The Good and the Bad!
Updated September 23, 2021

The Good and the Bad!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Ascentis HR

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!!!
  • Not sure yet. We have struggled with Ascentis the last two years. It has taken much longer to get it up and running than we thought it would've. We are much further behind in getting our modules up and running than we thought we would be.
We chose Ascentis HR because it had as-of-date reporting, which we did not have with our other system; we also liked the ESS features, and how the org charts/visual reporting structure could be viewed.
HR Support is VERY NICE, but we feel we either wait a while for an answer (not ALL the time, but more lately), or the answers are not extremely knowledgeable or helpful. Responsiveness can be right away or waiting many days. The Support team is VERY nice - I think they just have a lot on their plate at times and don't get to us for a while. Sometimes the answers are almost too vague and don't fully help us out.
For many months of our implementation, the response from our main Ascentis lead (Elizabeth) was phenomenal. She knows her stuff!
If a company does not have any type of "system", Ascentis can be a great tool. I think the ESS part of it will be terrific once we utilize it more effectively - the "administrative" side needs a little more work. If just using Ascentis HR without Payroll, can probably work mostly terrific. When working with Payroll, many enhancements need to be thought about between them!

Ascentis (discontinued) Feature Ratings

Employee demographic data
8
Employment history
7
Job profiles and administration
7
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.
4
Organizational charting
5
Organization and location management
7
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)
2
Pay calculation
7
Support for external payroll vendors
3
Benefit plan administration
6
Direct deposit files
Not Rated
Salary revision and increment management
5
Reimbursement management
2
Approval workflow
Not Rated
Balance details
Not Rated
Annual carry-forward and encashment
Not Rated
View and generate pay and benefit information
8
Update personal information
8
View job history
Not Rated
View company policy documentation
7
Employee recognition
Not Rated
Tracking of all physical assets
Not Rated
Report builder
4
Pre-built reports
3
Ability to combine HR data with external data
Not Rated
Performance plans
Not Rated
Performance improvement plans
Not Rated
Review status tracking
Not Rated
Review reminders
Not Rated
Multiple review frequency
Not Rated
Create succession plans/pools
Not Rated
Candidate ranking
Not Rated
Candidate search
Not Rated
Candidate development
Not Rated
Not Rated
New hire portal
Not Rated
Manager tracking tools
Not Rated
Corporate goal setting
Not Rated
Individual goal setting
Not Rated
Line-of sight-visibility
Not Rated
Performance tracking
Not Rated
Job Requisition Management
Not Rated
Company Website Posting
Not Rated
Publish to Social Media
Not Rated
Job Search Site Posting
Not Rated
Duplicate Candidate Prevention
Not Rated
Applicant Tracking
Not Rated
Notifications and Alerts
3