System Optimization: Telltale Signs Your UKG Pro System Isn’t Optimized

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UKG Pro puts the power of your organization’s people data at your fingertips. The UKG Pro HCM platform offers you robust capabilities for digging deep into your data to learn more about your business, including trends, gaps, weak points, and opportunities to grow or simply streamline your operations.

UKG Pro can transfer data seamlessly among different platforms, increasing fluency and accuracy in your HRIS data, automate manual processes, and create business intelligence reports that help you make better business decisions. And that’s just the beginning.

There’s so much that UKG Pro can do that you may not be aware of system capabilities you aren’t utilizing. UKG Pro is a significant investment—the more you know about your system and the areas it can help, the better your ROI.

If you have an organizational need – a process that seems cumbersome, data that has to be manually updated, an upcoming audit or seasonal company event that has a great deal of complexity – look first within your UKG Pro system to see what it can do.

You may have just completed a major implementation, or your company may be facing rapid growth, a merger or acquisition; or you may have just lost a key member of your HRIS team who had significant institutional knowledge and you are trying to fill the gap.

The good news is, by asking the right questions, you can almost always find a way that UKG Pro can do more for you.

Watch the recording of our webinar on this topic:

Click here to download the slides used during this webinar.

The First Step: Asking the Right Questions

Whether you are new to UKG Pro or a veteran user, it is important to regularly review your current system and its configuration to make sure it is still the correct set-up for your company. Below is a series of conversation-driven questions you can have with your C-suite leaders, your HRIS team, or end users of the system, to understand your business processes, both current and desired. You can use these questions to guide you in your own optimization projects:

  • Do you find yourself entering the same data multiple times in UKG Pro?
  • Do you regularly run reports in Cognos, then fix the data in Excel, to get the data you need?
    Read our blog on Cognos Analytics to find out more about what Cognos can do for you and your team.
  • Does your data entry require many manual steps before it’s ready for UKG Pro?
  • Are you still processing benefit elections on paper?
  • Do your employees and managers have too much access (or too little access) to the system?
    The right system access may seem like a simple thing, but here’s an example of what can go wrong: a Mosaic client was helping managers get additional access to data on their employees. Working late on a weekend, the client inadvertently assigned Super Admin Access to all company employees. When employees started to find out they had access to C-level salary information, it was too late, and information began to spread like wildfire. While this is an extreme case, are you certain that access given to employees is appropriate? Too much access is just as bad as not enough, in some cases.
  • Does UKG Pro configuration match your business needs and requirements?
    Remember, have UKG Pro work for you – not the other way around! All businesses have their own processes and ways of managing their companies. UKG Pro can be configured to meet those needs in more ways than you may realize. Don’t work for UKG Pro by doing processes manually – make UKG Pro work for you!
  • Do decision makers have the necessary information available to make appropriate business decisions?
  • What types of dashboards and reports do your executives use? How stale is the data being used?
  • Is your executive team making potential life changing decisions on outdated data?
  • Does UKG Pro interface with vendors to provide real-time and accurate data on employees?
    If UKG Pro interfaces with your vendors, that’s great news, but when was the last time the interface was reviewed? Is it working correctly, does it provide the data needed? Or does your team still find themselves manually manipulating data before it is sent off? UKG Pro can save time and effort, reduce the likelihood of human error, and free your team from manual tasks to focus on the highest and best use of their time. For more on UltiPro Interfaces read our blog on UKG Pro Integrations.
  • Does your team have the right tools and knowledge of UKG Pro to support your organization?
  • Are you prepared for an audit? What about a different interruption?
    Some audits may be planned, and others may be a surprise. If the department of labor came to your office, how prepared would your team be and what would they find?

All of these questions will help you assess whether you are getting everything you need out of your UKG Pro system. And the answer isn’t a one-size-fits all: UKG Pro can do different things for different organizations, depending on your need. The key is making sure that you’re using it to full capacity, whatever your strategic business needs.

What is a System Optimization Review?

A good first step to optimize your system is a complete system and process review. Assessing your UKG Pro system is a process that you can undertake on your own, or you can bring in a specialist to help you.

A System and Process Review gives you a comprehensive understanding of the areas that may be underutilized where you can focus to begin optimizing your UKG Pro system

A system review is performed by a seasoned consultant who spends two to three days onsite, on the ground, with your team – C-suite leaders, your HRIS team, IT, and any others who use your UKG Pro system. During this time with your team, the consultant probes to learn about all company processes and configuration, and whether UKG Pro is properly configured to support those processes.

The benefit: you’ll gain a comprehensive view of your current functionality as well as future, best-case functionality, and a road map to get there. Mosaic recommends System and Process Reviews to all clients who wish to ensure their UKG Pro is fully optimized. Click here to read more about how one of our clients benefited from their System Review. Interested in moving forward? Contact us today!

Note: UKG Pro was formerly UltiPro.

UKG Pro Integrations: Files, Data and API’s, Oh My!

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Employee-related expenses (salaries, benefits, taxes, etc.) comprise up to 70% of a company’s total operating expenses – which makes leveraging HR technology to make informed business decisions imperative. HR, Finance, and Operations leaders’ ability to use data effectively to move the business forward depends on having a reliable central source for company data, and the ability to seamlessly update and ensure data integrity, in concert, across many different technology platforms.

For many companies, UKG Pro serves as the “system of record” for most employee and organizational data, making it the best and most reliable source to feed systems, vendors, and processes. Integrations help maintain data integrity in internal and external sources, using UKG Pro as the source of truth, for improved accuracy, security, efficiency, compliance, and decision-making.

Watch the recording of our webinar on this topic:

Click here to download the slides used during this webinar.

Why Use Integrations?

Integrations help systems to interact, working with consistent, accurate data among the multiple systems to make informed decisions. Integrations have many benefits, such as enhancing the user experience, improving processes by consolidating data to make it more consumable/actionable, and limiting manual work for your payroll, HR, IT and accounting staff. UKG Pro integrations help free your team of mundane and repeatable tasks to focus on more global and meaningful aspects of your business: your people, your strategy, and the bottom line.

Integrations help data flow from UKG Pro to other systems and to vendors who use employee data to support your company, such as:

  • New hire set-up from your recruiting and applicant tracking system to UKG Pro
  • Hardware procurement and set-up and IT access for new hires
  • Keeping time clock and scheduling system up to date
  • Sending 401(k) demographics and contribution information to a vendor
  • Revoking facility access of an employee upon termination

Which Integration(s) Are Right For Me?

There are many types of integrations to import data into UKG Pro from an external source or to push data out of UKG Pro. Determining the type of integration to deploy will depend on many factors, including:

  • Data fields to be sent/received to/from other system(s)
  • Frequency of the data exchange
  • Resources available (IT resources, staff availability, staff experience)
  • Priority, sensitivity, and security of data being exchanged
  • Restrictions/Capabilities of the UKG Pro integration methods
  • Capabilities and data transfer methods available with external system(s)

In addition to these factors, we recommend a quick review of your business processes to help identify opportunities for an integration.

Integrations can also address security or compliance vulnerabilities. Automatically generating and sending general ledger files to the GL system eliminates the opportunity for manual manipulation the GL files. (manual manipulation of GL files has been used to cover up fraudulent payroll activities.)

An Overview of Various UKG Pro Integrations

UKG provides many methods and tools for integrating UKG Pro with other systems and platforms. Most common integrations fall in the following categories:

  • Web Services/Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) – UKG Pro’s Web Services and APIs are commonly used for integrating with recruiting/applicant tracking systems, Active Directory, and global third party pay, or directly to systems with built-in API functionality. An API runs on an application server – which can be hosted and maintained by your internal IT department, or you may choose cloud-hosted API platforms (such as Cloud Connectors, Mulesoft, or Informatica). You can find documentation on UKG Pro APIs at connect.ultipro.com/documentation#/api.
  • SQL Framework Interfaces – These are custom exports or imports that are built upon UKG’s defined development framework. While these types of interfaces are customized to your (or your vendor’s) specific requirements, they are programmed in a standard method which ensures compatibility with future UKG Pro upgrades. SQL interfaces typically generate text files to send to the system or vendor, and they can be automated to run periodically or run based on triggers (such as payroll close). Common SQL interfaces are 401K Contributions, medical files, HSA/FSA contributions, General Ledger files, and NACHA files.
  • Ultimate Carrier Network (UCN) Interfaces – A UCN interface is an export built and maintained by UKG for a select few large benefits vendors. If the benefit vendor is available as UCN, these interfaces are very cost-effective.
  • Web Import Tool – The web import tool provides a platform for importing data into UKG Pro from third-party systems or files that you develop and controlling the flow of data into UKG Pro Core Web, either manually or automatically.
  • Backoffice Imports/Exports – Backoffice imports and exports are built as templates that allow mapping and logic to create a repeatable process for importing or exporting data into or out of UKG Pro. Common use cases include:  time clock imports, GL exports, and bank NACHA files.

Ultimately, integrations help UKG Pro stay in sync with other applications, vendors, processes and services to improve efficiency, reduce vulnerabilities for fraud and abuse, and help company leaders make more strategic, informed decisions.

Note: UKG was formerly Ultimate Software. UKG Pro was formerly UltiPro.