whopping $100-$300/hr) to talk about nothing and avoid delivering what you've paid them for. If they're not doing that, they may just ignore your e-mails and never get back to you.
Unreliable customer support --> Customer support staff seems understaffed and sometimes lack technical knowledge. Not surprising considering that HCM is so convoluted and frustrating. Even the most expert support reps are stumped by questions--the system is just that confusing. Sometimes there is no resolution at all so your call is turned into a service change request. Then you cross your fingers and hope it gets addressed in the next upgrade. I submitted one support call over two months ago. It is still open. Sadly that is not out of the norm.
Unexplainable errors in interfaces --> Payroll and benefits interfaces have been unreliable. Employee data changes are dropped with no explanation; ergo, there is no possible solution. Unless of course you want your benefits consultant to spend several hours ($$$) researching it or very, very slowly talking you through it over the phone.
Customizations that keep on breaking and breaking and breaking --> HCM releases updates almost twice a year, with "new and improved" features. Sometimes the features don't work, as if the software was updated without any testing or foresight. You'll find that customizations you've paid for have broken inexplicably and need to be re-done. Of course you will be charged for the extra hours needed to fix the customizations.
We have issues with students using Time & Labor for multiple jobs, where time is incorrectly calculated, including negative balances where none exist.
The application is complex and some areas, especially Time & Labor, are very difficult to troubleshoot. The overall level of complexity has increased over the years.
We also use Campus Solutions and had to split apart HCM and CS, significantly increasing our maintenance overhead and creating inter-system issues that aren't always resolvable.
Campus Solutions has developed a solution for managing preferred names and gender identity that is missing/ incompatible with the HCM product.
I just recently lost my job after 16 years, and purposely sought out a position where I could continue to work with HCM. I am now in a similar role to what I was in before, and can continue the same type of work and enhancements that I did at my other company.
PeopleSoft HCM has provided a very flexible platform for our HR needs. The ability to add customizations to handle some of our unique business processes have been critical in the longevity of our PS HCM use. We've been able to handle a wide variety of business processes for multiple subsidiaries due to the ability to customize when needed.
Where it's good: Epicor HCM at a high level has a straight-forward interface for navigating to the main content sections at either the employee or HR administrator level. The interfaces are consistent throughout the application, and after a brief learning curve, one can navigate through the remainder of the interface pages in any content area without too much difficulty. HCM also has great tools for making sure the analysis of data is available and accessible to non-programmer personnel. Where it struggles: One thing working against the usability of the HCM product is the overuse of the row-selection scheme for all many to many relationships. HCM uses a "select the row from the left frame" and then "enter data corresponding to this row in the right frame" scheme for most of its data entry components. One example of overuse is the employee address entry. During the first setup of an employee or during a candidate's application, HCM allows the user to specify multiple addresses. While this functionality is desired for long-term storage, an option doesn't exist to forgo this interface type for quick initial entry for the primary use case (one address per employee). This is one example, but is particularly visible when a candidate must also bridge the learning curve.
Oracle HCM has been around for more thab a decade and is a preferred package to use for Human capital management.Ease with which upgrades happen and how updates are pushed has come thru a long way of improvement and research over the years.Oracle has moved toward cloud based architecture which will help in its customers keep at par with current industry trends.
I give this rating because we have had no issues in the area of the product's overall availability. In my opinion the resources are there when we need them and the features serve the purpose they are set to do. I feel things have gone really well as far as the availability of the product.
The product performs well. As with any software there are bugs and system enhancements needed, but there are channels in place to let Epicor know what they are so they can add to future versions. Open Enrollment and Salary Planning can be a bit slow at times.
I give this rating because I don't have any complaints in the area of performance. In my opinion the product's performance is right on the mark. In comparison to other systems I have used for the same purpose - recruiting, hiring and managing hires, I have found Oracle's performance to be the best. Oracle system flows better than any other recruiting system out there.
There have been a lot of issues with it at first, but we've been figuring a lot of them out on our own. Needing patches to the program though is something that I didn't expect to happen as often as it does.
Overall support has been positive and Oracle has gladly sent out representatives to meet with our teams in person. Despite sometimes sow and inadequate fixes, their willingness to try and meet face to face helps give them a better name in our organization. Sometimes their people do not understand unique needs of the industry, and it can be a challenge to explain that one size does not fit all. Finding the appropriate IT support for our unique requests has been hit and miss.
We had someone from Epicor come on site to do training, and we "shared" our trainer with another company who was also doing the same major upgrade. It was nice to have another company there so we could ask each other (and the trainer) questions. This allowed for more meaningful discussions during training.
It was a great training tool and provided all of the necessary information we needed to implement the sites for our clients. We were provided with a great deal of resources in regards to Oracle CRM. We didn't have any issues with the training at all. The only thing I would say would that there could be more FAQ's for users to read through
As stated earlier, you won't find all of the problems and things that you would like to improve on until you implement. After go-live, you then will have a long period of adjustment as you get the data and processes to work the way that you really want them to.
When we implement Oracle and Taleo to different clients it typically goes pretty smoothly. When we do system upgrades we usually test the main issues the clients are having just to make sure there are not outstanding issues or errors. I don't have any examples where implementation went poorly. It typically goes well and clients are pleased with the final result. The only complaint would be the time it takes to implement
Epicor pales in comparison to the HRIS and report building systems listed above. Unfortunately, Epicor was implemented prior to my joining the organization. From what I was told, Epicor was chosen because of its ability to be customizable to any industry. However, what we have learned is that this isn't the whole truth. While Epicor might be able to customize to your specific industry with creating certain data fields, it still cannot function properly to meet the needs of your respective industry. For example, my industry is education. There are numerous grant propasals that we send that require specific demographic information. Consequently, when we try to run a report in Epicor, that information is never captured with accuracy which makes sending these reports for grants a herculean task, especially when these donors question our data.
Great features that are aesthetically amazing and provide trendy reporting features to gain insights, but lacks a fully developed product. They constantly deliver new features and tools and will be fully rounded in a few years from now, but as of now, they do not have all the features that PeopleSoft provides.
Performance is not noticeably impacted by adding more users. Microsoft IIS and SQL are Epicor HCM's underlying technology and have proven reliability. In addition, IS staff are easy to find that know these technologies.
In my opinion I rate this high because we have had no issues in this area and so that is why I give it such a high rating. There is no issue with the product's overall scalability. In my opinion this has been a positive from my team and client's view.
PeopleSoft helps us when we have re-orgs or acquisitions. Helps to house and organize data.
Very positive impact given that we have over 13,000 employees and we need a robust system like PeopleSoft to organize our employees and multiple locations and unions, etc...
