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 Ready
Score 8.1 out of 10
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Designed for small businesses where everyone wears multiple hats, UKG Ready® is an HR solution that guides users through their day-to-day HR activities. Capabilities span from HR and payroll to talent and time.
We chose to switch to Kronos because Optimum Solutions had not kept up with the times. We are now able to use multiple types of devices and Mobile Apps to help our employees and managers stay on top of hours as well as approving PTO on the go.
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 representatives are comprehensive in their work and communication. They listen to what you need and verify with you at every step. We required fields set up expressly for our funds and funders and had multiple accounts. They were able to set this up as needed.
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.
When you open a ticket, they research and test the answer before they contact you so they know it will work for you. There's no troubleshooting on the phone. All the work was done beforehand.
They are super knowledgeable and supportive. They are a pleasure to work with.
They are way ahead of the game when it comes to technology and innovation.
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.
I would like to see the balances for PTO described and grouped differently. Employees continue to be confused with the "Projected balances" section. Maybe this can be worded one way for the users and another for the admins.
The Passwords to access the system, plus the need for a verification code, is a huge pain point for our deskless workers. We have a lot of frustration around accessing the system to clock in and out, request time off, etc. The increase in user adoption is a struggle.
It would be great to have UKG Pro and UKG Ready in one application on the mobile app; having access to areas to simply punch in and out for your daily shift is counterintuitive.
We plan to renew our support and use of UKG Ready each year unless it becomes unavailable or the district seeks another vendor. As of now, there are no plans to changes vendors. The district staff is now familiar with using UKG. Another vendor will need to meet the same expectations we have come to enjoy with using UKG
I put 8 for usability because for some people it may be difficult to use if they are not tech savvy. There are a ton of options and building out your own workflows could be confusing if you do not know what you are doing. However, UKG always provides great learning material and support to aid and teach you.
The system seems very stable. Being hosted in the cloud, we are vulnerable to internet speeds and busy times. The system has been down a couple times over the 3 months we have been live, but Kronos resolved the issues very quickly. To have access from a desktop, tablet, time clock, or phone app is one of the best features....users have almost NO REASON they can't clock in.
We were always told that Kronos was the best, but there are reports that we got out of ADP and other payroll providers that we cannot get out of Kronos. One example is a report of Productive/Non-productive hours by department. We also need the dollar amount associated with the hours. This is information that is required on our cost report and we were told that that report is unavailable. It is very frustrating when I can't get what I need.
If I was only rating support itself that would be a 10. Every support case I have entered has been addressed efficiently and with the desired result. On the implementation and transition to support there were multiple issues that those doing the implementation or transition could not answer or workflows and various settings left undone only to be discovered later. We implemented 3 different modules and the expertise we got for each one varied widely.
Our in-person training was a hybrid. Live online training with an instructor. They were very knowledgeable of the product & the area they were training on. I asked several specific questions and if they didn't know the answer immediately they followed up after class.
Pretty good online training, you have many how to options and can watch them several times. It can be hard at times to dig through the amount of data online but can usually find what you are looking for. Also you can download documentation for setting up the profiles and policies.
Make sure the people who are doing the build have extensive knowledge on employment law and asking the right questions. I would bet that the people who helped with our builds did not read any of our employment contracts or ordinances; and when I asked questions about how other companies handled certain basic dictates from federal employment laws, they didn't have any idea what FMLA, FLSA, etc were.
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 is great for reporting and for having a pleasant UI. I find that Paylocity has a lot more innovation, but sometimes its reach exceeds its grasp when it comes to implementation of those features. ADP is bog standard, and it works pretty well, but there's little interest in looking good, which matters a lot when it comes to the wide variety of users the systems need to handle.
This is basic, but we finally know how many employees we have! It sounds ridiculous, but prior to UKG Ready we were on a payroll system that's reports were only as accurate as the last payroll cycle, so they were always 2 weeks behind and static. UKG Ready allows for realtime, daily reporting of information.
We are able to get salary data for our various locations to be able to compare them to each other, as well as across our "competitors" and external competition.
The data provided allows us to be able to understand the trends at individual locations including attrition, advancement, raise information, and other data points that we haven't historically done comparisons on
We can see the demographic and geographical information for our employees and the benefits that they elect
