Likelihood to Recommend I think it's a good platform for tracking and monitoring goals, feedback, and development. We don't use the 1:1 meeting feature, however, I can see how that would be valuable for many organizations. I do like that it is very customizable, however, that also presents problems in that sometimes forms and/or processes can be a bit challenging to create easily and quickly.
Read full review This is a great program if you have locations in different geographical areas. The ability to work with people at different locations is appreciated, and also there can be informal input that is requested, which Promantek can handle as well. I am at a loss to think of an area where this does not work well. There are several of our employees in the manufacturing areas that do not have computer access, and for those individuals, we simply print the review instead of having it online. This works fine but is not the forte of Promantek. However, any system these days that focusses on the online aspects of review writing will experience that as well.
Read full review Pros 1:1 agendas are easy to create, add comments to and prompt excellent conversation flow on the topics that truly matter to the manager and the employee. The system can be easily customized to reflect your company's language and culture. We did this in several areas of the platform (goals, development, learning), and it made a world of difference in the understanding and adaptation of our users. One example is that in each learning module, we added 3 questions in the course description so that managers would be automatically prompted to ask to follow up / learning transfer questions when their employees enroll and take a learning course. Halogen support is outstanding. Any question I have had has been answered upon the first contact or within 24 hours. Read full review Trakstar sends out a lot of automated reminders to participants, encouraging them to take notes and provide feedback on a regular basis. Trakstar generates analysis (i.e., rater bais) automatically that would otherwise be labor intensive to do manually. Trakstar has a feature that allows administrators to see what each individual employee sees - this is critical in ensuring that the performance review process goes smoothly. Read full review Cons My organization does not use all of the functions/modules that Halogen offers, but I find that those modules still appear on the Halogen main page. I think a great area for improvement is to hide these functions so as not to confuse employees. Read full review The reporting features are a bit weak. But you can download Excel-ready files to manipulate on your own. The dashboard feature (prior to June 2013) was very nice, but missing in the latest version. Automated reports, quarterly for example, would be nice to send to Senior Leadership (missing in the current version/requires manual input) Read full review Likelihood to Renew Implementing a new system and process company wide is never an easy task. We moved so quickly in such a short period of time that we were able to learn quickly but also have the opportunity to improve the Halogen experience. We will more than likely will renew our use of Halogen as we already are seeing a small impact which hopefully in the long run will lead to a greater impact
Read full review Very simple to use, great support.
Read full review Usability Halogen is very intuitive and provides very clean work-space ... lots of white space and modern layouts. There is more than one way to accomplish your action, too!
Read full review Support Rating We only purchased the appraisal module and without the other modules offered, you are really limited in what you can do and the process becomes much more involved with needing to maintain information across multiple platforms. We found that they charge for everything and call it "consulting." We poured so much money and time into a system that was just overkill for what we really needed.
Read full review Trakstar has been very responsive to my questions and support has been able to speak with me on the phone as needed. Also, when I told Trakstar that my employees were not delighted by the product, they did a special session with me to diagnose any issues and to make recommendations for how I could improve the tool's usefulness in my job. I appreciated their support here
Read full review Online Training It is very easy to use and I can do my own programming instead of paying a technician and waiting sometimes days for them to program the changes.
Read full review Implementation Rating Get to know your CAM - Customer Account Manager! They are a lifesaver! (Thanks Jorie Basque!)
Read full review Alternatives Considered I have used other systems in the past and I like that Halogen provides everything in one space. I would like to see a more developed way to report training, not in the LMS, but I think that for the most part that Halogen is a robust system that is superior to its competition.
Read full review I did not make the purchase decision for Trakstar, but at a previous job I used
Reflektive . Many of the outcomes of the tool are the same, even if the product interface and language is slightly different
Read full review Return on Investment We are able to get our reviews done in a quicker amount of time. Instead of 4-8 weeks we were able to get it done under a month. Halogen has gotten better at given us a heads up when the system will be down. Most patches are done overnight so we can at least verify it was done, but their success rate of a patch not breaking something is not at 99%. So we do lose productivity when the system is down. The tool is easier to do so there are fewer questions from users outside the core team. Read full review We have had few managers dread the review writing process! Sure, no one enjoys this and we all know that it is time-consuming, but Promantek has allowed less time spent in frustration and more time actually communicating effectively. There are areas where managers can make notes during the entire review process so that when the time to write the review is upon you, it is a much simpler task. This has allowed us to free up the time with managers to a certain degree which is always beneficial. Read full review ScreenShots Saba TalentSpace Screenshots