The Good and the Bad!
We use Ascentis HR for our "system of record", ESS, open enrollment, etc. We are just starting to learn and use Performance Management, …
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What is Ascentis (discontinued)?
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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What is Ascentis (discontinued)?
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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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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Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. This enables users to manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single…
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What is Ascentis (discontinued)?
Ascentis was an a-la carte full suite workforce management (WFM) technology platform and human capital solutions. Ascentis WFM provided time and attendance solutions that provided clients with scheduling, compliance, complex calculations, and time collection options. The HCM suite, included a fully a-la carte solution.
Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022. The service will be discontinued.
Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022. The service will be discontinued.
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Ascentis (discontinued) Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate Direct deposit files highest, with a score of 9.2.
The most common users of Ascentis (discontinued) are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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September 23, 2021
The Good and the Bad!
We use Ascentis HR for our "system of record", ESS, open enrollment, etc. We are just starting to learn and use Performance Management, and eventually will be using it for Recruiting/Onboarding. But right now, we use it for NEW HIRE to TERMINATION. It's been great for Open Enrollment. We do, however, struggle a little with the connection between HR and Payroll. We are hoping for some enhancements that will help these two systems "flow" a little smoother with each other. Singularly, they seem to be pretty good. Working together needs a little more help - although MOST of it is decent.
- Ascentis HR allows you to attach anything to the EE's records, so you can be quite paperless.
- Benefits Open Enrollment went pretty smoothly! Much better than the manual way we'd been handling things.
- Setting up users (ex: managers, supervisors, etc) is pretty decent, but we are still learning how to work with all of that to have things work correctly.
- Ascentis HR needs to flow over to Ascentis Payroll with a little more fluidity. Most are OK, but it does need to work on certain issues better. Some could be an administrative error as we are all still "learning" things.
- I believe Ascentis HR should not have to "use" Ascentis Support as much for certain things: Alert setups (why can't we set these up ourselves without sending notices to Support to set up), any remote desktop set up or password reset has to go thru Ascentis Support - why can "administrators" on our "user" end set it up?
- There is no "flow over" of things like bonuses, car allowance, phone allowances, etc from HR to payroll. There should be. HR training needs to be handled a little smoother.
- There is still so much to learn on the HR side after more than a year of having it. And, that's not including the separate "modules" that companies can utilize. That's just the basic stuff.
- Somewhat of a "choppy" learning experience.
- Report tool can be enhanced/modified to work better!!! Whether a custom report or a canned report, sometimes the selection criteria that one has chosen DOES NOT work the way it should (this is very noticeable when reporting on certain benefits that one has selected, yet ALL benefits (STD, LTD, Med, etc) still come out on the report, and then one has to sort and remove them THEMSELVES from the reports. Also, on the HR reporting, you have to create a TXT report first, and then make it into an EXCEL (or whatever type of report you want), you can't just create the EXCEL report first. The REPORTING feature DEFINITELY needs some enhancements/modifications to work MUCH better in many ways!!!
August 30, 2021
Ascentis HR - It just works!
Ascentis HR is used by the entire organization. We use it to allow employees to request time off and to track HR for all staff. Our paramedics, unfortunately, do NOT use the time off features as the scheduling system in use for them is outside of Ascentis, but all other staff use self-service.
- Employee Self Service is excellent
- Notes, attachments to employee records are easy to use
- Management self service is also well thought out, although we would like to see managers included in their own team calendar views.
- We looked at the scheduling system available from Ascentis - in depth - it was almost what we needed for our paramedics, but not quite (NovaTime) - it would be great to move in that direction in the future.
- A way to connect leave calendars to MS Outlook would be a wonderful tool.
- The need to use remote desktop to get to Employee Manager and Setup Manager is cumbersome - people forget their passwords frequently - it would be nice to see Ascentis move toward web-based functionality for the entire thing.
December 02, 2020
Some good, some not-so-good.
We use both Payroll and Human Resources (incl. self-service).
- Payroll process with direct deposit, taxes, EE withholding
- Self service website, though it's not perfect
- Customer service is usually very helpful and resourceful
- Web based HR is still missing a LOT of functions. No point in going there yet.
- The communication between HR and Payroll systems is bad. Hoping for a resolution of problems once HR is fully online.
- Payroll works well on desktop. But the online system is not very useful yet.
December 01, 2020
Ascentis = BEST HRIS System Around!
We use Ascentis across our company as our HRIS. We (in HR) are completely paperless, and were able to do so because of the Ascentis system! We were the first "group" in our organization to complete this task, and the ease of scanning and saving documents in Ascentis took time but wasn't difficult. We now have employees scan and save documents in the system as well. We use TimeKeeper and Recruiting, and now complete our Open Enrollment in the system too.
- Ascentis is VERY user friendly! I conduct all New Hire orientations, and make sure our new employees are familiar and comfortable with the system. Rarely do I get a call back with questions.
- The Ascentis Support Team is always very prompt and helpful when we have questions. We usually get a response and get our problem or questions resolved within the day.
- We LOVE the homepage and widget function. We communicate all important info. on the homepage, and have included countdown widgets, links, etc. The homepage is a very easy set-up, and allows employees to utilize in place of a newsletter, etc.
- The new reporting system is amazing and very easy to use! Makes running quick analysis reports a breeze!
- It would be great if on the new platform, you could look up employees by hire date, as we used to use that function all the time on the old desktop.
- Some of our new hires have had issues uploading an employee photo during the onboarding process - maybe a bit of user error, but it does seem to puzzle them - maybe a way (I'm not sure if there is one) to make this easier?
November 12, 2020
Overall gets it done
We used Ascentis across our organization. It is used for time clock services including an points for attendance process. We also use the HR, Benefits and Learning & Development modules. This allows us to automate information as well as provides us opportunities to use the system processes rather than creating manual processes.
- Flexibility of the HR Module
- The homepage / dashboard is great as an administrator
- Benefits is pretty easy to use
- L& D module needs more flexibility and options
- clunky between Ascentis and the NovaTime modules - not cohesive enough
- finish putting everything out under the web interface, I don't ever want to have to log into the desktop option
October 13, 2020
Lots of possibilities
We use it for timekeeping, payroll, benefits, and working on recruiting. We are not yet making good use of creating ad hoc reports as the process is not as simple as it seemed to be during demos. Presently, I and others lookup individuals or situations, but I have only used it for one report, and that one I exported to Excel and manipulated the data I needed that way vs parsing it from the Ascentis database. It has done an adequate but not seamless job of replacing paper timesheets, but we are still having to modify rules to make it work the way we need it to.
- Houses many pieces of data
- Produces payroll well
- Maneuvering through the system could be more intuitive.
- Producing ad hoc reports has been complicated.
- Recruiting implementation has been challenging.
August 11, 2020
Fantastic support! Product is improving.
We use Ascentis across the organization for our HRIS. We use it for recruiting, HR/benefits, payroll, performance, and talent management.
- Ascentis has amazing support. They are quick to respond to emails and the people on the phone are always very helpful.
- They are constantly making improvements. I can tell that they are investing in their product and trying to make it more up to date.
- Their implementation is fantastic. Individual meetings are held with product teams that walk you through every step.
- Having multiple databases and websites is not ideal. Updating something as simple as a job title requires the use of multiple applications including payroll, payroll bridge, and a remote desktop.
- In addition to multiple databases, their recruiting is not their own application. This creates challenges as the setup and support is a different process than the rest of the HRIS.
Ascentis is currently used across two businesses. We have the full suite with the exception of performance management. It is used across the whole organization. Ascentis solves no problems for the organization but does create a multitude of new problems that we did not have to deal with from our previous payroll/HR/benefits/timekeeping provider. Ascentis contractor LaborMetrix addresses the problem of calculating variable pay for hourly employees.
- Contract with LaborMetrix
- Payroll - Requires more manual steps including processing separately in the timekeeping portal, calculating in the variable pay calculator application, exporting from the variable pay calculator application to a .txt file, uploading that .txt file into Ascentis payroll to add the hourly pay. Paychecks do not include the time off balances by default, which is out of compliance with CA earnings statement laws. Administrators have to export the balances and manually upload them for every payroll. Paychecks can display the 401K contribution percentage, but not the Roth 401K contribution percentage. We have to use a separate payroll application to do the W-2 and quarter-end processes because the main web portal is not able to do that. We have to use the separate payroll application to get reports of any use because the main web portal only has a few reports available and they are not helpful. In order to view an employee's paycheck, the administrator has to go through his or her personal profile and payroll screen. The administrator is unable to edit an employee's tax withholdings on the web portal.
- HR - Almost everything related to configuration and management is only fully-functional on the Remote Desktop that no one mentioned being necessary at all during the sales calls. Administrators cannot do everything from the main web portal. This includes editing employee access and changing the information that is displayed to employees on the main web portal. This includes setting up benefit carriers and employee profile management. Most of the reports available on the web are not useful, and administrators have to use the Remote Desktop to create custom reports.
- Benefits - Unable to view the EDI feed information. Administrator view does not show the sum of all of an employee's benefit costs. Managing the documents and links in the benefits section requires using the Remote Desktop that no one mentioned during sales and requires unnecessarily complex steps involving adding a picture to a specific folder in the remote desktop and then including the file reference to RD/Company/Admin/Folder/file.jpg just to have a picture displayed for employees instead of just uploading the picture like any other website.
- Timekeeping - Requires separate processing in order to lock timesheets and process payroll, requires a workaround involving exporting the following pay period to show the current time off balances when downloading the figures to be included on the paychecks,. The system has meal premium features and shifts features, but they conflict and display incorrect times for approaching hours (example shows meal premium after 6.01 hours instead of after 5 hours). Notifications that were sent to the EE and supervisor were sent at midnight the night after the employee already reached the point of getting a meal premium, which does not help anyone avoid it at all. Holidays paid out the number of work hours on the shift plus the 30 minutes of unpaid lunch, which meant they were overpaid. Holidays paid out for days when the employee was not scheduled to work, which meant they were overpaid. Sick balance policies consider transferring to be like a new hire, which incorrectly adds 3 days of sick time to the employee's balance. It's been a year since implementation and problems that caused Ascentis to postpone our implementation still have not been fully resolved. Features highlighted during the sales meetings do not work and we have had to deactivate them to avoid confusion with our staff and supervisors.
- Mobile App - Paycheck information in the app does not match paycheck information shown on the web portal. It displays hourly-only timesheet features like exception counters and things for salaried employees who do not get meal premiums or OT or clock in and out. It allows employees to add or remove employees from their benefits, which should not be allowed unless the employee had a qualifying life event. It does not allow employees to submit address updates, scheduled for future bug fix but currently displays unpaid hours like unpaid vacation as a dollar amount instead of hours. It's scheduled for a future bug fix but currently shows a total rate that is the sum of an employee's sick rate + vacation rate + regular rate + OT rate + etc... that does not mean anything, but is shown for some reason. It does not allow administrator configuration of what should or shouldn't be visible to employees, does not display all of the pay statements in the employee record when they are all visible on the main web portal, and it has two separate sections in which employees can view their balances and request time off - one from the last paycheck's information and one from NOVATime, which is confusing because they do not always display the same information.
- Recruiting - The system user experience is extremely convoluted. Also, unlike others that just allow clients to add the forms and things required from applicants, Ascentis charges at least $100 for every form that needs a signature, which is most forms in the new-hire process. Ascentis also charges for each signature. Ascentis also charges for each administrator/manager who would use the recruiting module. None of this was stated during the sales meetings or even in the order form/contract.
- Reporting - Reports cannot contain timekeeping data, HR/Benefits data, and payroll data in the same report. They all have to be separate reports. Also, unlike ADP or others that do it for free, Ascentis charges the client at least $500-$1000 for creating custom reports.
November 13, 2019
You won't lose if you choose Ascentis HR!
H2R-Solutions, LLC is a human resources consulting company. We support Ascentis clients through their implementation. We can support clients through the entire suite of Ascentis products.
Ascentis HR is a great solution for a human resources department to go paperless. The software is intuitive and you have the ability to customize it to meet your needs. The reports tab is extremely robust and allows you to slice and dice data however you need it. The compensation tab is extremely useful as it allows you to set up ranges and get compa-ratios for each position. It also breaks down the compensation by the hour, day, pay period, month and year. The benefits tab is very comprehensive and allows you to keep track of the benefits and associated costs easily.
I highly recommend Ascentis HR as a robust inexpensive solution.
Ascentis HR is a great solution for a human resources department to go paperless. The software is intuitive and you have the ability to customize it to meet your needs. The reports tab is extremely robust and allows you to slice and dice data however you need it. The compensation tab is extremely useful as it allows you to set up ranges and get compa-ratios for each position. It also breaks down the compensation by the hour, day, pay period, month and year. The benefits tab is very comprehensive and allows you to keep track of the benefits and associated costs easily.
I highly recommend Ascentis HR as a robust inexpensive solution.
- Reporting capabilities
- Compensation tracking and analysis
- Benefit management and cost containment
- Login through a remote desktop
August 09, 2019
Ascentis Review
Ascentis is used as an HRIS for all staff by approximately 14 HR professionals.
- The web-based product is being advanced and seems to be moving in a direction where a web-based product could be utilized in place of the remote desktop.
- Customizable fields and tabs. Ascentis has a significant quantity of customization which is very necessary for the complexities within our organization.
- User password reset. It is very quick and efficient to change a user's password when they are locked out (as long as the remote desktop is already open).
- It should be far easier to rehire an individual with prompts as to the fields that require editing. Currently, there are multiple steps and screens/tabs and no prompts at all. If one field is missed on the employment tab, the employee will continue to show as being terminated on reports which can raise a lot of questions and takes more time/effort to correct.
- The Employee Manager window should be expandable to enlarge. It is small and often hard to read for aging eyes. Lack of this simple feature makes the product also appear quite antiquated.
- Information in the fields and tabs within Employee Manager should not be so easy to accidentally overwrite. Lack of a simple warning again makes the Ascentis product seem antiquated.
- Lack of follow up follow through when there are issues. We often take issues to Ascentis Support and often, the resolution takes days or weeks and has been seldom satisfactory. We often have to send several reminders for assistance before we get the action we need. Frequent turnover of account reps also seems to be an area of concern.
- Using a remote desktop source or RDP over SSL is also antiquated. A well-secured web-based product would be far more user-friendly and simpler to access.
- Limited space on remote desktop. Having to move attachments over to the remote desktop to upload to an employee profile can be a hassle. I have moved several attachments over to upload, been faced with the typical HR interruptions and ended up have to re-attempt a fee days later only to find that some of my attachments are randomly missing. Then having to go back and identify what was deleted due to space constraints and start the entire process over.
We use Ascentis for HR data management, employee self-service, payroll, recruiting and onboarding. This allows employees access to their own data, and in some cases, the ability to manage the data. Data and HR processes are now available from anywhere. This is a huge step forward from the file cabinet in an office being the only source of data.
- Easy access for employees via ESS
- The web resources are available from any computer
- Personable implementation and support team
- Moving more things from the remote desktop to the web application
- Making the web navigation more user friendly (less pop-up boxes)
March 27, 2019
Bring back the designated person support!
Ascentis is being used throughout the company for payroll and HR services. I wish more reports were readily available because sometimes creating an Instawriter report can become difficult. Also, I enjoyed having a specialist that helped us with any problems, now we have to send an email to support and sometimes it takes a while to receive a response.
- The desktop version is very user-friendly.
- The reports that are available under the "reports" tab are extremely helpful, wish there were more.
- The flow of HR and Ascentis payroll is very smooth.
- Ascentis HR screen for entering info is very small and not adjustable.
- The vacation/sick tab for employees: I wish I was able to delete rows.
- Wish we received a designated person to ask questions.
October 27, 2018
Back to Basics: Works for Smaller Organizations
[It's] Being used by the whole organization.
We use it as our HRIS system to track and manage employee profiles (job, dept, division, location info; personal contact info; compensation info; emergency details as well as a self-serve portal).
We use it as our HRIS system to track and manage employee profiles (job, dept, division, location info; personal contact info; compensation info; emergency details as well as a self-serve portal).
- Simple UI platform
- Ability to run reports and customize reports for various purposes - Report Manager component is easy to use
- Option to view accrued time and breakdown of accrual calculations
- Some errors in reporting data (i.e. location for employee set-up as Vancouver, however, report consistently pulls it as 'Undesignated')
- Employee Manager keeps logging out.. not efficient with multiple log-ins (remote desktop separate log-in from EE Manager, Set-Up Manager, etc)
- Simple UI leaves lots of rooms for error
May 11, 2018
Great for a growing company
Russell is using Ascentis HR for recruiting, onboarding, benefits enrollment, compensation, employee reviews, ACA reporting, and other government reporting.
Our company has 100 non-union employees and 70 union employees. All non-union employees use the self-service portal to sign up for benefits or enter personal info. The union employees do not receive benefits from us, therefore we did not add them to self-service.
Ascentis eliminates many spreadsheets and centralizes employee data.
Our company has 100 non-union employees and 70 union employees. All non-union employees use the self-service portal to sign up for benefits or enter personal info. The union employees do not receive benefits from us, therefore we did not add them to self-service.
Ascentis eliminates many spreadsheets and centralizes employee data.
- The benefits open enrollment worked great for us. Employees are able to see all the different options, compare plans, and calculate their monthly premiums as they sign up.
- The self service portal uses widgets that can be customized. We are able to keep employee updated with any changes.
- The report wizard is easy to use. We are able to create reports for any business question.
- Moving from one employee to another in the Employee Manager is a bit cumbersome.
- Moving from remote desktop to a web-based entry point would be nice.
- It would be nice to have all employee info in one place.
May 07, 2018
A User-Friendly Product
I am new to the company and use it for onboarding new hires and any changes, terminations during the course of an employee's tenure with the company. I have managed an Open Enrollment process using Ascentis and run reports for ACA, EEO-1 purposes as well.
- Ascentis provides well-designed webinars that highlight key, critical information in order to fully utilize the software.
- The HR Support line is very helpful. The representatives are well-trained and have excellent customer service skills.
- The software itself is user-friendly and, in general, intuitive.
- Although the training provided is well-designed, all of it is webinar-based. A few remote classes with a "live" instructor would be helpful for those of us that are fairly efficient online, however, still appreciate interaction with a human.
- When Ascentis is trying to assist with selling additional features to an existing client, a more high-touch, less aggressive approach is appreciated.
- I have had some issues with different passwords for different features. Sometimes confusing.
We use Ascentis HR for our entire organization of around 50 employees. We use it as our electronic HR file which holds employee elections such as benefits enrollment and waivers, w-4 elections, etc. We also store employee documents such as employment agreements, evaluations, and check-ins, or other documentation that is determined to be added to their file. Employees access their files through the Employee Self-service site which allows them to see pay stubs, request time off, update personal information, etc. Supervisors also have access to certain aspects of their direct reports file, such as approving time off and seeing past performance evaluations. This is also where we house internal documents (e.g. employee handbook, benefits information, etc.) so employees can refer there to find them.
- As an employee, having access to my personnel file at any time is great. If there is an update to be made employees can make it themselves rather than fill out some update form, submit, and wait for it to get updated.
- There is a link between our payroll system and Ascentis HR which almost seamlessly connects the two. If an employee updates their direct deposit information our payroll software knows. As administrators, we have to approve any changes, but the employee initiates. So, when the direct deposit comes back as undelivered due to the wrong account, the only person there is to blame is the employee themselves who put in the wrong information.
- The payroll simulator is a great planning tool. It helps employees to get an idea of what the impact of different changes would have on their net check. Examples include: receiving a raise, changing your retirement election percentages, changing from a traditional 401k to a Roth, changing your exemptions, etc.
- There is a fair amount of learning and set-up when getting the system but once it's set up it's easy to run and maintain.
- For administrators, the Employee Manager application can be a little difficult to use at times. Trying to find where a field is, or what particular field is that needs updated (there are a couple different attachment areas with different purposes, but not initially clear what's what)
- For administrators, the report running functionality is pretty good but it can be a bit clunky, and the export doesn't always come across in a useable format. Sometimes it's is a clunky text file, others in excel CSV file that's hard to format. There are several 'wizard' steps to go through to run reports and lots of options as you walk through the steps. It means you can really customize your report, but it also means that it can take you many many tries and time to get the report you are wanting. The good thing is though you can save your wizard settings if you will be rerunning the report.
- For administrators, we have to access the management functions through a remote desktop. Sometimes that connection is slow or has issues. Also, it adds an added step when trying to upload documents to employee files, download report exports, or you just want to open a web browser to look something up while you are in there (there are very few pages you can navigate to). It would be nice if the application was web-based without opening a remote desktop.
Ascentis was sold to us as a Cloud-Based, OFCCP compliant HCM system. It is neither. It solves no business problems in its current state.
- It has performed well in producing 1094s and 1095s
- The onboarding feature is good - not great - just good
- Needs to be cloud-based NOW
- Ascentis needs to develop their own products instead of cobbling different products together and telling people they developed them
- Lose the words "hard coded" from your vocabulary
May 01, 2018
HR & Employee Satisfaction with HRIS!
We are using Ascentis HR as our HR system of record. We use employee self-service, benefits administration - including carrier interface, payroll interface, and employee reporting. We are in the process of implementing the performance management, recruiting and performance and learning modules.
- We received rave reviews from employees with our first benefits open enrollment. Using Ascentis all employees were able to complete the process themselves online, as opposed to in our old system the previous year only about 20% of employees were able to complete their enrollment without our assistance. Also new employees are able to complete enrollment on their own with minimal or no instruction.
- Benefit enrollments now flow directly to the carrier. This is a significant time savings as previously enrollments were done manually on each of our multiple benefit vendor sites.
- Our first ACA reporting using the new system was a success. The ability to do this reporting in Ascentis allowed us to eliminate a separate vendor thus saving money for the institution going forward.
- More targeted and flexible reporting allows us to obtain just the information we need at a given point in time.
- The file export to payroll is a much smoother and faster transfer process.
- We are still using remote desktop log in. Having to log in a minimum of three times before we get to employee data is time consuming and annoying.
- While the reporting feature allows access to all employee data, it takes some time to go through all the questions needed to create a report. It would be helpful to have some pre-set up reports using standard employee parameters.
- We would like to see more functionality to capture multiple jobs for an employee. We had to customize those fields, then those fields were not included in standard reports so we had to get customized reports created for us.
- More flexibility for us to run custom reports when we want to run them instead of having a schedule or putting in a request with support to run the reports for us.
April 30, 2018
Ascentis HR Review
We currently use Ascentis for all HR related transactions such as recruitment, onboarding, benefits, ACA compliance, and reporting. It is mainly used by HR and recruitment. It addresses all business problems across HR and recruitment.
- The Ascentis Recruitment ATS is really good. It is web based and it is easy to work with.
- The Employee Self Service is also a good feature that is offered by Ascentis. It is easy to access and very user-friendly.
- The onboarding feature is an excellent resource to have. It streamlines the onboarding process and it makes it easy for new hires to complete their paperwork ahead of time and it helps with keeping the completion of forms paperless.
- The biggest drawback for me is the HRIS side of the house. It is not web based making it very difficult to access it over the web at any time from any where. The whole HRIS side needs to be completely redone so better easy and functionality. Make it web based and a lot easier to use. I really did not fully understand how the HRIS side of the house worked before purchasing a three year agreement with Ascentis. If I had known that the HRIS side was desktop based, I probably would not have signed up with Ascentis.
- Reports in the HRIS could be greatly improved. It Is not easy to pull reports from the system. There are so many steps you have to complete in order to get the report needed.
- The benefits setup wizard through the Ascentis HRIS is very difficult and a tedious process. There are a gain lots of steps to take in order for a benefit to be placed properly.
April 16, 2018
Ascentis is a Gift to HR Professionals Everywhere!
We are using Ascentis across the organization. We started with the basic HR and Payroll system and have been focused on building additional modules (which were all included with our package) for Recruitment and Performance Management. The business problems it addressed were :
1. Self service to employee info
2. Benefits enrollment
3. Central "intranet" for employees to read info
4. Lack of organized reviews and goal tracking
5. Recruitment centralization
1. Self service to employee info
2. Benefits enrollment
3. Central "intranet" for employees to read info
4. Lack of organized reviews and goal tracking
5. Recruitment centralization
- Implementation - You work one on one with a specialist to help build and customize each module. They are patient, supportive, and very helpful.
- Customization - There were few (if any) things I asked for that couldn't be customized. They really do work with you to make the system work for you.
- Support - If/when an issue arises, you are met with immediate response and rectification. Their dedication to customer service is great.
- Remote Desktop - Logging in via remote desktop can be a bit cumbersome. I understand they are working towards a web-based application which I can't wait to see.
- Electronic data transfer - One of the reasons we wanted to use Ascentis was to take advantage of automatic transition to our benefits carriers. We are 6 months in and still having issues. For example, the feed that goes to our COBRA provider every Friday keeps going over in an encrypted manner in which our provider cannot accept. Despite many communications between them, they resolve one week and go back to the same encryption the following week. As a result, I have to double check the things that should be "automatic".
April 06, 2018
Ascentis HR Review
It's being used for HRI data management and benefits administration. It's only being used in North America. The business problems it addresses are benefits administration, HR personnel record keeping which feeds into our payroll system.
- ACA Reporting once you figure out the process is fairly simple.
- Ability to edit company info and add departments etc.
- Overall user experience is very clunky - it appears like it's old software, there's often a lot of steps involved to do a task that could be set up in a much simpler way.
- The system can be unreliable - would prefer it was fully web-based rather than web and remote desktop.
March 29, 2018
OK Computer...You Didn’t Learn That In School
We are currently using Ascentis HR across our whole organization. However, for the majority of our employees, they are mainly using only the Employee Portal/Employee Self-Service site so that they can see their paychecks, make simple changes to demographic information to their HR records, and changes some of their payroll information such as W4 withholdings as well as direct deposit changes. Our managers are granted a bit more access and can see some basic demographic information as well as compensation and job history. This aids them when doing reviews, job transfers, and in essence, gives them a little more information at their fingertips without having to dig through files or try to remember at the top of their head the history of each employee. Our payroll department utilizes it somewhat; however, not nearly as much as our HR department which is the department that accesses it and engages in it every day.
- Ascentis HR is particularly helpful in keeping a record of past jobs and/or managers. If you have an organization that lets employees move from one department to another fairly often, this software has a tool that will help you keep track when Employee "A" moved from Supervisor "X" to Supervisor "Y" as well as from Department "B" to Department "F" without having to restart that employees length of service.
- Ascentis HR also has a number of ways that you can customize tabs. If you want to keep track of something for your organization that you don't see on one of their prefabricated tabs or screens you can make one of your own. We have made several different ones to help us keep track of different information such as driver's licenses and expiration dates as well as specific training and/or orientation tasks that we want supervisors to accomplish with their new employees.
- Ascentis HR lets you upload documents (particularly pdf) to employees files, which is particularly helpful. Additionally, you can mark these so that the employee can or cannot see them when they log onto their side of the Employee Self Service. One of the things I particularly like about these uploaded documents is that each part cluster of tabs has its own tab for attachments. When you open the "Employee" section where you find information about the employee and his/her personal information as well as job information, you will also find a tab where you can put attachments for personal and/or job-related information - such as a job description sign off or something of the like. When you open the "Compensation" section you will find another tab for attachments, and this might be where you decide to upload copies of direct deposits if you require them or wage changes.
- One of the biggest issues I have had with Ascentis HR is that it lacks updates. We started using it four years ago. We stopped using it because we were trying to piecemeal three different systems together. We tried another system for two and a half years. That didn't work out any better. We decided to give Ascentis HR another try. I was hoping that there would be a few upgrades, but the system was largely the same. On the one hand, I admit it was nice because there was not a steep learning curve, but on the other, the technology was behind a lot of the other systems that we were presented with.
- The complaint that I hear the most from my employees is that there is no app for the program and that it is extremely hard to use on any mobile device. The Employee Self Service/Portal is set to be used on a computer or laptop - not a small mobile device. With so many people using their phones as the main internet source, it does make it difficult for many of our employees to access their self-service portal outside of the work environment.
- Because it is an older system, some of the things can be a little trickier to set up. Benefits are one of them. There are multiple screens that need to be gone through and rules that need to be built. It can seem a little like a choose-your-own-adventure at times. If you don't hit the correct button on the right page, you may miss out on options down the road. There is no real safeguard built in and no particular view mode to see if things were done correctly. You have to make things "live" in order to see if your rules and the benefits worked. In addition, once the benefits have been set up correctly for the employees, it still has to be mapped and moved over for payroll to be able to see things.
- Currently, we are using their remote desktop service which requires us to move anything we want to put on our Employee's Self Service Portal from our desktops to their remote desktops and then copying the correct path to bring it back to our online version of an old MySpace page. I know that they are trying, but it seems as though it is a lot of work for something that should be a lot easier to do with a few more layout and posting options.
- Although they do have some canned reports, most of the reporting functions take time to learn and is best done when one understands how to write Custom Reports to get the information that one is seeking. The Customer Service Reps are usually more than happy to help, but it does take time to explain just what you are looking for and how to make it into a report that would help you. Overall, I think that the structure of the reporting function is solid; however, the user-friendliness of it is not.
March 21, 2018
Lacking System
Ascentis is used as our HRIS. It is used across the entire organization. It is used for onboarding all employees, benefits administration, timekeeping, and recruiting. It is supposed to be used for performance but the product is not great.
- There are a variety of really great reports that we can pull. The ability to create custom reports is also a plus.
- The performance management system needs a lot of work. We've encountered so many different issues that we didn't use it for two review periods which cost us a lot of time.
- The ATS tracking system is not the greatest. It is especially difficult uploading or updating the documents needed after an applicant has been hired.
March 21, 2018
Ascentis HR - Review
Ascentis is used in the finance and HR departments as an HRIS, payroll, and timekeeper system. The Ascentis Self-Service System is a huge benefit for our team and our employees. However, it is strange how the systems don't all work as cohesively together. It's great that it can incorporate HRIS, payroll, and timekeeping as its easier to manage one system rather than 3 different systems that don't work together. I reporting aspect in Novatime is great as well as Ascentis HR. The system could certainly be updated as it looks like it was made in the 90's.
- Great customer service, the support team is fairly easy to reach via phone and email.
- Great internal reporting aspects of the system.
- All in one system with HRIS, Payroll, and Timekeeping.
- Updated system design. (timekeeping has been updated - nice touch)
- No need to access the system through remote desktop seems silly.
- All data needs to be added to the different systems manually and approved. Multiple/duplicate steps reduce efficiency.
March 20, 2018
Ascentis HR Review
We use it primarily for vacation requests for the whole organization.
- It works great for time off requests and approvals.
- It helps our managers quickly look up employee details, such as pay rate, hire date, etc.
- Allows employees to easily and quickly view their available accrued time off.
- Make it easier to include part-time employees with different vacation accrual rates to be added to the system.
- Support needs to be a little more responsive and helpful to questions.