Item: UKG Pro
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Support Rating

It really all depends on who helps and if your CSR is willing to push in your favor. I have had both stellar and awful support experiences, so it's really dependent on who responds to your open case. I believe that timeliness in response time for open cases could be improved in all scenarios, as well as fully reading the case and any attachments that are submitted. I always research, document and trouble-shoot before I resort to opening a case, so it can be frustrating, especially when I include all relevant information in a case and I receive a call from someone that clearly didn't even read attachments I provided when they have asked for a screen shot or tell me to give them the error message and I tell them I already attached it to the case and they have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

UltiPro is used by my organization for payroll, benefits, HR management, reporting and employee information maintenance. We utilize Single Sign On for all employees in order to allow them to quickly and easily access their personal information and to update it.

Pros and Cons

Employee Self Service allows our employees to view and be responsible for their own information in the system. It allows them to find their pay information and their tax forms, and to view important information and links about our available benefits, common questions, and important HR issues.
Business Intelligence (Cognos) allows me to distribute important employee information to our HR, administrative, and client-facing staff that need it. While difficult to fully master quickly, there are several "pre-made" system-delivered reports that act as a good starting point for finding great ways to use the system.
Manager Self Service and workflows allow for relevant HR team members to make updates to employee information in an easy and efficient manner. Changes that need approvals are routed to the appropriate parties in the organization in order to make sure that we are compliant and that everyone who needs to be informed is aware of changes in a timely fashion.

Training for Business Intelligence could stand to be improved. The available training classes are excellent for beginners, but I find them very lacking for advanced users and find myself either asking other customers of UltiPro or being forced to ask for help from Ultimate. I would appreciate more classes and training documents for more complex reporting problems and more access to customized reports without paying for a service request every time there are reports that I cannot write due to system/table limitations, a requirement for SQL, or because of a lack of training to answer my questions. The training courses are very general and don't provide a lot of information on the technical background of BI or how the tables join together.
There is a movement away from the use of the Back Office application of UltiPro and a definite push for customers to use the web for all transactions. However, there is a lot of functionality that is lost with the push to the web-based product that is essential for our business needs. When new releases are made, the Back Office is not updated and we are forced to try to leverage half of our work through the web and half through the Back Office, so a lot of efficiency is lost. The web is great, but it can take longer to load information and it requires a lot more clicking and waiting for pages to load than the Back Office does, and while it might not seem like a lot, the extra time it takes to process transactions is very significant in the long run. Either make everything that is available in the Back Office available in the web, or update the Back Office component of UltiPro--we're forced to use an outdated product because we can't do some things we need to do in the web and it can be extremely frustrating for us. Examples include mass loads, SMC security functionality, job history changes, certain field updates, PTO and Benefits changes/history, etc.
Customer support can take a while to respond or to offer a relevant solution. For example, I opened a ticket last week with a fairly high priority and we didn't even hear from someone until I increased the business priority a few days later. I've also had times where I was basically told that what I needed could not be done or that I had to pay for a custom when it was something that had been done for us without an issue in the past and when I knew what the solution was. For example, I needed to mass update some Key Date information in the system to correct an issue with Last Hire Date for some employees. When I found that the field would not mass load for me (even though it was available), I opened a case thinking I had made a mistake with my load template. I was told, however, that the field couldn't be loaded into because it was one that they were having some technical problems with (again, even though it was available to add into a template!) and that I would have to pay to have a custom developed to load the data for me or key the information manually. When I inquired about a SQL load, I was given the run-around and then ignored. The issue was affecting our benefit interfaces during Open Enrollment and it was an extremely stressful and busy time for our company as it occurred at the end of our fiscal year. I was left to work until very late at night to manually update the information and I felt like I had been manipulated. I should not have to pay for a custom to load information into UltiPro for a field that is system-delivered and available as an item to add to a template. I was not able to find any documentation specifying that the field wasn't available. If the issue was known internally as a problem with the system and that it was not working at this time, the fair solution would be to work with customer to resolve the issue and to NOT charge them for it because that is punishing a customer for something that they did not break. It was one of the most memorably bad customer service experiences I have ever had and left me feeling less trust toward the product.

Training Types Used

Online training
In-person training
Self-taught

Online Training

Great for beginners but not really relevant for anyone with advanced understanding of any of the particular systems.

In-Person Training

Far more helpful than the training done online or via Webex, since it is easier to ask questions and receive answers from someone when you aren't trying to do so on a Webex.

Likelihood to Recommend

UltiPro is great for smaller scaled companies and for those that have simple needs. I think that there is always room for improvement when it comes to very large companies or those that have a large global population, as the product that is currently offered has some draw backs. It really all depends on how the system is configured and how it is implemented. If the customer is starting from the ground up and implementing all of the features at once, I believe it would be a lot easier. The process for integration with other software products and companies could be easier as it can be quite difficult to resolve problems with interfaces, especially if you don't have access to original implementation documentation. Depending on who helps when you open a ticket, however, you could have a wonderful experience. It really all comes down to who helps you and how much they are willing to go out of their way and to troubleshoot.

A Good, Growing HR System with Room for Many Improvements in the Future

Overall Satisfaction with UltiPro