Deputy Review

We switched from OnTheClock to Deputy as we wanted deep integration with our payroll service and with our Identity Management System (Azure AD). The time-keeping features seemed good and the approval system looked good. It was all web-based which was a plus. It costs more, certainly, but if it saved me time on the payroll I was willing to pay for it. The onboarding process was fairly straightforward. You create an account as you would anywhere by filling in your company details. Deputy does have quite a few different pre-packaged locale-specific timekeeping/tracking rules. An example is the California overtime rules. I liked the break-tracking system where you can just have a checkbox where the employee attests they took their breaks as [opposed to] having to have everyone clock out for a few minutes [which] is silly and cumbersome [I think]. The approval system is cool but I [personally] don't like the fact it doesn't snap to the current pay period when you opened it. It takes you to where you were last from an approval standpoint [I've found]. There is a "next week/last week" slider but if we're using semi-monthly pay periods, as we are, then these do not align [ I believe]. [In my opinion], the software should snap to our defined pay periods when selecting next/back on the approval system. It does integrate [well] with OnPay [which is] our payroll system so there is that at least [I believe]. The hours are brought in with a click of the button. One core feature I wanted was [the ability] to use the SSO option with Azure AD, which Deputy [I believe] says it supports. I have [personally] spent months on this trying to get it to work. [The way I see it] Deputy's setup guides do not match their product's GUI [I have found] but I thought I would be able to get around it and figure out where things go. [From what I discovered] SSO would not work. I tried to get help from support and eventually I got escalated to someone [I believe] appeared to know what they were doing far more than the other people who were pretty useless [in my opinion]. [Speaking personally] I had to rope in Deputy's CEO before this happened though, via LinkedIn, as the normal channels for support were going nowhere [I believe]. Unfortunately, the issue was never resolved [to my satisfaction]. I have [personal experience with] setting up Azure AD SSO with numerous other apps we use and the process is always the same so [in my opinion] I don't feel I set it up wrong. [As far as I'm concerned] either the data provided is incorrect or Deputy's system is broken. I [personally] suspect it has to do with the fact that Deputy gives you regional servers to use and also a personalized FQDN you can use [which] I believe is related. In the end, to this day, I still do not have SSO working [to my satisfaction]. [The way I see it] Deputy loses a lot of points on my review for the way this whole experience relating to SSO not working [the way I see fit]. [As far as I'm concerned] it took way too much effort to get to someone knowledgeable [and] the issue was never resolved [to my satisfaction] even after hours of effort on my part working with support over something that normally takes about 5 minutes to set up with any other Azure AD SSO enabled app I've [used]. [In my opinion], the lack of ability to carry the ball to the finish line leaves me unhappy with what else will be left in a similar condition that might I run into payroll-wise. Overall [I found] the software itself seems capable and I think people with large teams will enjoy the scheduling elements that I don't really use. [In my experience] the costs can scale up quickly though so be careful there. [I believe] if you are someone who needs a lot of hand-holding, I would warn you that if a IT pro had this much trouble with Deputy's software then I fear you may fare far worse [in my opinion].