Navigo is Growing
Posted by Rod Bishop in Navigo
It’s been a busy two months at Navigo to start 2010. We have some great projects on the go and I’d like to take a quick moment to share them with you.
January and February have been busy in preparation of the Navigo Australian HR Tech Report 2010. This has been a mammoth project: For those not in the know, in November and December 2009 Navigo commissioned a survey of 165 Australian enterprise-scale organisations to capture the current state of their HR technology. For the first two months of this year we have been analysing and preparing this data. The finished Australian HR Tech Report is now approaching completion and will be distributed free to every one of our contributors. We hope to spark some discussion and are already looking forward to the possibility of a follow-up report next year.
We presented our first industry webinar during February to Universities and higher-education providers around Australia and New Zealand. With over 20 Universities using OrgPlus now we took the time to highlight some great industry-specific uses for the software. The feedback we had was all positive so we look forward to preparing more industry-focused webinars in the near future.
Just finished are our exhibitions at both Mastering SAP HR and the Talent2 User Group conferences. Paulus Briels presented his new talk on practical succession planning “How to drive faster succession planning through visualisation” continuing our focus that skilled visual reporting really can enable workforce decision-making in highly effective, efficient ways.
Our team and Melbourne operation are growing! We welcome this month two new staff members into our Melbourne team, Michael Penny and Erin Allwood. In addition, next week we relocate to our new spacious offices in Ringwood. So much room presents opportunities for us to host training and OrgPlus user group meetings on our own premises, so we look forward also to exploring these opportunities later this year.
In summary, a very busy start to 2010 presenting many opportunities for the future. To all of our valued customers – as our team, capabilities, HR technology solution and service offerings all continue to grow this year we look forward to introducing you to new opportunities for your workforce decision-making – all while maintaining that quality customer service you have come to expect.
We look forward to touching base with you again soon.
Tags: latest news, Navigo
Navigo tweets this week
Posted by Rod Bishop in Navigo
- Big week this week: Exhibiting at http://www.masteringsap.com/hr Novotel Manly – giving away great prizes for the winners of our OrgPlus challenge #
- Building up for Alesco conference T2UG 2010 – Monday and Tuesday next week in Perth. Looking forward to seeing our friends in the industry #
Navigo tweets this week
Posted by Rod Bishop in Navigo
- Excited about our webinar, Higher Education: Meeting Change with Better Workforce Planning … due to start in 90 minutes! #
Creating Payroll Variance Reports with Oracle Discoverer
Posted by Ben Lamb in Oracle
Overview
I have had many clients ask me whether they can create Pay Variation reports in Oracle Discoverer, and how much effort is involved. It is possible and it is quite easy once you know how.
To create Pay Variance reports in Oracle Discoverer you only need access to Discoverer Administrator, and either Discoverer Desktop or Discoverer Plus (this example will use Discoverer Desktop) and a basic knowledge of how the products work.
Pay Variance reports allow users to compare employees pay details over two different pay periods. Not only will this allow easy reading for users but also allow the creation of calculations, conditional formatting and other Discoverer features that highlight the data users need to see.
The below image is what we will now create;
Setting up the new Folder
To create a Pay Variance report in Oracle Discoverer, the first thing we need to do is setup a new folder in Discoverer Administrator.
Most clients wanting to create a Pay Variance report will already have an existing Pay folder in their End User Layer (EUL) so we will start from this point. The below image shows the current EUL in Discoverer Administrator with the Pay folder expanded. Our aim is to duplicate the Pay folder and join it to itself.
Duplicate the Pay Folder
It is good practice to create a new business area when creating custom folders, so I have created a business area called “Human Resources – Custom”
Since we want to duplicate the Pay folder, we can simply copy it. To do this right click on the original Pay folder and click “Copy”
Next, right click on the business area that you want to add the duplicate the folder into and choose “Paste”
Your new folder should now appear in the business area you chose. Next, change the name of the folder to something a little more meaningful. I tend to call these kind of folders, the name of the original folder (In this case “Pay”) with the words “Outer Join” after it. This is because the next step is to create an outer join to the folder.
Joining the Folders
Now we will join the new folder to the original one. Do this by clicking on the new folder and clicking;
Insert -> Join
Then choose the field you want to join your folders by, in this case Employee ID and click “OK” to go to the join wizard.
Step 1 – Choose as many fields as you like to join the two folders together. The fields to join by are employee identification fields like Employee ID and Job ID. Don’t join by fields like Pay Period, as the point of this report to compare different pay periods, not join by them. Once you choose the fields to join by click “Next”.
*Note – The folder on the left hand side of the screen is known as “Master” and the folder on the right hand side of the screen is known as “Detail”, this needs to be known for Step 2.
Step 2 – When creating the join, it can be a good idea to create an outer join.
The difference between an outer join and a regular join is;
- A regular join means that there must be a record in both tables to join by. If a record exists in one table but not the other, neither record will be displayed in the chart
- An outer join means that when linking the folders together, a record must exist in the first folder, but does not need to exist in the second folder. For example if an employee got paid in one period, but not in the second period, the employee will still exist in the Discoverer report, but the second folder’s fields will be left blank.
We will create an outer join in this example to show records from the “Pay” folder even if they don’t exist in the “Pay – Outer Join” folder.
The join appears under the fields.
Once the new folder has been created and joined in Discoverer Administrator we can create the Pay Variance report using Discoverer Desktop.
Continue to page 2 to read this step …
Tags: Discoverer, Oracle, payroll, Payroll Variance, Variance
Forget the Text, Visualize your Data using Mapped Fields
Posted by Ben Lamb in Organisational charting
Overview
While text-heavy organisational charts will give you what you are after, they are often hard to analyse at a glance.
Mapped fields allow you to replace text on your org chart with images. This will increase the legibility of your chart, which makes it easy to identify employees who meet certain criteria, without having to study each box in depth.
In this example we will show you how to increase the legibility of an org chart by replacing two text fields with images. The fields are:
- Rating Trend – This field shows whether the person has increased or decreased their rating over the last year. The values will be replaced with images of arrows pointing up or down depending on their rating trend.
Eg. 
- Rating – This field shows the persons current rating which will contain values from Significantly Below target to Significantly Above target. The values will be replaced with a meter.
Eg. 
Below is a text heavy chart that we are going to modify to allow users to visualize the data.
Create the Rating Trend using Mapped Field
Starting with the above chart, we will remove the text fields and replace them with images, making the chart easier to read. To do this we are going to replace the field Rating Trend with the following images:
Where the rating trend has gone up from the previous year
Where the rating trend has gone down from the previous year
Where the rating trend remained the same from the previous year
To create a mapped field go to Data -> Define Fields and click Add Mapped Field. A new field will appear at the bottom of the list which you will be able to name and set the type to Picture.
Next we have to create the mapping between the values in Rating Trend and the images we want to assign to them. To do this click the field in the Options column and the Mapping screen will appear.
Choose the field you want to map the images to in the drop down box at the top of the screen called Map Using, in this case we will use the field Rating Trend.
To add mapping, click the Add button and choose the value of the field you want to map from in the Value column. Then choose the image you want to map to by clicking in the column Maps To and browsing to where the images are saved.
Repeat this step for all the different values you have for the field.
Once you have mapped all the values for the field, simply add it to the boxes in the chart or a profile like you would any other other field and the image will appear.
Create the Rating Meter using Mapped Field
Instead of showing the Rating field as text, we can display it as a meter, Eg. 
. This is also done using mapped fields and the following images.
Where the rating is Significantly Below Target
Where the rating is Below Target
Where the rating is On Target
Where the rating is Above Target
Where the rating is Significantly Above Target
To create a meter for the rating, follow the same steps as for Rating Trend to create a mapped field except this time map using the field Rating and link to the meter images
Once you have mapped all the values for the field simply add it to the boxes in the chart or a profile and the meter will appear.
Conclusion
Mapped fields can be used to show anything from flags to represent country of origin, to symbols for gender, employee type, or anything else you can think of. All that is needed is a field that has some standard values and some images to map to. OrgPlus comes standard with a whole library full of commonly-used images.
By using mapped fields rather than text fields, charts can contain more information and allow for data to be more easily identified at a glance – which ultimately makes your workforce planning faster and easier.
If you’d like help setting up mapped fields on your org chart, give us a call at Navigo in Melbourne on 03 9879 4060.
Tags: Mapped Fields, Meters, OrgPlus
Vote for Your Webinar Topic
Posted by Rod Bishop in Navigo
New releases for OrgPlus Enterprise 4.0 are now available which can accomplish more for you than ever before.
New OrgPlus capabilities include:
- Collaborative web-based modeling
- Tracking organisation change over time
- A fully featured succession planning suite
We’d like to walk you through of the new features that interest you most.
Please take two seconds to place your vote here, or leave us a comment with details of what you would like to learn.
Whatever is most popular amongst our OrgPlus Enterprise customers will be distilled into a short webinar available for you in February.
Customising Your HRIS the Right Way
Posted by Peter Forbes in HRIS
It's rare to be happy with out of the box functionality.
It’s a rare occurrence when an organisation is happy with out of the box HRIS functionality.
During implementation, it may be that HR/Payroll changed their practices to fit the features of the HRIS. But over the life of a system new information is required to be stored and processes change. The HRIS will need to be customised to meet these requests.
Knowing the right way to approach customising and extending the functionality of your HRIS is critical as the downstream impacts can be expensive and time consuming.
Most organisations have learnt the perils of customising a core vendor product: expensive modifications that can only be performed by the vendor, re-doing the custom work to roll into the next release, or even worse, stuck on a version of the software unable to upgrade.
Only when there is no other alternative should you consider customising your core HRIS.
Another way of adding site specific features to your HRIS is to leverage off existing structures and create new functionality (screens, reports, transactions) that act as extensions not customisations. Extensions, when done correctly, leave a lighter change footprint on your HRIS reducing the ongoing cost and effort required to look after more traditional customisations.
Here’s a couple of points to look out for when planning your next HRIS extension:
Look for current HRIS functionality
Are you sure the new feature the HR Director says she needs is not available in the system? Make sure you read all the documentation you can lay hands on including user guides, release notes, whitepapers.
Talk to people in your user group, and check out any vendor forums. Talk to other organisations in similar industries – chances are they have come across the same issue and already have developed a solution that you can use.
Leverage off current interfaces and data structures
The complexity of a customisation is impacted by the number of screens, business logic and storage objects required to enter, transact and store for the new piece of functionality. To reduce complexity, look at existing tables and functionality to find ways to hook off core functionality.
Examples:
- storing affiliates or contractor information in the employee and job tables creating new codes to distinguish them from salaried employees
- using the survey functionality in Employee Self Service to accommodate performance reviews of employees
- using flex/custom fields to store additional information rather then creating a new table – most HRIS have this functionality
Be sure to consider data volumes and the impact of storing your data in these existing structures as the system grows.
Planning HRIS customisations
Avoid hardcoding – Use codes and config data to keep the HRIS flexible
There seems to be a school of thought that because you’re developing a customisation it’s OK to hardcode that department or employee status code into your program. Not only is this lazy design, but it prevents business users from having any configuration or control over the customisation.
Keep your customisation flexible and future proof by driving key features – employee applicability, department scope, trigger conditions etc – by leveraging off system codes and setup configuration (example/ codes, CON_DEF’s and code rules in the Alesco HRIS).
Create a framework for building and managing HRIS extensions
Consistent packaging and managing of customisations prevent common issues like moving between non-production and production, identifying customisations and re-applying patches for new releases of the software.
Use consistent naming scheme for your tables, views, screens and reports. Consider using a prefix like your company name on your new objects. Has the HRIS vendor provided a developer pack or customisation guidelines? Make sure you follow them.
Maintain a register of customisations and extensions listing the modules/programs affected and why it was developed. The register comes in handy during upgrades to determine what impact your customisations have against the latest release and whether you still need it.
As organisations recognise the benefits in having the HRIS as the single source of record for employee data using Self Service as the delivery platform, it makes sense organisations will want to extend the capabilities of the HRIS.
Vendors are recognising the need for customers to extend the system and I think we will soon see an explosion of more frameworks, API’s, web services, business rule frameworks that allow more extensibility in HRIS – without the headaches and disadvantages of traditional customisations.
Tags: customising, extending, HR technology, HRIS, Navigo
Navigo tweets this week
Posted by Rod Bishop in Navigo
- It's a great start to the New Year! Looking forward to new employees, new conferences and new opportunities. #
- http://ow.ly/VmSu New Office Administrator Wanted! Bring your love of tech, attention to detail and join our Melbourne team. #
- The Australian HR Tech Report 2010 survey is now complete. We're collating the info now and will look to publish our findings soon. #
Office Administrator Wanted
Posted by Peter Forbes in Navigo
This is a great opportunity for an experienced office administrator with great attention-to-detail to join a fun, friendly and cutting-edge business solutions and services company.
The Person
We are looking for a self-starter to join our Ringwood-based office in a full time role.
If you’re what we are looking for you will be an excellent organiser, have high attention to detail, and be able create and follow processes to streamline, automate and improve our back office operations.
Additionally you need to be computer savvy, pro-active, good at spotting issues and be able to work to a high standard.
The Role
This role covers all aspects of managing our back office. You will:
- Process product orders and support renewals
- Generate invoices and undertake accounts payable and receivable activities
- Use our back office systems to create/maintain processes and procedures
- Manage our relationships with re-sellers
- Be involved with customer communications and marketing initiatives
- Undertake general office duties
This is a great opportunity to put your precise standards and great organisational skills to work in a growing and forward-thinking organisation, and a fun and stimulating environment.
You will have plenty of opportunity to take on new challenges and responsibilities and will receive ongoing training and support from a company that truly values its staff.
How to Apply
Do NOT email your CV or Resume!
Instead, be prepared to sell yourself. Phone 03 9517 7846 to leave a message and tell us why you’re right for the job. We appreciate your participation, however only short-listed applicants will be contacted.
We look forward to hearing from you!
OrgPlus Premium: Track changes to your chart!
Posted by Belinda Walsh in Organisational charting
I’ve worked with a number of customers over the past 6 months who have gone through a restructure or merger. A common problem amongst them all was how to capture the changes made and then report them back to the business area or HR for approval.
This is where OrgPlus Premium comes in. OrgPlus Premium, the latest release in the OrgPlus Desktop product suite, assists with this issue by tracking changes you make to your organisational charts. Each change is recorded as it happens, appearing on the Track Changes panel.
Once you’ve finished remodelling your organisation you can use the Track Changes functionality to manage the actual change; create Personnel Action Notices, export a summary of the changes, send the chart to management for approval plus many more options.
To track your changes in OrgPlus Premium:
- Click on the Show Track Changes icon on the toolbar at the bottom of your screen.
NOTE: This icon will only be available if you have purchased OrgPlus Premium - Click on Start tracking Changes text in the middle of the panel
- This will open the Track Changes panel, which shows you all of the changes you have made to the chart
- Using the toolbar on the left hand side you can add, relocated and remove subordinates, managers, co-workers and assistants as required.
Each change will appear in your Track Changes panel on the right hand side in real time.
- Once you have made all of the required changes you can then perform the following actions:
- Accept the changes in the chart
- Reject the changes in the chart
- Export a summary of all of the changes
- Print a copy of the changes
- Create Personnel Action Notices for all/some of the changes
This functionality is not only useful to keep track of all the changes you have made but it can also assist in actioning the required changes.
Other ideas to assist with organisational restructures:
- Create some formulas to calculate the Total Salary, Total Headcount & Total Full Time Equivalent for the entire chart and add this information to your summary, watch these values automatically update as you model your re-structure changes.
- Create some formulas to calculate Salary Rollup, Headcount Rollup & Full Time Equivalent Rollup for the current box and its branch and add this information to your boxes or profiles, watch these values automatically update as you model your re-structure changes.
- Use conditional formats to highlight staff performing below average and use this information to deliver a more “targeted” restructure.
For more information on the track changes functionality, or to ask about upgrading your Professional license to a Premium license, feel free to call me (Belinda) on +61 3 9879 4060.
Tags: OrgPlus, OrgPlus Premium, restructures, track changes, workforce modeling, workforce planning
