Customisation and Further Development

Standard Customisation in HR Manage

HR Manage is a generic human resource system that can be customised to meet the client’s needs. The system is extremely customisable and most fundamental changes can be done by the program administrator. In addition to the overall standard customisation options below that applies to the whole of HR Manage, each module in turn has its own customisable features.  See the “customisation” section in the individual module pages for more information.

Here are some of the aspects that can be customised:

Naming Conventions

HR Manage allows the renaming of certain entities throughout the program. The term “Branches” and “Departments” for instance, can be renamed to “District” and “Division”. The flexible naming conventions extends to the Training and Job Profiling modules where custom types of training (Course, Qualifications, etc.) and items in Job Profiles (Key Performance Area, Output, KPI, etc.) can be defined.

Custom Fields

Administrators can define new non-standard fields themselves for records in HR Manage. Fields can be either free text, a dropdown list (each field with its own lookup), date/time or number. This feature is available throughout HR Manage for people, training, workflows, etc.

Filters and Table Layouts

The Filter Engine and Table Column Layout can be customised for every module in HR Manage. Any unused fields can be removed and commonly used fields can be moved closer to the front.

Email Notifications

Email notifications are available throughout HR Manage. Individual email notifications can be turned on or off, the Subject line and Message Content can be completely changed using a visual editor. Values can be inserted into the message and subject line by the use of smart-tags.

Report Designer

HR Manage comes with an Internal Reporting Platform that enables users to design their own reports for any module, directly from HR Manage. Reports can be printed directly or saved as PDF files and others can be generated as Word documents using mail merge.

Theme & Skins

The branding and theme for both the HR Manage Windows application and HR Manage Online can be customised according to the client’s needs and corporate branding.  The Windows application allows selection from a gallery of skins while specific colours and elements for the web application can be customised.

Further HR Manage Development

When we receive a development request from a client, the requirement is analysed in terms of the overall HR Manage system. If the feature is something that is generic enough and part of our roadmap, it is scheduled for development and included as part of HR Manage in a future release. HR Manage is based on the collective knowledge and best practices of market leading companies throughout South Africa.

For requests that are deemed to be too “client-specific” for inclusion into the standard HR Manage package, we can develop it as an External Plugin.

 

Advanced Customisation through Plugins

External plugins are seamlessly integrated into HR Manage and acts as-if it is part of the standard functionality. The plugin uses the same core functionality, communication with server and security as HR Manage. Thus the user must first log into HR Manage in order to access the functionality for the plugin or if the user doesn’t have access to HR Manage and only the external plugin, the HR Manage framework will prompt the user for login when starting the plugin application. Security can tailored for the plugin and managed via the Security Management area to ensure that only the authorised users can access the plugin.  It is even possible to define custom security roles for the plugins to further narrow down access for users within the plugin.

We’ve developed plugins of all kinds from something as simply generating a custom management report for the selected Employee in HR Manage to a whole module for capturing overtime / rostering details for sub-ordinates.

Type of Plugins that can be developed

HR Manage supports the development of various types of plugins.  The type of plugin developed will depend on what the plugin will do and how it will be accessed.  Below is a summary of the different types of plugins that can be developed.

UI-less Server-side Plugin

This is usually a small console application that resides on the server that is integrated with the HR Manage framework.  Is is used to perform custom actions at specified intervals.  An example would be where a custom Workflow Activity was developed that needs to query an external system at certain intervals to provide feedback for the activity or if HR Manage needs to send custom data to an external system at certain intervals.

External Plugin Report

When functionality is required to generate a complex multi-sheet Excel Workbook based on data from various sources, then we usually develop it as this type of plugin.  The report will appear with the Seta reports under the Specialised Report Generator in HR Manage and allows for basic date and location filters to be specified.  In fact, all Seta and BBBEE reports in the system are developed as plugins which is why we can add or update reports without upgrading HR Manage.

Client UI Plugin

This is a plugin for the main HR Manage Windows application and can be developed to show up in specific modules / screens under specific conditions.  The plugin will create extra buttons in a Manager form (i.e. Employee Manager) and require one, multiple or no records to be selected (defined in the plugin) and then display a custom window that looks and feels like HR Manage for capturing data or performing actions.

Plugin Grid Report

This is a simple plugin that doesn’t actually require development.  One of our administrators can write a custom script that retrieves data from various sources and combines it into a single grid report.  The reports are accessible from the modules where they’re needed and additional parameters can be defined for filtering the data.

Custom Data Source for Report Designer

If the request is for a visual report that is used for printing, exporting or email, then we can design a custom data source that will be accessible from the specific module’s report designer.  We’ll design the data source and the report and it can be generated by simply selecting the appropriate record and choosing the report from the Print menu.  No actual development needed.

Custom Web Api

In the event where an external system wants to push or pull data from us that isn’t supplied by the existing APIs, it is possible to develop a custom Api that will provide the exact data that is required in the exact format / layout.  The external system will still need to authenticate through our existing Api framework so everything remains secure.

Plugin Workflow Activity

It is possible to develop a Workflow Activity that can perform non-standard tasks like retrieving data from a 3rd party system or sending data to another system or sending emails.  The possibilities are endless.  The workflow activity can be added and configured (with its own custom configuration options) from within the Workflow Designer.  The user won’t even know that it isn’t part of HR Manage.