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Looking Back to See Ahead: The Predictive Power of HR Case Management Analytics

 

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, one fellow asks another: “How did you go bankrupt?” The man answers, “Gradually, and then suddenly.”

The same could be said of many of the most volatile, hot-potato situations you face as an HR leader. Even flare-ups that appear to come out of the blue — a breach of company policy that puts the organization’s brand at risk, a seemingly sudden lack of productivity in one sales department — are really just the straws that broke the camel’s back.

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HR Case Management Software: A Tool for Grievance and Conflict Resolution

“A good manager doesn’t try to eliminate conflict,” says Robert Townsend, author of the bestseller Up the Organization, and co-author of Reinventing Leadership. “He tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people.”

As an HR professional in an enterprise organization, you have a choice in how your team — and, as a result, your entire organization — handles all of the conflicts that arise from employee complaints, grievances, and concerns.

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Strategic HR: Using Case Management to Build an Enterprise-wide Knowledge Base

Science fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote, “Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”

A similar argument can be made for almost any enterprise organization, and particularly for their HR departments.

Without a library of your organization’s employee-relevant documents, forms, policies, benefits information, and similar items, you run the risk of seeing the same HR problems repeated over and over, and you have no clear path for preventing similar problems in the future.

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Why Are Employees Leaving? HR Case Management Can Provide Answers

Authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman wrote in their 1999 bestseller, First, Break All the Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, that people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. If anything, that statement rings more true today than ever before.  And it’s even more sobering when you consider the most recent findings from Modern Survey, the employee engagement measurement company.

Modern Survey’s Spring 2013 National Engagement Study found that:

  1. Disengagement among U.S. workers is at its highest level since the company began conducting its twice-yearly study six years ago.
  2. Just over 1 in 3 employees feel that direct managers and supervisors are “most responsible” for engaging employees.
  3. Nearly 1 in 4 managers are, meanwhile, unfamiliar with the concept of employee engagement.

So, when someone leaves your organization, odds are good that the relationship between that person and his or her manager had at least something to do with it. How would HR know what those reasons were? More importantly, how would they know in time to change the course of events? How might the problems that one employee is having with a manager be affecting other employees?

Throwing a wider net, what else is going on among your employees that’s not readily visible on the surface but that could nonetheless be causing employee disengagement and, ultimately, be contributing to their decisions to leave? To begin to answer that question, think of all of the personal and professional issues in any employee’s life that might cause them to reach out to HR.

In an enterprise organization, HR is going to be contacted about employee concerns ranging from complaints about their managers to questions about paid time off. Or employees may need help resolving difficulties over, say, getting medical claims reimbursed or their sales bonuses accurately paid.

We’re not saying any one of those concerns in and of itself would lead to employee disengagement or cause someone to quit. But what if you could see where the common denominators lie? What if you could compare the issues affecting disengaged and terminating employees with those of their colleagues, other business units, or the entire company?

A fully featured, automated HR case management solution with robust and accessible analytics, like LBi HR HelpDesk, gives you the power to look back among HR cases of disaffected and exiting employees to get accurate and timely insight into their concerns and to see how those metrics compare with similar reports for other groups. You can track the same metrics against performance and productivity to determine how trends among exiting employees are affecting the bottom line.

From there, HR can be a more strategic business partner and proactively suggest changes in policies or processes.  With a system like LBi HR HelpDesk, you have the tools to help managers positively affect employee engagement and to generate greater engagement among more front-line workers.

To learn more about how an automated HR help desk can help HR transform data into better workplace performance and up its strategic game, download our white paper “Stay Competitive: Use Your HR Help Desk to Drive and Measure Employee Engagement.”

Image source: CallMe! IQ

Want to Support Talent Development? Get Vision Into Your Workforce

You probably wouldn’t think so, but Helen Keller had some advice for today’s HR leaders. “The only thing worse than being blind,” Keller wrote, “is having sight but no vision.”

Today, HR leaders in enterprise organizations often have access to huge piles of data. It sits before them, a sight to behold, a mountain of data compiled from reports and analytics. But do HR leaders gain vision from what they see?

Does HR get perceptions of who their employees are and what truly matters to them? Do they get fresh insight into how to better support talent management and their organizations’ learning and development systems, or where the opportunities for positive change lie?

That kind of vision can come with the incorporation of an automated HR case management system into a talent management solution or a learning and development strategy. With that combination, the enterprise HR leader can support the employee’s entire life cycle, from onboarding through career development and succession.

Sure, an enterprise talent management system — like a good learning and development system — will show you an employee’s defined goals and the training they’ve completed. But will they give you insight into the employee?

What if you could look at an employee’s talent management curve related to his or her historical interactions with HR … and do that at a glance? What if you could compare how your high and low performers differ in their concerns about such personal, ground-zero matters as the use of paid time off, out-of-network medical coverage, problems with an immediate manager, or any of dozens of other potential red-flag concerns?

And what if you could see how cohorts compare based on pay scale, demographics, or business unit? Now you’re talking about having a vision of what your workforce is all about. You gain actionable insight that empowers you to respond immediately and act strategically.

This kind of analysis becomes increasingly important when you further consider such diverse trends affecting American business as the continued increase in spending on learning and a rise in the number of employees working remotely. High-performing organizations look at the entire spectrum of talent management and development through the lens of HR interactions.

A fully featured automated HR case management solution that provides robust and accessible analytics, like LBi HR HelpDesk, turns seeing into insight through real-time tracking of transactional data across every department and system. Logistically, it’s a no-brainer: The best systems, including LBi HR HelpDesk, integrate seamlessly into most HRIS software and talent development applications.

To learn more about how an automated HR help desk can help HR transform data into better workplace performance and up its strategic game, download our white paper “Stay Competitive: Use Your HR Help Desk to Drive and Measure Employee Engagement.”

Image source: Ecribouille

Assessing Attitudes Toward Employee Benefits with an HR Help Desk

If you’re in a competitive industry (and who isn’t today?), you need to know with confidence that your organization’s benefits and compensation plans are helping you find top talent and retain your best performers. But with the increasing complexity of plan designs, and with the rapidly changing demographics of the workforce, how do you gain the level of insight you need to know if your benefits are, in fact, hitting their marks?

Even more important, how can you get that awareness before your top people become disengaged? How can you proactively suggest revisions to your organization’s plan designs? And how can you do all of that with staff reductions in HR that continue to linger even as the economy begins to recover?

Employees’ attitudes toward their benefits usually only get serious consideration when annual enrollment looms near, or during exit interviews. As for how employees feel about their salary and compensation, those attitudes are usually assessed only during formal salary surveys or, again, in exit interviews. Neither option is optimal.

A fully featured, automated HR case management system like the LBi HR HelpDesk can give you continuous, real-time insight into how your employees feel about their benefits and their compensation packages. It can capture and categorize inquiries about everything from medical plan reimbursements, to changes in pay rates, to concerns about beneficiary coverage. And it can guide HR decision-makers through case management best practices to be able to better support your organization’s strategic initiatives.

LBi HR HelpDesk, for example, creates a centralized, continuously updated knowledge base that’s integrated with case management; you can share information across HR and your business units. The obvious benefit is that inquiries are resolved consistently and efficiently. The less obvious but equally significant advantage is gaining information to help make forward-looking HR decisions.

LBi HR HelpDesk gives you insight into problems with insurance carriers and benefits claims, flexible spending accounts (FSAs), and more. You can learn how easy or difficult it is for employees to change personal information or coverage. You can also evaluate their use of, or employee concerns over, workers’ compensation and other workplace-benefits issues.

The bottom line is that the LBi HR HelpDesk offers powerful benefits and compensation reporting and analytics that give a complete historical view of the interaction between HR and employees. This can identify what’s working, what’s not, and where you can suggest changes.

Risk Reduction and the LBi HR HelpDesk

HR HelpDesk Multi Device

Corporate life is full of risks of all shapes and sizes. The playing field is riddled with hazards that range from employee lawsuits stemming from a manager’s misconduct to federal sanctions and fines for failing to comply with the reporting guidelines of Sarbanes-Oxley.

LBi HR HelpDesk can mitigate risk for the organization across these areas and more. For starters, the system creates a complete and accurate audit trail of all communications between an employee and HR. Managers and administrators no longer need to go in after the fact and manually recreate timelines or piece together communications from disconnected sources related to a grievance.

Other features of LBi HR HelpDesk that reduce risk and protect the reputation of the organization include:

  • Recording all inquiries and related communications throughout the history of each case
  • Storing all documents and communications related to a case in one place
  • Providing confidentiality for involved employees and security of all communications and documents

Recent enhancements to LBi HR HelpDesk further help reduce corporate risk. Version 5.0, released in December, tracks communications beyond just the employee initiating a case and the HR representative handling it. Dialogues can also be tracked between the HR representative and whomever he or she reaches out to for advice or support on the case.

This functionality gives HR a full picture, at a glance, of all communications related to any individual case. This can be a significant benefit when a case is put in the spotlight or may become part of a legal action.

The variety and detail of ad hoc reports that users can create in LBi HR HelpDesk (expanded in Version 5.0) can also help lessen risk by giving HR greater insight into the flow of cases, the time required to resolve cases, areas in the organization that have had a higher-than-average rate of grievances, and other standards that can identify potential areas for improvement or action before they escalate.

At the end of the day, users of LBi HR HelpDesk can leverage myriad features that give insight across the breadth of HR processes and throughout the organization to help minimize the risk of litigation, noncompliance and oversights.

Digging for Treasure in the HR Data Mines

We dig, dig, dig, the whole day through
To dig, dig, dig is what we like to do
It ain’t no trick to get rich quick
If you dig, dig, dig with a shovel or a pick

So sang the dwarfs in the 1937 Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Sneezy and the guys happily dug every day where “a million diamonds shine.” HR has a very similar opportunity today.

HR leaders can tap into a rich mine of shiny jewels, uncovering wonderful nuggets of revealing data anytime, every day. All HR needs is a fully featured HR case management system — aka an HR help desk — that includes robust metrics, flexible reporting options and a dashboard that yields easy-to-access reports.

In fact, an automated HR help desk is a double-win for HR. First, it contains valuable data that can help HR play a more strategic role in any organization. Then, if you’ve done your homework, your case management system will include the necessary tools to help you turn that data into actionable analytics.

One might say that LBi HR HelpDesk, for example, is a gold mine that comes complete with all the equipment HR needs to dig deep and transform that data into insights that will help drive business decisions.

That, in fact, is exactly what HR is being asked to do a lot more of today. And as with many things in life, the good stuff lies beneath the surface; the most valuable HR data is often not the easiest to capture.

In the words of Naomi Bloom, managing partner at Bloom & Wallace, a consulting firm specializing in the application of HR technology: “When it comes to metrics, the easiest to do are very rarely the most valuable!”

We’re biased, of course. But LBi HR HelpDesk does the heavy lifting for you. It allows HR to efficiently and systematically collect data and evaluate what it means. It helps you get down-to-earth, business-aligned insight to make suggestions for changes in policies and processes to improve productivity and performance.

If you’d like to learn other ways an automated HR help desk can help HR up its game, see our white paper “Five Top HR Challenges and How an Automated HR Case Management Solution Can Beat Them .”

Who knows? You, too, may uncover “a thousand rubies, sometimes more.”

Heigh-ho. Heigh-ho.

Image source: The Ink and Pixel Club

It’s Alchemical: HR Data Is Transformed Into a Higher-performing Workforce

Today’s HR systems are capable of creating mountains of data, which begs the question: What are you supposed to do with all of it? What should you do with the tsunami of facts and figures, streams of employee records, and seemingly bottomless online file cabinets filled with digital documentation of every transaction between employees and HR?

The C-suite knows what it wants you to do. It wants HR to transform all of that data into something else entirely — into analytics that will help improve performance.

What is HR? Magical? It can be.

Robert Heinlein, the prolific and influential author (Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and many more) said, “One man’s ‘magic’ is another man’s engineering.”

We totally agree with Heinlein, but we look at it from the other side of the prism. We believe one person’s engineering is another person’s magic.

The precision engineering that goes into developing a high-quality, fully featured HR case management system makes magic for HR. An HR help desk that has robust analytics, flexible reporting, the ability to create a knowledge base on the fly, and the capability to serve up actionable analyses from an executive dashboard can, in fact, magically transform HR data into analytics that can lead to higher workplace performance.

That’s not only what the C-suite wants; it’s exactly what top-flight HR organizations have begun doing. Research from Bersin by Deloitte finds that one of the 10 best practices of “high-impact HR organizations” is that they develop and apply measurement strategies that “ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and business alignment, [and illustrate] clear connections between the efforts of both the HR function and individual people.”

For example, LBi HR HelpDesk can pool all of its data into a data warehouse or “data mart” — a virtual repository of employee concerns and grievances across the company. This data allows executives to quantify the degree to which various employee issues are affecting productivity and performance. For example, a drop in production in a specific region, business unit, or even under a single manager can be correlated back to an increase in labor-related disputes handled by HR related to that region, business unit, or manager.

To learn more about how an automated HR help desk can help HR transform data into better workplace performance and up its strategic game, download our white paper “Stay Competitive: Use Your HR Help Desk to Drive and Measure Employee Engagement.”

Image source: The Globe and Mail

Riddle Us This: How Is an Automated HR Help Desk Like the Federal Budget Sequester?

The answer: Just by implementing it, you’ll cut your costs.

Unlike the budget sequester, however, an automated HR case management system is highly unlikely to stir debate over whether you should have taken a different path.

One proven advantage of a fully featured, automated HR case management system is that it will reduce HR department expenses. Period.

At the very least, quality HR help desks let HR quickly and easily centralize and manage huge amounts of information from various systems across the organization. (The new term for this in the digital age, by the way, is “information curation.”) A system with the right features can then take that information and, on the fly, create a searchable, automated knowledge base. Information delivery across the entire organization suddenly becomes a whole lot more consistent. Front-line employees and managers can go directly to the knowledge base to find answers about everything from safety policies to their medical insurance benefits.

The benefit is obvious: greater and more efficient HR service delivery, which means lower HR costs.

Industry research, in fact, says that an effectively deployed HR help desk can reduce unnecessary calls to HR by as much as 75 percent. HR Management magazine has cited a Gartner report that says HR organizations spend as much as 80 percent of their time dealing with administrative duties and questions from employees and managers. With an automated HR help desk, HR team members have more time to spend on work that is more strategic, and fewer HR team members are needed to field employee calls.

In addition, how about the savings you gain if your HR help desk offers automated, online access for employees anytime, from nearly any Internet browser, and on almost any device? The least expensive way to deliver HR service is electronically, such as through web self-service, email, and online chat.

If all of that is true (and all of it is), riddle us this: Why, according to the Shared Services Institute in 2010, had only 56 percent of large organizations deployed an automated case management system? Why had only 40 percent implemented an automated knowledge base as part of their HR services system? And why are the most resource-intensive communication channels — such as telephone calls to HR and call centers — still the preferred methods for HR service interaction?

It doesn’t need to be that way.

To learn more about how an automated HR help desk can help HR reduce costs and up its game, download our white paper “Five Top HR Challenges and How an Automated HR Case Management Solution Can Beat Them.”

Image source: Bill Hood

An Employee on Autopilot: A Potentially Costly Frenemy

If you don’t know the term, a “frenemy” is the friend whose words or actions hurt you, regardless of whether you believe that’s their intention. A frenemy is the friend you ought to get rid of, but don’t. Why? Because as the Urban Dictionary puts it, “they’re nice, they’re good … you’ve had good times with them … they’re good people that you can count on to bring you down again sometime in the near future.”

Sound like some of your employees? Do you think they’re not hurting you every day? Maybe you think that because they’re not consistently underperforming or causing you grief, they’re not steadily eroding your bottom line. They are. They’re hurting the company through their own middling performance and because of their impact on colleagues.

In its trailblazing research, The Gallup Organization identifies three groups of employees: engaged, not engaged and actively disengaged. We’d argue that a frenemy is already actively disengaged. Because with employee engagement, as in life, there truly is no middle ground. As Anakin Skywalker says to Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.”

That includes the employee who’s on autopilot, the employee who’s along for the ride. That person, plain and simple, is a step away from becoming an “actively disengaged” employee.

And the damage wrought by a disengaged employee is staggering.

Curt Coffman, co-author of the Gallup-research-fueled books First, Break All the Rules and Follow This Path, describes the “actively disengaged” employee as a “CAVE dweller.” It’s an acronym for “consistently against virtually everything.” Coffman has written that, “Every day, actively disengaged employees tear down what their engaged co-workers are building.”

How much does that cost you?

Gallup research estimates that disengaged employees are costing the American economy as much as $350 billion a year in lost productivity. The organization’s most recent figures say 16 percent of the U.S. workforce is actively disengaged. That means slightly more than three of every 20 employees on your payroll are, at best, impeding the good of your engaged employees.

More to the point, Gallup says disengaged employees:

  • Take more sick days and are tardy more often
  • Undermine the work that more-engaged employees perform
  • Cost each employer $3,400 to $10,000 in annual salary
  • Miss deadlines and achieve poor sales

Indirectly, the cost of disengaged employees includes:

  • Higher customer complaints, because disengaged employees become frustrated more easily and pass their cynicism and negativity to customers
  • Turnover costs to train new employees when disengaged workers quit or influence colleagues to leave

Our last post shed light on three super-significant factors for influencing employee engagement in today’s shifting economy (trust, values and a purpose-driven mission) and where to look to discover employee dissatisfaction and concerns. The same solution — an automated HR help desk — can be leveraged to discover who your frenemies are, identify their concerns and recommend changes in policies, processes and management procedures.

You may not be able to turn a frenemy into an engaged employee. But you can point the ship in the right direction to keep other employees from becoming disengaged.
Image source: Roving Coach International

Employee Engagement — Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water

For a while, it seemed that American business was federally required to include something about employee engagement in every single human resources and talent management conference or publication. Then the recession hit.

Employee engagement took a back seat to nearly every other aspect of trying to navigate a successful business and do more with less. HR and its related operations were no exception. Then the economy began to recover — however slowly and unevenly — and employee engagement roared back as a hot topic.

Except now, the dialogue around employee engagement is more pointed and we have a lot more research to inform the conversation. What we’re all learning as  a result is that most of what we assumed about what drives employee engagement was simply wrong.

For starters, didn’t we think that as the economy improved, employee engagement would rise? Wrong. In late 2011, an AON Hewitt poll of 5,700 global employers found that engagement levels through the third quarter of 2011 were about the same as the year before and were actually lower than in 2009 and 2008.

The report prompted one writer on staffing and recruiting trends to comment: “Unless employers change course and start listening to their employees, they may see a drop in productivity or increased absenteeism and turnover.”

Indeed.

But what do you listen to? How do you listen to your employees? These are the questions that are driving the new discussions around employee engagement.

Consider more recent research that included an empirical study of observations from 36,000 employees in 18 countries. This study identified three common denominators that, as the final report said, “give rise to a highly inspired group of super-engaged employees.” Those are, quite simply:

  • Trust
  • Values
  • A purpose-driven mission

We’d argue that those three factors should take any HR leader back to the same kind of questions we asked just a paragraph or two above. Where can you look to learn if your employees trust their managers and the company? How can you know if they respect and are aligned with the company’s values? What data exists to tell you if they feel they and the company are purpose-driven?

Look at it another way: Where can you look to see if employees are mistrustful, disagree with the company’s values or don’t feel they have a purpose-driven mission? The answer may be right in front of you. It may be in the tools and technology that HR has its disposal today, such as an automated HR help desk.

Think about it.

An HR case management system should be able to provide you with a wealth of insight into what employees are feeling and what they see as wrong with the company — from a complaint about a manager to a problem with the retirement savings plan. And a quality help desk will gather that information for you to mine while maintaining employees’ privacy and confidentiality.

Research shows employee engagement matters. Research also shows we know less than we thought about what that means. You can use all of the help you can get to help move the needle at your organization.

Image source: LRN ‘The How Report’

Recognition: We Don’t Chase It, but We Surely Appreciate It

We’re pretty sure that in Lincoln, the new blockbuster movie about the sixteenth president of the United States, actor Daniel Day-Lewis never voices these words of wisdom attributed to Honest Abe: “Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”

That’s LBi in a nutshell. We’re passionate about our work, dedicated to our vision and committed to our clients. We strive to be worthy of recognition. But receiving recognition is not why we do what we do.

On the other hand, like most any other business, when recognition comes our way, we’ll accept it — particularly when it comes from a source we respect. So on Valentine’s Day, we were happy to see we were featured in a post by Robin Schooling, SPHR, on her blog, HR Schoolhouse.

Schooling’s the vice president of human resources for the Louisiana Lottery Corp., an influential blogger and a social media expert. She’s also very involved in SHRM at the state and national levels. Her Feb. 14 post, Your HR Help for When They’re Joined at the Hip, speaks directly to one of the fundamental benefits of LBi HR HelpDesk. As Schooling writes, it gives HR powerful tools for “managing employee relations and service issues on a grand scale.”


Schooling’s post talks about the time she was in corporate HR and got a call from a frantic hiring manager. Five of the manager’s employees had just walked into her office, handed over individual letters of resignation, and “turned on their collective heels and walked out the door.”

As Schooling says, LBi HR HelpDesk has the power to help HR detect employee concerns and discontent before they can escalate and affect performance to that level.

“What are the trends?” Schooling asks in her post. “Are there potential looming issues that may arise based on what’s going on? That is what HR practitioners need to analyze.”

It precisely defines a key benefit of LBi HR HelpDesk. And we’ll gladly accept recognition for that.

Employee Social Networking and Corporate HR

Do employers have the right, whether legally or ethically, to monitor the private social network sites of their employees?  Certainly employers may legitimately have full access to public-facing pages, such as an employee’s public profile on Facebook or LinkedIn, but what about sites that permit users to configure viewer access rights?  In these cases, to ensure full uncensored access, employers must either be “friended” by the employee (or some similar method depending on the service) or be provided with their user name and personal password.

These legal and ethical questions will be debated elsewhere, but the question here for employers is how much value is actually derived from this information, and how it is relevant to the employee’s performance or professional relationships within the organization.  Modern HR systems, such as LBi’s HR Help Desk, provide links to employee public social network pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and others.  How HR actually uses the information may vary greatly from company to company.

Positive employee relations are critical to the success of most businesses.  Logically, a deeper understanding of employees actions outside of work can only help HR effectively manage workers within the organization.  Questions such as “is the employee seeking new employment” or “is the employee bad-mouthing his/her job or the company” are fair and reasonable to ask, and answers can often be found on social networking sites.  Also concerns about unruly public behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, and other issues that can create negative workplace behavior are typically discernible on these sites as well.  Employees are entitled to their privacy, but HR operations within corporations have the fiduciary duty to ensure employees are conducting themselves professionally and responsibly within the terms of their employment.

Behind the New Look for LBi Software

LBi Software offers all the advantages of a large firm, with the additional benefits of being smaller. We have the agility to move faster and provide truly personalized client service.

Because our small size is a huge asset, we capitalized on it in our new logo. The honeycomb shape and the skill needed in its construction perfectly reflect our own character – team-oriented, tenacious, hardworking and small.

Our new color scheme further separates us from others in our industry. We steered away from the traditional blues and grays and instead chose a palette of a dark, rich red and a light blue – colors that reflect the vibrancy of LBi Software.

True to our commitment to efficiency and focus, we streamlined our website and our product menu. We similarly renamed our solutions for HR case management and time and attendance tracking to speak directly to what these products are and clearly define what they do. We want anyone visiting us on the Internet to enjoy a precisely engineered experience. We are proud to have a brand that highlights LBi Software’s tremendous strength, determination and agility. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

HR Tech Recap: Happy Prize Winners and Kudos for the "New" HR HelpDesk

HR Tech 2012 was an unmitigated success for LBi Software – from the crowd-pleasing Peel and Reveal game to the hugely positive reaction to HR HelpDesk’s new look and features.

Our top Peel and Reveal winners were amazed at the value of their prizes that included Kindle Fires, Kindles, Apple TVs, iPod Nanos and sets of earphones. Among the other 340 gifts we gave away were brief bags, tech traps, 8GB flash drives and water bottles.

Attendees were just as impressed by the unique value of LBi HR HelpDesk. No wonder, really: Nearly every attendee we spoke with either did not have a case management help desk in place or was using an IT-based solution as an HR help desk. Visitors who said they are using an IT solution were keenly aware of the advantages of LBi HR HelpDesk, particularly its HR-specific workflow and its ability to keep information confidential and secure.

With only two other vendors of HR case management solutions at the show, LBi Software stood out among the crowd. We were delighted that so many interested visitors asked questions about functions of LBi HR HelpDesk that correlated very closely with its new features. This validated that LBi HR HelpDesk is well positioned to become a formidable player in the market.

LBi Software employees and clients were constantly kept in the loop about action at the show through a steady stream of posts via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Using Pentaho Kettle

Pentaho Data Integration, AKA “Kettle”, is an Open Source ETL Solution

ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) is a data warehousing process that involves:

  1. Extracting data from external source(s)
  2. Transforming data as necessary to fit application needs
  3. Loading data to target database

Kettle consists of a core data integration engine and GUI applications that allow the user to define data integration jobs and transformations.

Spoon is the primary GUI tool used to model the flow of data from input, through transformation, to output. Spoon is used to connect to source systems and “map” the data to the format required in the target system. This is accomplished by creating both transformations and jobs.

Transformations are the building blocks of an ETL process. They extract data from a file or table, cleanse or transform it, and load it into a target database. The transformations themselves can be strung together and execute in sequence by a Job.

The GUI works like a flow chart. After connecting to the source database, different “operations” are available to the user which will transform the data in a specific way. In this fashion, the operations are strung together, starting at the source, until the target format is reached.

A scripting engine allows for the creation of custom operations which fall outside those provided directly by Spoon. This allows virtually unlimited options for transforming data.

Pan is a command line tool that executes transformations modeled with Spoon. This makes it simple to script the execution of transformations, as well as schedule them to execute at a regular interval.

Kitchen works in a similar fashion to Pan, only for jobs.

Carte is a HTTP server which can be used to remotely execute both jobs and transformations.

Why do we use Kettle?

At LBi Software, many of our projects require an ETL component. We have developed the ETL component with two approaches: stored procedures and enterprise class ETL packages.

The benefit of the stored procedures is they do not require the purchase of additional software; the downside is that they require more of a development effort. The benefit of the enterprise class packages is simplified development, but at a cost.

Kettle fills the gap – we are able to reap the benefits of a powerful, full featured ETL tool without having to incur the cost of purchasing an expensive package.

Our Experience using Kettle

Some of the benefits we have found:

  • Can easily connect to multiple data sources within a transformation, whether they be relational databases or flat files
  • Ability to use parameters at runtime to reuse transformations/jobs for multiple processes without having to alter the source code
  • Comprehensive logging and email features to track status of processes

Some of the challenges we have found:

  • Lack of documentation; paid support is available, however freely available documentation is not comprehensive
  • Logging output can be complicated and hard to follow for jobs/transformations with many steps

In summary, Kettle is a useful tool for projects that require an ETL component.

Benefits of the LBi Software Framework

LBi Software utilizes a Web Application Framework and a Business Objects Framework The use of a framework both simplifies and accelerates the software development process. A framework is a reusable module for developing software. It packages together key pieces of functionality which can be easily incorporated into multiple applications. This facilitates the implementation of core features because code can be written once and used multiple times.

At LBi Software, we have developed two distinct web application frameworks to support our suite of both custom and packaged solutions.

LBi Web Application Framework

The LBi Custom Web Application Framework allows LBi to quickly develop flexible data driven applications to meet the customer’s needs and is easily adaptable to future changes. The framework supports the separation of logic and processing between front-end display, data storage and business logic processing. This is referred to as the MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern.

Model represents the data; this is maintained separately from the actual underlying database structure. The abstraction from the actual database design allows updates to table layouts and optimization of data access methods without impacting the function of the system.

View represents the display and update of the pages; keeping this separate from the back end processing allows screens to be customized without affecting the business logic. This also eases the possible future incorporation of a separate display type (e.g., mobile devices).

Controller represents the flow of screens and the business logic processing; having this separate keeps the business logic in a single place. This allows for easy updates to business rules without impacting the rest of the system.

The controller level incorporates what we refer to as an “event handling” infrastructure. Events act as messages – they originate in the front end, as a user makes a request. The event is passed to the business logic layer, or “services” layer, of the application. Here, rule checks, database updates, and other pieces of business logic are performed. Then, an event response is sent back to the controller to update the model and view accordingly.

LBi Business Objects Framework

In order to facilitate the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) through the use of Business Objects (BO) into web applications, we have also created a custom Business Objects framework.

This framework encapsulates many of the most powerful and often used features of Business Objects. By building on the existing Business Objects SDKs, we are able to use the framework to rapidly deliver BO solutions without the need to “reinvent the wheel” with each new application. The framework combines functions from many of Business Objects’ offerings into a single package which can be leveraged by web applications to provide BI tools to end users.

The BO framework allows for quick and easy access to SDK features that are most commonly needed in integrating a web application with Business Objects.

Direct Access to the BO Session is provided by automatically connecting a user to BO “behind the scenes” when they enter the web application. Access to the BO session is needed to perform virtually any operation.

Custom Reporting is enabled by exposing the key pieces of the BO SDK which allow for the generation of Web Intelligence reports directly from application code. This powerful feature allows developers to create rich and highly dynamic reports, eliminating the need to create pre-defined “templates”. Instead, reports can be driven off user input at runtime.

Access to BO Universes provides web developers with a way to access the BO data model and provide end users with powerful tools such as ad-hoc reporting and dynamic querying. This level of access to the Business Objects universe is designed to provide your everyday application users with the ability to run complex queries without having to understand the complexity behind the scenes.

Scheduling and Publishing allows users to schedule reports to run at predetermined intervals with chosen parameters. Publishing allows these reports to be automatically delivered to desired recipients.

In summary, the use of our frameworks allows LBi to rapidly develop rich business applications by leveraging pre-written code for common services.

The Benefits of Automating Time and Attendance for White Collar Businesses

Time and Attendance automation not only benefits hourly workforces, but white collar environments, as well.

The benefits of automating time and attendance processing in businesses with hourly employees are obvious and many. From guaranteeing accurate calculations to reducing time theft to eliminating paper records, time accounting systems like LBi Time and Attendance are proven to reduce overall payroll expenses by as much as 8%, according to studies by the American Payroll Association (APA).

However, there is a misconception that such systems are far less beneficial when managing payroll processing in organizations with primarily exempt employees. Exempt employees don’t punch a clock and generally are not mandated to work a standard 8 hour daily schedule. Indeed, many exempt employees work far more hours for the same pay. Therefore, payroll processing for these employees is primarily based on tracking exceptions, such as managing vacation and sick time. So where are the potential savings to be realized? Hard and soft dollar savings are certainly there.

In companies with larger workforces, timesheets are typically collected, reviewed and approved by department managers prior to being sent to the payroll department for final processing. The department head is frequently responsible for timesheet accuracy, while Payroll simply aggregates and transmits the data to the payroll system. Even with checks and balances in place it is entirely possible that errors (both unintentional and otherwise) can occur, potentially resulting in the company paying for unearned time off or time not actually worked.

For instance, managers are not always consistent in their employee time management responsibilities. One manager might be lenient in permitting employees to come in very late or leave early, or even record an unearned day off as a worked day. Other managers are known to “robo-sign” time sheets, simply trusting their employees without checking accuracy. Even though exempt employees are permitted more flexibility in managing their schedules than hourly employees, abuses can and do occur, and can cost the organization significantly if not checked. In some organizations these inconsistencies can lead to costly Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) disputes.

Another issue is the complexity in tracking Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) policies. Employees seeking FMLA leave must have worked at least a certain number of hours in the previous 12 months in order to be eligible for this time off. If not tracked properly, companies could potentially provide employees with unearned FMLA time, which costs the organization in lost productivity. Additionally, the paperwork involved in processing the request (and subsequent return of the employee) must be managed properly or the organization could face costly legal problems. Comprehensive time and attendance systems can manage the entire FMLA process, ensuring employees receive the time off they are entitled to and all paperwork is processed according to the law.

In project oriented companies, workforce management systems can increase project/task reporting accuracy while speeding up data entry and processing. These systems can ensure that employees can only report time on projects for which they are assigned, and tasks that are applicable to the specific project, minimizing the need to make corrections later. This data can be integrated with both the company’s payroll and project management systems to eliminate manual keypunching.

Typical time and attendance system deployments in organizations with exempt employees include time collection devices (i.e., badge and biometric clocks), primarily used to track workers that are on premises and therefore officially working for the day. “On Premises” reporting helps companies identify employees that are physically in the building if an emergency occurs, and can prevent legal problems if an employee claims a work related injury while not actually on-site. Additionally, though the actual in/out “punches” are not used for payroll processing, they are certainly beneficial when tracking patterns of attendance. Just by knowing the company is tracking this time, employees are encouraged to be on time consistently.

Unquestionably, automating time and attendance in ANY company will ultimately increase payroll accuracy, speed up processing, and minimize abuse, while vastly improving reporting, analytics and records keeping. Finally, employees will know that they are responsible for their performance under the watchful eyes of the company. In the end, both parties will benefit through greater productivity and cost savings.

Social Networking and HR

How social networks can extend the reach of the Human Resources Department

Anyone who thinks online social networking sites are just a passing fad needs to consider a few cold hard statistics. Facebook alone claims over 800 million users worldwide. That’s more than twice the total US population! It also happens to be more than the combined populations of France, Italy, Germany, UK, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, Austria, and Australia! Add in LinkedIn users, Twitter users, and users of other social networking sites, one can readily conclude that this is not a fad but rather a powerful and growing phenomenon.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that a majority of employees in any one company are already utilizing one or more sites to interact with their friends, family and coworkers. However, HR departments have yet to really integrate their current resources (such as employee portals and knowledgebase services) with websites like Facebook and others. Frankly, in recent years, most businesses have only attempted (some successfully) to tap into the vast marketing power of social networking sites.

Since your employees are already communicating with each other (and their peers in other businesses) via these services, why not embrace the movement and expand the capabilities internally? LinkedIn, for instance, is the #1 website for recruiters and headhunters. Facebook is best known for creating and promoting communities of people with like interests. Aren’t recruiting and building a sense of community key functions of HR departments? One of the reasons for Japan’s economic growth was that corporations recognized the importance of treating employees like family and as integral members of the organization. More workers in Japan than in any other country spend their entire careers with the same company. As any business executive knows, tenure equates to productivity, while high employee turnover can be very unproductive.

Human Resource departments most likely already have the business and personal email addresses of every current and many former employees. By tying employees’ Facebook and LinkedIn (or other services) accounts into the corporate account, the business can instantly create an environment for building relationships with employees, encouraging feedback, and ultimately fostering new and creative ideas that will make the company stronger and more competitive – not to mention drawing the interest of potential new employees and customers.

Though there are many online social networking sites, clearly Facebook and LinkedIn are the largest and most popular with business users. However, they have significant differences and are not mutually exclusive. Any business could (and arguably should) maintain accounts on both sites. LinkedIn is geared mainly towards business professionals desiring to share their work experience with others, in addition to maintaining memberships in specialized user groups. As mentioned earlier, LinkedIn is the #1 internet destination for recruiters seeking qualified candidates for open jobs. LinkedIn users typically list their entire work history and core business strengths online. Users have an open profile which anyone can see, and generally a more detailed profile available to their approved connections. LinkedIn supports “Three Degrees of Separation”:

1st Degree – Your Connections
Two Degrees away – Friends of friends, each connected to one of your connections
Three Degrees away – Reach these users through a friend and one of their friends

It is easy to see how this can exponentially expand your reach.

Facebook is much more of a true “social” network. Users have profiles, which include both personal and professional interests. They can post pictures, videos, and other material for their “friends” to see. In Facebook, users can also show their approval of a specific post by “liking” the post. Facebook integrates with other services such as Foursquare.com to allow users to track their friends’ current locations, favorite restaurants, etc.

Understanding the features and differences between these services will help HR departments expand their services into the online social networking world. Corporate HR departments embracing social networking services can take a page from the Japanese philosophy in business,believing that “the sum is greater than the parts”. They can quickly begin to realize significant dividends in their investment, since the employees are already online and individually taking advantage of the services. Employees will be happier, more engaged in the overall business, and will truly feel they are a valuable member of the corporate community.

HR Case Management Enhances Talent Management

One of the hottest HCM business solutions today is Talent Management. At the 2011 HR Technology Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas Talent Management vendors outnumbered all other HCM vendor categories. Talent Management (TM) systems are designed to help companies manage the full life cycle of employees, from recruitment to onboarding to employee development to offboarding.

Unfortunately, what these powerful systems generally don’t do well is monitor individual employee satisfaction and general contentment during their tenure with the organization. Yes, the better systems manage performance and track employee growth; but what about confidential issues, employee disputes, embarrassing harassment situations, and other matters important to the employee but not on the radar of TM software?

Professionally and expeditiously managing these all-important events is in the dominion of the HR department, who may handle these cases very well individually while not necessarily recognizing potential patterns of employee issues. This is particularly true when specific HR representatives manage the help desk calls for specific locations. For instance, one company division or location prides itself on high employee retention while another similar facility struggles to keep the best workers. But what is the difference in these two similar business operations? They use the same talent management solution, the same HR system, and abide by the same HR policies. Additionally, management at the struggling location may not be able to pinpoint specific problems that are causing a higher degree of turnover.

So where does the answer lie? The answer can frequently be found in the history of employee interactions with HR personnel. However, without a system for collecting, archiving, retrieving and analyzing these interactions, it is virtually impossible to detect patterns of issues systemic within the organization that may lead to larger problems. Repeated questions about available Paid Time Off (PTO) days, dissatisfaction with company insurance plans, management disputes, work environment issues, and other potential red-flag cases cannot be uncovered by reviewing any individual employee record. Businesses need comprehensive HR Case Management software designed to filter through large databases of cases to recognize these patterns and understand the possible ramifications.

There are underlying common-themed personnel issues within an organization which can often directly suggest causes for more apparent concerns, such as employee retention problems, excess absences, or dips in productivity. Discovering those issues quickly and determining the potential consequences requires the right business solution – one that may not be found in even the best Talent Management systems. However, armed with the right information, management can put policies and procedures in place to mitigate problems before they become systemic. Automated Case Management Systems are designed to gather the right data points and provide exactly that type of powerful analysis.

When HR Help Desk / Case Management is incorporated into a comprehensive Talent Management strategy, the organization truly then provides the full lifecycle support for incoming employees, ultimately contributing to measurable performance gains. And the good news is the best Case Management systems, such as LBi HR HelpDesk, are designed to work seamlessly with both your HRIS software as well as the leading Talent Management applications.

In conclusion, for organizations planning to deploy end to end Talent Management systems, it would be prudent to evaluate the addition of an HR Help Desk / Case Management component to your solution map. Implementing an automated Case Management system will truly contribute to your project goals and add significant personnel performance benefits.

Keeping the Human Factor in Automated HR Helpdesk

Providing employees with choices while keeping their confidentiality

Consider the evolution of terms referring to the traditional HR department. Initially there was the “Personnel Department”, which simply referenced employees as people. Next came “Human Resources”, further defining employees, albeit subtly, as business assets. The current term in vogue is “Human Capital Management”, essentially redefining people as revenue and profit generating business assets.

Unfortunately, though this transition of terms more accurately describes the role of employees in organizations today, it also tends to take the “personal” out of “personnel”. HR software business solutions have the potential to further reduce the close interaction between employees and HR staff. Just as interactive voice response systems virtually eliminate the need for customer contact with live support agents, so can automated HR support systems.

Automated HR Help Desk solutions are designed to minimize direct 1:1 personal contact with HR, which is both good and bad.

  • Good – saves money, time, and frees up HR for other tasks.
  • Bad – less personal contact with HR, potentially risking employee satisfaction issues.

However, solutions like LBi HR HelpDesk include a feature that allows employees to request their case resolution via phone, in person, email, etc., which provides the ability to create cases online but receive a response in person or other preferred level of contact. LBi HR HelpDesk also includes features that allow cases to be marked confidential and have them routed to specific representatives trained to handle special cases. Providing the ability to discretely submit a potentially embarrassing case such as a manager dispute or harassment accusation specifically to authorized senior HR personnel, and have the resolution process equally as discrete, truly supports the “Human Factor” in automated systems.

In organizations lacking an automated Help Desk system, employees are generally forced to make initial contact with one or more HR representatives whom ultimately may need to escalate their case to senior or properly trained personnel. This added level of contact risks employee privacy. Sometimes, just physically walking into the HR office can raise unwanted questions and curiosity among company staff.

In many help desk cases, such as simple PTO requests or tuition reimbursement questions, automated systems will speed responses to the employee, thereby saving valuable HR personnel time. Less unnecessary burden on the HR staff again supports the “Human Factor”.

The bottom line is the best automated systems provide employees with the greatest personal choice in selecting their preferred method of contact with HR, ultimately increasing employee satisfaction while providing the confidential interaction with HR that they deserve. From HR’s point of view, valuable administrative staff time is freed up to manage more strategic tasks. Not only is the “Human Factor” alive and well in the best Automated Help Desk solutions, it is the primary purpose for deploying such business systems. Systems such as LBi HR HelpDesk increase employee satisfaction and improve overall HR operations, ultimately driving improved performance within the whole organization.

Analyzing HR Helpdesk Traffic to Identify Corporate Policy Needs

Identifying potential critical HR issues to effectively manage your workforce

The corporate HR function has gone through many changes with the adoption of new technologies and ERP software solutions. The influx of high tech solutions has created a virtual HR environment and has enabled companies to build databases of company and employee data. While data mining is new to the HR environment, the practice of data mining has been successfully employed in more traditional corporate areas for trending business activities and fine tuning business processes. With the adoption of Automated HR Helpdesk solutions, the opportunity to fine tune the HR function through data mining and the analysis of helpdesk data has arrived.

HR Helpdesk Overview
The Automated HR helpdesk solutions available in the marketplace, like LBi HR HelpDesk, extend the access and reach of HR by utilizing existing technologies to create a virtual HR environment. Employees can enter the system through the corporate portal and perform a variety of tasks including:

  • Searching HR guides
  • Reviewing common problem databases
  • Submitting questions and problems to HR
  • Checking status on open questions
  • Checking on resolved issues

Employee queries can be resolved by a generalist or routed to a specialist as required. The employee also has the option of searching within the helpdesk databases for answers and similar situations raised by other employees. The HR helpdesk software is fully integrated to the HR systems, and utilizes corporate systems such as e-mail and voice systems to communicate in a secure environment.

LBi HR HelpDesk will also perform automatic escalations of unresolved cases and will maintain a complete case history for each employee.

Data Analysis of Helpdesk Traffic
Data Mining is relatively new in the data analysis field but is readily gaining acceptance in the world of business analytics. It allows for the analysis of data to extract patterns from a larger set of data. With data mining techniques we can go beyond the tracking of policy and guideline concerns and search for patterns showing repeated issues with specific employees or managers. Companies can find patterns that would not have become apparent in a manual system.

Confusing Policies
Analysis of the accumulated data from the HR helpdesk activity can help to highlight trends and patterns where employees experience difficulty in understanding policies or in understanding how benefits are applied. Armed with this new information, the company can then decide on how to address the issue, clarify the policies and avoid the confusion going forward.

These techniques combined with the helpdesk data can help assess the impact of new or modified company processes such as implementing Six Sigma or lean manufacturing disciplines. While employees may not report concerns to their line managers, there may be patterns in the data that can lead back to these changes. Stress felt by employees can be both a satisfaction issue and a retention problem for the company.

Harassment Concerns
According to the EEOC, there were over 32,000 reported incidents of workplace harassment which cost businesses $98,500,000 in settlement costs. Data Mining of helpdesk data can highlight potential issues, provide direction in seeking appropriate solutions, and assist in the timely response to these situations. Additionally, Data Mining can help evaluate corporate policies and their impact on specific employee demographics. For instance, are men complaining more than women about specific policies? Is there a prevalence of religious issues?

Employee Satisfaction
Employee satisfaction can be gauged from data in helpdesk surveys and through data patterns revealed in the analysis. A good helpdesk solution will provide for employee surveys to gauge the effectiveness of the helpdesk and the HR process.

Summary and Conclusion
Helpdesk solutions, like LBi HR HelpDesk, extend the reach and accessibility of the HR department. Additionally, the data accumulated and stored can be used as a basis for highlighting potential problems and concerns. Analyzing the data and the trending of employees’ queries and concerns can highlight corporate policies that are confusing, complex or poorly written.

Reviewing the volume of queries by area and drilling down into specific issues can help identify potential problems and address these issues to reduce the traffic into the HR helpdesk. Issues that are identified can then be reviewed by management and may be addressed with a clarifying memo, additional training or other actions as required.

With time and experience in leveraging the available data, correlating information from the various HR systems with other critical Key Performance Indicators (i.e. corporate revenue/profitability performance, customer satisfaction, employee retention and turnover), becomes a viable possibility.

In the end, there is a true relationship between performance in every discrete area of any organization, from Finance to HR to Manufacturing to Sales, etc. Employee performance in any one business unit may ultimately impact performance in every other department. A comprehensive HR Help Desk solution with intelligent analytics capability will help identify potential critical issues in each department and become the centerpiece of a total solution to effectively managing your workforce.

An Introduction to Location Based Services

Location Based Services can be a huge benefit to employers

Going on a business trip or traveling to a foreign city used to mean that you would arrive at the remote destination and be at the mercy of a taxi driver, or a hotel concierge, on finding a place to dine. You couldn’t be sure of the quality of the food, again relying only on the advice of a single person. Today, you can quickly take out your cell phone, bring up an app like Urban Spoon, and find all restaurants in your given area, even specifying parameters, like “Free Wi-Fi”, in your search. You can then choose from a few restaurants, and settle on one that was reviewed favorably by others. Having a device that can share your location with applications has changed the way we approach everyday situations in today’s world. This specific technology is known as Location Based Services (LBS).

A Location Based Service is defined as an information, entertainment or commercial service which makes use of the geographic position of a person, usually obtained by a mobile device. With the rise in use of smartphones, cellphones and tablets, the exact location of a person is more readily available. This allows for new services to be built that specifically target people in a particular location.

TECHNOLOGY
The location piece of LBS is achieved by handheld devices that can pinpoint the whereabouts of the person using the phone. This can be done by GPS, assisted GPS, GSM localization, cell tower triangulation or IP tracking. These vary in precision, but they all offer, at a minimum, the general location of the person in question.

POSSIBLE USES
Location Based Services have many possible uses, as seen in the above example of finding a restaurant. At the personal level:

  • Help find social events going on in a given city
  • Help find a specific service, like an ATM or a bank
  • Provide turn by turn navigation
  • Help locate friends, or other people with common interests
  • Alerts and notifications for events such as traffic jams, road closings, etc.
  • Services based on proximity, such as EZPass

At a business/corporate level:

  • Ability to send targeted ads to people in an area
  • Ability to track resources (e.g., make sure an employee is on a particular route)
  • Ability to distribute resources (e.g., make sure taxis in a location are spread efficiently)

At a government / law enforcement level:

  • Locate missing person, property
  • Send notifications, emergency messages, to people in a certain area

PRIVACY CONCERNS
The drawback of this technology is loss of personal privacy. Your location, and sometimes identity, can be tracked at any given moment throughout the day. A major smartphone manufacturer was recently found to have been storing a history of users’ locations on their devices for up to a year. While it is unclear what this information could be used for, the fact it was retained is itself alarming. Companies that provide these Location Based Services should warn the customers up front that their location information will be gathered and how that information will be used.

CONCLUSION
As Location Based Services continue to transform and grow, you, as a consumer or business owner, need to keep pace with the changes. Weighing the positives of LBS, such as ability to reach a targeted audience, or the ability to obtain information about your surroundings quickly, versus the negatives of LBS, such as privacy concerns or an overload of information, will help you come to a decision regarding this technology. The decision will not be “if” you are going to use LBS in your everyday life, but more “how” and “how much” you will use it.

Simplicity in GUI Design

We’ve all been there. You load up your favorite website, your vendor’s new e-commerce portal, or that fancy new application your company purchased for three years’ worth of your salary. At first glance, you are impressed; it has a modern, sleek look, flashy graphics, perhaps an animated home page. You think to yourself, “Wow, the software really has all the bells and whistles!”

Then you start to use it. You can’t find the “New” button. Oh wait, there it is, buried in between the scrolling news ticker and the search box. You click it. You wait five seconds. The screen finally loads. What next? What does this field mean? How do I submit my request? Where do I…?

You get the picture. The designers of that expensive software surely spent a fortune on graphic artists, but clearly dismissed what is likely the most important factor in the success of any application intended for regular, day to day use: GUI (Graphical User Interface) usability.

The GUI of a successful application must, first and foremost, be intuitive and easy to use. It can have all the fancy graphics and latest technologies, but if it doesn’t let the user accomplish their tasks quickly and naturally, it will never gain acceptance.

The GUIs of most thriving applications will have many features in common. They will be intuitive. They will be tailored to the workflow of the users. They will be quick and responsive to user input. They will be neat, clean, and generally uncluttered. Most importantly, they will inspire confidence in the users that they are doing things correctly, because the application guides them through the workflow in an obvious and expected way.

At LBi, when we begin designing a new application, the first thing we ask ourselves is “How can we help the user accomplish their goals as easily as possible?” We then design a system based around the answer to that key question. The user interface will be simple and require little to no training. The menus and page structure will be based on the desired workflow so that users can complete their work correctly and quickly. The major navigation controls will be prominently displayed in logical locations. Navigation between screens or pages within the application will be quick.

This is not to say the application will not look good, or will be based on antiquated technologies – just that these things will not come at the expense of usability.

It all boils down to function versus glitz. Salesmen and advertisements will promote impressive graphics and new-fangled technologies. Satisfied users will speak of simplicity and usefulness. When designing your system’s GUI, which side are you on?

Cloud Computing and LBi Software

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Cloud Computing is a general term used for delivering hosted services over the Internet. What’s different about Cloud service as compared to traditional hosting is that it is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic — a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider. A Cloud can be private or public. A public Cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet. A private (virtual private) Cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. When a service provider uses public Cloud resources to create their private Cloud, the result is called a virtual private Cloud. Whatever type used, the goal of Cloud computing is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of various hosted network services. LBi uses two of the services offered – Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3).

EC2 is a web service that provides resizable computing capacity in the Cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. LBi uses EC2 to host all of its websites, as well as several applications. EC2 allows you to run virtual servers (called instances) in the Cloud. You can run as many servers as you want and Amazon invoices based on hours of use and bandwidth. LBi has also used EC2 to load test versions of its products. For example, LBi HR HelpDesk was installed on one instance and a load testing program was run on another instance. The benefit of using EC2 is that it provides more bandwidth and processing power than running the test in LBi’s offices. An additional benefit of hosting something in the Cloud is that the website/data is now stored out of the office in a backed-up/redundant environment. This helps to prevent the catastrophic loss of data from something such as a fire in the company’s data center.

In addition to EC2, LBi also utilizes S3. This service is essentially a virtual hard drive in the sky. S3 is used to back up our EC2 databases every 3 hours, and files are backed up from S3 back to LBi as an additional safeguard.

Almost two years ago, we began all our hosting through EC2. This was done after a successful, issue-free, year long test using EC2 to host our corporate and Appraisal Application sites. By using these services, we can be sure our sites are secure, resilient and reliable. We can also ensure that they provide us with the ability to scale our applications to any size business, small or massive. LBi also uses cloud computing for demonstrating our applications. Using cloud computing, the application is available for prospects to evaluate at their convenience.

LBi also utilizes EC2 to deliver its SaaS (Software as a Service) Cloud option. As of 2010, LBi Software began to deliver its HR HelpDesk and Time and Attendance products as SaaS. LBi Software offers two SaaS hosting options: 1. Dedicated Server Environment (hosted on a physical dedicated server) and 2. Cloud Computing Environment (utilizing Amazons EC2).

Sites LBi is hosting on EC2

Site/Application Description URL Appraisal Application Appraisal application that LBi developed for a local real estate appraisal company N/A Dutch Property Management LBi designed and hosts Dutch Property Management’s corporate site www.dutchpropertymanagement.com LBi HR HelpDesk LBi’s HR Case Management and help desk product. LBi hosts its SaaS Cloud offering on EC2 N/A LBi Time and Attendance LBi’s time and attendance tracking product. LBi hosts its SaaS Cloud offering on EC2 N/A LBi Software Corporate Site LBi’s corporate brochureware site including a download portal for downloading patches and demos www.LBiSoftware.com LBi Technical Support Website for LBi’s PC and Network support offering www.lbitechsupport.com Richard Security LBi designed and hosts Richard Security’s Corporate Site www.richardsecurity.com Suntec Forest Homeowners Website LBi designed and hosts Suntec Forest Homeowners bulletin board site www.suntecforestcondo.com

In order to safeguard our clients’ material LBi has a process of maintaining redundant backups. The disaster recovery server for all these sites is located at LBi. The database for each site is real-time replicated from EC2 to LBi’s Disaster Recovery server. The Disaster Recovery server is in turn backed up every night. In addition, the entire hosted site is backed up every three hours (increased to 1 hour for critical apps) from EC2 to S3. This process insures that no data is ever lost.

Today, firms require hosting companies to have generator backup, redundant ISPs and in many cases co-locations. When a site is down there is a potential loss of revenue. Through the use of Cloud Computing, smaller companies such as LBi Software can offer its customers this type of premium hosting at a lower cost. For example, one weekend this past July an air conditioner malfunctioned, spiking the temperature in LBi’s Corporate Server room. Technicians had to bring down the servers in the room for six hours. Since all hosting was in the cloud there was no disruption of service to any of LBi’s clients.

The Benefits of Extract, Transform and Load (ETL)

The value of enterprise business intelligence is greatly enhanced when information from various sources is combined in a meaningful way.

What is ETL?
ETL, or Extract, Transform and Load, eases the combination of heterogeneous sources into a unified central repository. Usually this repository is a data warehouse or mart which will support enterprise business intelligence.

Extract – read data from multiple source systems into a single format. This process extracts the data from each native system and saves it to one target location. That source data may be any number of database formats, flat files, or document repositories. Usually, the goal is to extract the entire unmodified source system data, though certain checks and filters may be performed here to ensure the data meets an expected layout or to selectively remove data (e.g. potentially confidential information).

Transform – in this step, the data from the various systems is made consistent and linked. Some of the key operations here are:

  • Standardization – data is mapped to a consistent set of lookup values (e.g. US, USA, United States and blank/null – all mapped to the standard ISO country code)
  • Cleansing – perform validity checks and either remove or modify problem data
  • Surrogate keys – new key values applied to similar data from different source systems prevent key collisions in the future and provide a cross reference across these systems
  • Transposing – organizes data to optimize reporting. Many source systems are optimized for transactional performance but the warehouse will be primarily used for reporting. Often this involves denormalizing and re-organizing into a dimensional model.

Load – the transformed data is now written out to a warehouse/mart. The load process will usually preserve prior data. In some instances existing warehouse data is never removed, just marked as inactive. This provides full auditing and supports historical reporting.

ETL Tools
There are a number of commercial and open source ETL tools available to assist in any ETL process. Some of the prominent ones are:

  • Business Objects Data Integrator
  • Informatica PowerCenter
  • IBM InfoSphere DataStage
  • Oracle Warehouse Builder / Data Integrator
  • Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services
  • Pentaho Data Integration (Open Source)
  • Jasper ETL (Open Source)

These tools provide a number of functions to facilitate the ETL workflow. The variety of source data types are handled automatically. A transformation engine makes it easy to create reusable scripts to handle the data mapping. Scheduling and error handling are also built in.

It is particularly advantageous to use an ETL tool in the following situations:

  • When there are many source systems to be integrated
  • When source systems are in different formats
  • When this process needs to be run repeatedly (e.g. daily, hourly, real time)
  • To take advantage of pre-built warehouses/marts. Many of these exist for popular platforms such as PeopleSoft, SAP, JD Edwards.

There are also times where the overhead and cost of setting up an ETL tool might not make sense. In these situations some combination of stored procedures, custom coding and off the shelf packages may make more sense. Scenarios of this type include:

  • One time conversion of data
  • A limited number of source systems that share key identifiers

Sample Workflow

As illustrated here, a typical ETL workflow will move the data through a few distinct phases. This allows each phase to be better defined and eases troubleshooting.

Source > Extract > Stage – this phase extracts all the appropriate data from each source system. The extract copies only data that has changed in the source system since its last run. The stage library contains all source information in a similar structure to how it appears in the source systems. All extracted information will remain in stage until it is successfully processed by the transform.

Stage > Transform > Warehouse – the data from stage is transformed into a warehouse. In this example this step includes some of the base transformations as well as the load of data into a single warehouse. In this phase, surrogate keys are added where needed, lookup value mappings are applied and related information from multiple source systems is combined into a single structure. Any errors encountered here are reported and the problem data remains in stage until corrected. No information is removed from the warehouse and all data there is tagged with effective, update and end timestamps.

Warehouse > Load > Mart – the current effective date from the warehouse is loaded to the mart to support analysis. While this is the final load of the process, this step also includes a transform of the data to an optimized dimensional form for reporting and analysis.

Business intelligence in the enterprise is greatly enhanced by unified data. ETL can be an important tool when combining heterogeneous sources into one cohesive central repository.

Easing the Pain of the Year End Project

The Year End process can be a complicated, highly visible one. LBi has created guidelines to smoothly manage this daunting process.

In a company’s Human Resources and Payroll area, there are a number of particularly time consuming processes that occur at the end of each year. These Year End processes are critical and can include:

  • Imputed Income calculations
  • Deferred Income processing
  • Applying tax updates
  • End of year bonuses
  • Merit increases
  • First payroll of the new year
  • W2s and 1099s
  • State Filings

Typically a team is created to manage the process. LBi has managed this process for several clients and has come up with a project methodology that helps the process run smoothly.

The first step in this methodology is the creation of a checklist. The Year End (YE) process begins by establishing task schedules and priorities. This enables the team to understand both the scope and the scheduling of events and is an essential first step in YE planning and project management. The checklist is used throughout the YE process to ensure that no critical steps are overlooked. After verification by the project stakeholders, the completed checklist is then used to build the Year End Calendar.

The YE Calendar of events expands the tasks in the checklist and incorporates dates and responsibilities. It is then used as a template for complete documentation.

The next step is to perform the required legal and regulatory changes as published by PeopleSoft or other HCM system, or requested by the company, to keep everything in compliance. These items are then added to the Checklist and Calendar.

The final step is to create a comprehensive inventory of all processes, customizations and ad-hoc reports. We identify all special queries required for “data cleanup” and balance adjustments. It is critical to include these ad-hoc reports and processes and productionalize them, as they are typically needed each year. We then assemble all the documentation and testing plans and results for SOX compliance and audit readiness.

There are four key steps in LBi’s Year End methodology:
1. Year End Checklist
2. Year End Calendar
3. Regulatory Updates
4. Inventory

By following these steps, the seemingly daunting Year End process becomes a manageable project.

Achieving Browser Neutrality

In today’s segmented browser market, achieving a unified look across platforms is as complicated as ever.

What does it mean to be “Browser Neutral”?

Browser Neutrality is the term used to describe a website or web application that looks and acts the same when viewed in any web browser.

Internet Explorer. Firefox. Chrome. Safari. Opera. With so many choices in the web browsers, the market has become segmented. No single web browser currently owns more than a 25% market share.

As a web developer, it is important to make sure your website or application is consistent regardless of the platform on which the user is viewing it. This poses a significant technical challenge.

Diagnosing Problems

How do we know if our webpage is going to look the way we want in all browsers? There is only one sure fire way to find out – testing, testing, testing!

Developers should test code across a number of different browsers fairly often during the development cycle. Waiting until development is done is often a huge mistake. Often a developer will work on web content, testing in only a single browser as they go. Then, when they have finished, they load up the website in a different browser only to find inconsistencies. At this point, fixing those problems can require reworking pieces of code that could have been done differently from the start had the differences been noticed sooner.

In this way, browser neutrality is similar to other programming problems such as software bugs and misunderstood requirements – early diagnosis is the key to saving time and effort later on.

We found problems! What now?

Although there is a set of standards that browsers attempt to adhere to, implementations often differ and sometimes there are quirks. This is particularly true when dealing with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS is used to stylize a web page through the use of reusable “style classes”. These classes contain a number of properties which describe how a particular element should look in the web browser. Occasionally, browsers will differ in their presentation of these properties. For example, there are often differences in padding and margin properties across different browsers.

But fear not. There are steps developers can take to assure that these differing implementations still present a unified user experience across all browsers. Options include using multiple style sheets to account for different browsers or using browser-specific tokens in style classes themselves to have certain properties target only a specific browser.

Who cares if it looks different!

Achieving browser neutrality is not a primary goal of every website or web application.

At development onset, it is important to set the expectations for the project. If a unified look, down to the pixel, is important, developers need to keep that in mind from the start and test often, particularly for pages with complex graphical details. Other times, minor differences in look and feel may not be an issue because all users will be using a specific browser (often the case in a corporate setting) or the function of the application, not the form, is the primary concern.

Statistics on Browser market share can be found at the following links:
https://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2#
https://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200904-201005

New and Improved LBi Software Headquarters

LBi Software is pleased to announce that it has completed a renovation of its headquarters at 7600 Jericho Turnpike in Woodbury, NY. In addition, LBi has extended the lease for seven more years.

The renovations included:

  • New kitchens
  • A new media conference room
  • New Data Center with dedicated 24k BTU air conditioning unit and 3+ hour battery back up for all equipment
  • New carpeting, flooring, lighting, wall coverings and window dressings throughout the 8000 square feet of offices

Our employees are enjoying the newly updated and pristine work environment that also includes artwork and a photo wall of past and present LBi employees and clients. If you haven’t visited us in a while, stop by for a tour!

Cost Effective Web Application Load Testing

How LBi Software successfully load tested its applications using open source tools

What is Load Testing?

Load testing is the process of putting demand on an application and measuring its response. It usually refers to modeling the expected usage of a software application by simulating multiple users logging on concurrently. As such, this testing is critical for multi-user systems, often ones built using a client/server model, such as web servers.

Load testing tools differ from regression testing tools. Load testing tools work at the procedure level. Regression testing tools are typically “record and playback” tools that work at the GUI object level. For example, a regression testing tool will simulate a mouse click on an “OK” button on the browser, but a load testing tool will send out the hypertext that the browser will send after the user clicks the “OK button”, and it will send out the hypertext for multiple users each having a unique login ID and password.

Load testing also differs from stress testing, which evaluates the extent to which a system keeps working when subjected to extreme work loads or when some of its hardware or software has been compromised. The primary goal of load testing is to define the maximum amount of work a system can handle without significant performance degradation.

Load testing can identify issues with record locking, concurrent transactions, synchronization issues and insufficient hardware. Through load testing, hardware requirements can be accurately determined.
Load Testing Tools

For enterprise level testing, there are packages such as Load Runner and WebKing that are available to support large systems. Parasoft’s WebKing is an automated testing solution for creating, executing and managing functional and regression test suites. WebKing can also perform load testing, leveraging the existing functional tests to perform the load tests. Load Runner is a performance and load testing product by Hewlett-Packard used for examining system behavior and performance, while generating actual load.

There are open source options with similar capabilities, such as JMeter and TestMaker. JMeter is an Apache Jakarta project that can be used as a load testing tool for analyzing and measuring the performance of a variety of services, with a focus on web applications. PushToTest’s TestMaker is a platform for test automation, service governance, and business service management. For Java developers, TestMaker is a framework for turning unit tests into functional tests, creating load and scalability tests, and creating service monitors automatically.

The tools mentioned above all require the tester to have dedicated servers. BrowserMob is another option available to testers who do not have access to a dedicated server. BrowserMob allows the user to define and schedule load tests over the Internet using 3rd party servers and virtual users to send a stream of data to the tester’s site. Actual browsers are spawned, which makes this close to a real user experience.
LBi Software Experiences with Load Testing

For its Load Testing, LBi Software has had success with TestMaker, BrowserMob and JMeter.
TestMaker

  • LBi tested its standard web applications with this tool.
  • LBi created Selenium scripts for Functional Testing. TestMaker was able to use many of these same scripts for its Load Testing, making extra scripts unnecessary.
  • LBi took two approaches:
    • An environment within LBi’s network, with multiple testing nodes and one server. This was sufficient for small load tests.
    • For load tests that numbered into the thousands and tens of thousands, LBi utilized Cloud Computing, specifically Amazon Web Services (AWS). The various nodes were in the cloud, as well as the main server. The number of nodes and servers could easily be increased, as well as the computing power of the Cloud servers. (Please note: Mixing the cloud solution with a local network solution is possible, but be aware that your internet pipe may become a bottleneck due to bandwidth limitations.)

BrowserMob

  • Selenium scripts and the target URL were sent to the BrowserMob service. BrowserMob utilized the Selenium scripts to spawn multiple instances ofbrowsers, running the load tests from each browser against the submittedURL.
  • If any errors were encountered, they were sent via email.
  • This was utilized as a load testing source, as well as a means to verify that results from other load testing tools were accurate.

JMeter

  • LBi used JMeter for AJAX-heavy web applications
  • Performed very well against these complex applications, giving accurate and consistent results on every run.
  • Uses a simple GUI to record Load Testing scripts. While it does not use Selenium scripts, the GUI is simple enough to easily record tests.
  • Can include both in-network and Cloud Computing options. LBi achieved similar results with both.

 

Web technologies have exposed more users to business applications. For example, a benefit enrollment application will be used company wide by 10,000 employees, all during a small period of time (open enrollment). LBi has found it’s essential to load test these web applications to ensure successful functionality with multiple users while accurately establishing hardware requirements. Load Testing is now an essential piece of the application project lifecycle.

Employee Self-Service in the Application Portfolio

The technology explosion over the last decade brought us new and innovative ways to use the internet in our daily lives. The technological changes have conditioned people of all walks of life to the online environment as a resource for shopping, banking, job hunting and more. Online applications are now considered to be required for businesses to reach their customers and to support their employees.

Employee Self-Service (ESS) applications represent another step forward in the evolving internet-based services providing employees with access to information and company communications. Self-service programs can be executed over the Internet or a company’s Intranet.
ESS Features

Browser-based and integrated to the company HR applications, ESS provides 24/7 access to employees regardless of where they are, through the Internet or the company Intranet. This access allows for the verification of personal data and the updating of data as changes occur in the employee’s personal and professional life. The end result is data with a higher degree of accuracy and data that is current. ESS portals can be used to access personal and contact information, view paychecks, enroll and change benefit selections and more. Additional links added to the ESS provide access to 401K providers and to company communications and handbooks.

ESS systems offer features that meet the needs of the business, employee and industry with many functions seemingly appearing in several products. Internet-based payroll solutions, for example, facilitate cost savings by allowing companies to reduce resources needed to support the payroll function. Following are some of the features supported on ESS Portals:

Personal Data and Payroll: Review and updates of personal information is one form of self-service which allows employees to view and edit their own personal information. Companies can give their employees permission to review and make changes to their personal data (name, address, etc.), W-4 elections, and voluntary deductions, as well as view their payroll stubs and W-2s. Changes are then reflected in the appropriate HCM systems and the employee database reflects more timely and accurate information. Payroll information can consist of a mix of current information and payroll history.

Benefit Enrollment: The employee maintains information on plan participation and keeps track of benefits plans, performs cost plan analysis, budgetary projections, and tracks/reviews outside carrier reports. Benefits Open Enrollment gives employees the ability to check available benefit plan information and make enrollment changes. The company can provide the benefits manual online to help the employee understand the benefit selection process and options.

Time and Attendance Tracking: Electronic time sheets can dramatically improve payroll efficiency by allowing employees to enter and track their own work hours, paid time off and sick time. This is especially useful for companies with multiple worksites, a widely distributed sales force, employees who telecommute, or contract workers on location at other companies. With Time and Attendance Tracking using ESS electronic time sheets, employees enter their hours and worksite (if applicable) according to company defined categories. Then, they forward the sheet electronically to their supervisor who can approve it online. Electronic time sheets can improve accuracy and reduce handling time by 50% to 75%.
ESS Benefits and Savings

ESS can save time and resources associated with updating and maintaining employee data and company materials for employees such as handbooks and benefit announcements. For example, updating the employee handbook online eliminates the printing and distribution costs associated with a hardcopy manual. On the employee side, the information can now be updated in a more timely manner without utilizing HR resources. This is a win/win for both the company and the employee as the data is more current and the employee has convenient access without going through the HR department.

Self-service has great potential to support the decision-making process by allowing employees to perform “what if” scenarios to test decisions before implementing them. Employees can be given access to tools to try out various strategies for insurance coverage, benefits contributions, and other financial planning, which eliminates the need to request the information from HR or payroll.
ESS Long-term Benefits

When properly implemented, ESS solutions provide a positive impact for employees and employers alike. Employees appreciate the convenience and ability to control personal data, which can ultimately affect performance and retention. Within the payroll department, self-service eliminates paper shuffling and removes tasks that can be handled more efficiently by others. Communications to employees can be done via the portal, eliminating printing and distribution of hardcopy announcements and manuals. Finally, storing information electronically is cheaper than filing paper documents in cabinets.

As the technology becomes more affordable and the number of self-service features increases, ESS solutions will find greater acceptance in the business world. Employees will become increasingly more comfortable with online systems to make changes, get information and manage their own data. Whatever system you chose to run your business, ESS can be integrated to provide timely data and services to your entire staff.

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