by Michael Krupa on April 20, 2010
Guess what? The rumor on the street is that HR leads the industry in using the Software As A Service (SaaS) delivery model. Surveys say that customers still prefer best-of-breed solutions over integrated solutions so that means more HR applications instead of less. Guess what also is true about many of these SaaS applications? They still use flat files as the main vehicle to shuttle information into and out of the application. In this model the customer is still required to develop an interface to the SaaS vendor. Wait, what? As a customer you still have to do custom development even though you are using a SaaS application.
There are several other more state of the art options such as an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) or SOAP messaging. I don’t know about you but when an employee gets hired into my core HR system, I would love to have the employee information zip over to my SaaS based Learning Management System within a couple seconds instead of sometime that evening when the flat file interface gets run. When I push the button to fill a requisition in my recruiting application, wouldn’t it be great to have the new hire in my core HR system right away. Sorry SaaS Recruiting vendor, sending me XML files via FTP multiple times a day doesn’t count.
All is not lost fortunately. The HR SaaS application vendors are starting to incorporate messaging or ESBs into their offering. The most prominent example of this is Workday purchasing ESB vendor Cape Clear back in February of 2008. Since then Workday has embedded Cape Clear into their application to allow end users to create their own real-time inbound and outbound interfaces.
For those other SaaS vendors who are still stuck in the flat file interface, you better get it together soon. We are wising up and will be requiring state of the art real-time interfaces in our vendor selection criteria.
by Michael Krupa on April 7, 2010
In a previous post I gave out some software demo tips for vendors. Since then I have participated in another round of software demos and this time I have some tips for all you customers out there. Yes, you read that correctly. Customers also needs some tips to get the most out of software demos.
- Create “killer” scenarios ahead of time and send them to the vendor (ahead of time, like way ahead of time so the poor vendor can be prepared). Don’t know what a killer scenario is? Head over to Naomi Bloom’s blog here, here and here to educate yourself.
- Assign an owner for each scenario. When questions arise during the demo about the scenario, the owner should be prepared to answer that question.
- Bring all participants for the demo to the same city, same building and same conference room.
- If you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY can’t have everyone in the same room (are you sure you really can’t get everyone in the same room?) then make sure you get a conference room with a conference phone with enough microphones so the remote participants can hear the presenter and any questions from the audience.
- Speaking of conference rooms, make sure you get a large enough conference room that everyone has a seat near a microphone.
- If the demo starts at 9am, make sure the vendor shows up at least 15 minutes early and that you, the customer, have the room ready for the demo. By ready I mean, network connectivity for the vendor’s computers are ready, projector is powered on and warmed up. Otherwise the demo is likely start very late.
- If you have remote participants, DON’T PUT THE CONFERENCE PHONE NEXT TO THE FAN ON THE PROJECTOR. I’m sure you can figure out the issue with this one without me having to spell it out for you.
- Make sure you only have 1 version (1 truth) of your scenarios and fit/gap documents. Use version control and backup copies of your documents to ensure you know who updated the documents. Do not let the vendor take ownership of your documents and massage them to meet their needs for the demo or suddenly you will find yourself not on the same page (literally) with the Vendor during the demo.
- Match the content of the demo with the participants. If the demo is to show you the GL interface for Payroll you don’t need the head of HR but you do need your Payroll accounting folks.
- Put away the Blackberry and pay attention to the demo. I know this one is really hard for some of you but you will surprised how much more you get out of the demo when you give it your FULL attention.
Okay, that’s my list off the top of my head. What did I forget?
by Michael Krupa on March 17, 2010
On episode 45 of the Bill Kutik Radio show, Bill Kutik interviewed Jason Averbook and Jason Corsello regarding the HR year past and coming up. During the show the topic turned technical and Bill Kutik brought up the topic of whether SaaS will become the dominant delivery method for HR applications. In answering the question, Jason Averbook discussed the myth that you do not need IT help when implementing SaaS application. Spot on commentary by Jason until he says:
Software as a Service requires just as much IT support as any of these other solutions. It’s a different kind of IT support, a different skill set.
Sorry Jason but I am going to have to disagree with you on this point. SaaS applications do not require as much IT support as on-premise solutions. Let take a look at the typical IT tasks for supporting on premise vendor application and note the tasks that are also needed for SaaS applications:
| IT Task (performed by customer) |
On Premise |
SaaS |
| Perform capacity planning for new servers in company datacenter to host on premise software |
X |
|
| Purchase and install servers in Datacenter (install operating system, power, networking, monitoring, fail over, disaster recovery, security) |
X |
|
| Install application on servers |
X |
|
| Install database software, load database and manage ongoing database needs (space, performance) |
X |
|
| Customize application per business processes |
X |
|
| Create inbound and outbound interfaces |
X |
X |
| Apply application Tax updates, New features and patches |
X |
|
| Apply technology upgrade and patches |
X |
|
| Test tax update, new features and patches |
X |
X |
| Work with IT Change Management organization to implement changes into Production |
X |
|
My experience with SaaS applications show that you no longer need IT Datacenter support, Database Administration support, Application Infrastructure support and Application Development support (with the exception of interfaces). Poof. Gone. No longer needed. Depending on the number of resources either partially or fully engaged to support your on-premise application, this could be a sizable reduction in the resources needed as you shift to SaaS.
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know.
If I have not sold you on attending the HR Technology Conference & Expo by my witty Old Spice satire then you should know that the HR Technology Conference & Expo is THE HR Technology conference to attend. Each year the conference has a shootout session where multiple vendors demo their live software to a scripted scenario. The shootout has been so successful that this year there will be four separate shootout sessions with only 2 vendors per session. I’ll be hosting one of the shoot out sessions this year so how better to spend your money except to come see me live and in person as sheriff making sure the shootout vendors stick to the rules.