Optimum Solutions, Inc. was a software development company providing Payroll, Human Resources, and Time & Attendance software for both the IBM iSeries (AS/400) and Microsoft Windows platforms or in the cloud. In October 2019 they were acquired by Kronos, Inc (now UKG after merging with Ultimate Software). Former Optimum products are now supported by Kronos / UKG, and are no longer sold available for sale.
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UKG Pro
Score 8.0 out of 10
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UKG delivers cloud-based HCM solutions including UKG Pro that help businesses simplify payroll computations, accelerate talent acquisition, manage time and attendance, and support proactive, strategic talent management on a global level.
UKG Pro is competitive in its pricing models but more transparent than some other products we have used. They are consistently ranked as one of the top employers in their industry and this comes across in all dealings with their employees from contract negotiations, to …
UKG Pro is a robust platform comparable to ADP TotalSource and Optimum Solutions. Both ADP and Optimum had better custom reporting capabilities that were more user friendly than the UKG Pro product. One other area that I think ADP and Optimum did better in is benefit …
Optimum Solutions works very well for all our payroll needs. We run payrolls weekly, semi-monthly, monthly and yearly. The end of year process is lined out very well and webinars are available to go over any new regulations required. We haven't utilized the HR part of the software as much on the iSeries but are planning on changing that once we get converted to the Windows version later this year. The main reason for this is the HR part of the software on the iSeries is separate from payroll.
UKG did well when we had issues with employees working for both agencies. We called the Rapid Response Team, and they fixed those issues on their back end. Another example is with the Amended W-2 form; they gave us instructions to do it ourselves, but it was not working, and need to make phone calls to get help.
The setup of Optimum HRIS was intense as the software comes as a basic shell and everything is personalized to our organization. All earnings codes, leave time, employee types, job codes, taxes, etc. are set up for each company. While this was almost overwhelming at the beginning, we have so much control over the set up and better grasp of the inner workings of the system.
Tax updates come quickly and are easily applied. This is especially welcome at year end.
The built-in reporting is robust and offers a lot of options, but the ability to dig in to the database using SQL and Excel allows for very powerful reports that are infinitely personalized.
UKG has an amazing support team to reach out to if assistance is needed
All add-ons of UKG Pro integrate seamlessly making it a powerful software program
UKG Pro is very configurable to meet the specific needs of companies
It is easy to use and navigate
The mobile app is loved by all employees and provides on-demand access
The Ultimate Community is amazing!! On-demand information on all products and how they are used. Connect with other companies that use UKG Pro and learn from each other.
The Learning Centre is also amazing!! Learning right at your fingertips anytime, anywhere.
When exporting reports to Excel I found the formatting to be difficult to work with and having to reformat the reports can be a nightmare. My company's IT department created its own business tools to make the reporting format more user friendly.
As UKG is aware, the support for customers needs some improvement. As the recent changes to the staffing/support hierarchy take effect, I hope to see some relief to the current frustrations.
As the UKG Pro products evolve, they need to become more integrated and less segmented. Having to purchase multiple products that then need to coordinate for processing leads to issues.
As users, we have a lot of options for self-service and customization, but some simple fixes still require assistance from UKG support. Give us the power to help ourselves whenever possible.
We are overall happy with UltiPro and it works well for our organization and we have plans to expand our usage of it even more so we will definitely be continuing with the product. We are thinking of adding the functionality for training and recruiting as well, which is an add-on product
Mobile App: Really easy to use and its nice to have an HR software that actually has an mobile application to be able to enter time and to take care of everything with. Web App: The system is relatively easy to use with maybe a little training at the beginning if you have used another system. But the site is really easy to use and a lot better having everything under one roof
I've found Ultipro to be completely reliable. Outages are typically planned to occur on weekends and only once did I have connections issues connecting Citrix to the server where our environment was housed, but within the hour connection was restored. I think that's a pretty good track record, considering I've used the suite daily for over three years. Especially when processing payroll--say the internet goes down in the middle of you performing a task... Ultipro is able to recognize that a connection error occurred and quickly restores the process that was running, avoiding lost productivity.
Normally UKG Pro loads quickly. We had been having major issues with reports running in a timely manner but recently they broke out our virtual server to another instance where is wasn't sharing resources and that seems to have helped reporting run more efficiently.
The quality of UKG Support is related directly to the UKG rep. who handles the issue. In some cases you get someone who really is good at supporting the product and others may not have as much experience and it shows
I've been to a few in-person (hands on) training sessions and it is very similar to the online classes. You have the same reference material to look back on after the training. So regardless of in person training or online you really get the same thing.
Most of the online training was very generic (to be expected) but we had specific requirements for configuration that could have been better addressed with more individual sessions earlier on from our project team. However, we did finally begin booking training sessions with our implementation team which were recorded, and so provided additional information for how to correctly configure and test the system.
Make sure you have all of your tax account information with all the states you are registered in available and that you are knowledgeable about the filing status, frequency, etc. We had some unique challenges with our state unemployment tax set up that I was not aware of and needed to be addressed prior to going live. Working with the state unemployment office can be a challenge.
We evaluated some payroll services but found the ongoing cost greater than the initial cost of purchasing our own software and keeping the payroll process in house. Other payroll software was generally more expensive and we are satisfied with Optimum Solutions. I would say the main reason we stayed with Optimum Solutions, converting from their iSeries version to their Windows version, was because of their outstanding staff and support.
UKG Pro won hands-down. The flexibility, the family feel of the partnership, the customer support model, the reporting, the scalability, and the custom-programming needs of company-specific items were all much better than the competitors. The cost comparison also came in either close to or less than the others so the cost/benefit FAR outweighed the competitors.