Item: ADP Vantage HCM
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Vantage across our organization for HR data and Payroll processing. Vantage allows us to keep all of our HR records and payroll in one place, making Vantage the central hub for all of our employee information and serving other platforms such as our network security, time clock, benefits management, intranet, etc.

Having worked with other ADP products in other companies, as well as home grown and competitor solutions, I am happy to have a centralized solution. As an analyst, I have a single system of record for all things related to the employee, which makes serving my stakeholders that much simpler. Having a single system to maintain also makes vendor-level escalations simpler, which saves us time and money.

Pros and Cons

User Security Granularity: I can fine-tune access exactly, rather than give someone too little or too much access.
Employee Data Security: All of our data is secure and encrypted by ADP. I do not have to manage security beyond keeping users from giving their username and password to someone. The rest is out of sight and out of mind, handled by ADP.
Out of the Box Functionality: While we did have to make configuration decisions in implementation, the functions and customizations we make inside of ADP all function from day one and are not affected by security updates, new versions, or patches. With other highly customized products, any update to the stock system poses a threat to functionality. ADP Vantage does exactly what we want it to do, the way we want it, and without being disabled by ongoing life-cycle management by ADP.

ADP Reporting: Let's be honest. Few managers actually use ADP. Most of the people in ADP are practitioners and techs/analysts. The canned reports likely are not being used, while analysts like myself who want to put together powerful analytics reports, do not have full access to the data through the dashboards or advanced reporting options. Give us the ability to have access to the database tables so we can run reports as needed, without having to navigate the odd semantics inside the shell of ADPR. I've seen this done with day old data dumps to SQL, but the data is not real time. My preference would be for an API or similar link so that I could create live dashboards in PowerBI or Tableau.
Support Tickets: We live and die by our emails. Yet we have a few products, such as ADP, that require us to go to their internal ticketing system to see the status of our service requests. It would be beneficial to be able to manage status updates and communication through email, including the ability to generate a new ticket.

Return on Investment

ADP is not the least expensive solution out there, but it certainly is not the priciest.
Having ADP functioning as the central HR record for our employees has saved us money, by not having to juggle myriad other platforms just to view an employee record. I have all I need in once place and that saves me time for reporting, auditing, security, etc.

Alternatives Considered

I inherited this system when I came on board. Most recently I had been using ADP Enterprise, along with eTime and Virtual Edge. I have also used home-grown systems. I know there are some limitations between Vantage vs Enterprise, but I really haven't noticed them working in Vantage. It gives me a very similar experience to what I was used to, so it was simple for me to adapt. I am always aware of other systems that are being developed, but I am pleased with what I have right now with Vantage.

Likelihood to Recommend

As I stated earlier, ADP as an out of the box solution, it is far better for a company who is moving away from a home grown or overly complex system. It does exactly what is necessary and provides powerful options to boot, while not [requiring] advanced degrees to operate. ADP has been around long enough that it has experience with most 3rd party platforms for integration, and that makes it easier for companies to be able to customize their total HR solution, be it through a full ADP suite or by connecting ADP to systems they already have in place.

Users and Roles

4000 - We have hundreds of regular self-service users and about 400 managers and supervisors. Then we have about 60 practitioners from Accounting, HR, Payroll, and Benefits who use the system on a daily basis.

Support Headcount Required

1 - To handle this alone requires a background in all aspects of the system, else when something goes awry they won't know what is wrong or how to ask for help. A background in relational databases and reporting tools is essential for pulling the reports needed. The dashboards and references will help, but the lone manager will need previous HCM experience. If you have a team, then the Super User can be the one with all the ADP experience and can train the others easily enough. Someone will need to know the ins and outs, however. If you've used one HCM enough, you should be able to recognize fields and functions enough to translate from what you were using to ADP Vantage. Relational Databases, Problem Solving, Investigative Abilities (to ascertain the nature of any problem reported to you by persons not necessarily technical). If you have those skills, you should be able to support this system, or at least understand enough to relate to trained ADP service techs.

Business Processes Supported

Wide Usability
Tremendous Value
Outstanding Vendor Service

Innovative Uses

Hub data for almost every data platform we have
Single Sign On Automation
Automated provisioning/deprovisioning of Network User Accounts

Future Planned Uses

Performance Management
Future Proofing Leadership Selection

Likelihood to Renew

8

I would give it a 10 if not for ADP Reporting. That tool makes complex (SQL) reporting a chore. I've worked around it. Other than that, Vantage is a tremendous tool that does everything we need it to. Our customizations and integrations with other systems have made sure we have all we need in a single platform. On top of all that, it is easy to get people up to speed as new managers and/or practitioners.

Key Insights

Do you think ADP Vantage HCM delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with ADP Vantage HCM's feature set?

Yes

Did ADP Vantage HCM live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of ADP Vantage HCM go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy ADP Vantage HCM again?

Yes

Support Rating

8

ADP Support differs based on the nature of the issue, and not all support teams are equal. The majority of support teams that work with our account are 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. However, some teams are not so good. Therefore, I cannot give a 10/10. That I rate it an 8 displays that ADP support is better than most, and that I am generally pleased with the level of support I receive.

Contract Support 10/10
Payroll Issue Support 10/10
Data Transmission/Integration Support 8/10
Vantage Technical Support 8/10
ADP Reporting 4/10

For the most part, ADP responds quickly. For ADPR, the time to receive resolution on a matter is long and complex. If I complain on service, it is ADPR.

ADP Vantage HCM Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Knowledgeable team Support cares about my success	Slow Resolution Poor followup Problems left unsolved Not kept informed Escalation required Difficult to get immediate help Need to explain problems multiple times Slow Initial Response

Premium Support

We have premium support. It was part of our contracted package. This is the portion of the system I am least familiar with (the purchase) as I inherited the system.

Bug Resolution

Yes - Most of the time, a reported bug occurs after a patch/update. A fix in one area sometimes causes a discrepancy elsewhere (something was overlooked). We may not notice them until something does not work, so it begins with a trouble ticket for a module/function. We have to dig to determine it is a bug from our side. More often than not, we are told that the matter is universal and that it is in process of being resolved. At that time, I can look at the most recent update and extrapolate what happened.

Since the bug was not readily identified, the time to resolve is not fast. However, and I'm trying to be very fair here, bugs that miss testing and get pushed out to production were small and innocuous enough to be missed, which means they are not easy to discover if something goes wrong. It's not like they saw the bug, flagged it, and said, "just push the change through anyway." I have to acknowledge that it will take some digging to discover the root cause. What seems to delay the matter is the escalation process and that it appears, from my perspective, that the full data story is not being communicated to the various teams in the escalation process, which causes delays while that team has to be told again what is the problem.

Exceptional Examples of ADP Vantage HCM Support

This is where our Technical Advisors and Account Managers excel. The most recent example was when I was trying to process a change in my benefit deductions for all employees. It was year end and near the holidays, so I expected delays in getting service. This was not the case! Not only was there ADP support, it was amazing support. I had a knowledgeable representative who looked at my files in our UAT area, helped me troubleshoot the vendor file, and get things resolved. She had to check with the development team on some questions we could not answer immediately. However, and this is my favorite part, she and I figured it out before the dev team did and had a plan in place to fix it. My advisors and account managers pull the weight of ADP support and bring the score/rating up.

Usability

8

If you have ever used an HCM you can definitely use ADP Vantage. I encountered ADP first in the Enterprise version, so moving into Vantage was almost identical. Even if I hadn't, the screens are very intuitive. If you know what you are trying to do, you can easily find that screen/step. Someone with no HR experience might take a little time to ramp up, but I can usually get a generalist to full speed in less than three days for the whole system, and a temp in the same amount of time for their particular area of work.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Employee lookups
Pay and tax information
Job Information updates

Difficult Tasks

ADP Reporting
Auditing practitioner changes to employee records
Uncovering/Unhiding sensitive data (SSN, Bdate, changing emails, etc.)

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes, but I don't use it

Scalability

9

Scaling within Vantage has been a breeze, even with multiple sites and a deep org tree. I have experienced zero problems.

Reliability and Availability

9

The software just works. I can count on one hand the number of actual outages I have experienced in the last 10 years. We have had slowdowns, where response/processing time was slow, but those too are few and far between. The redundancies and backups they have in place at ADP mean my resources are available all the time.

The only reason I say 9 of 10 is because there are times when an update or patch will cause an issue in another part of the system that usually isn't discovered prior to the patch/update's implementation. These have happened several times. The plus side is that these are almost always resolved immediately.

Performance

8

8 of 10 because Vantage runs so well. If you have a fast and reliable internet connection you will rarely experienced slowdowns. I have noticed slowness and the occasional timeout in scheduled reports in ADP Reporting. This caused me to give 8 instead of 10 because these timeouts and delays cause issues with distribution of the report to integrated vendors, which leads to issues for other processes. ADP always resolves them, but it is frustrating when they happen.

ADP Vantage Works Great Out of the Box and Plays Nice with Others

Overall Satisfaction with ADP Vantage HCM