Microsoft Human Resources

Microsoft D365 Human Resources

Dynamics Human Resources

Dynamics Human Resources is as the name suggests Microsoft’s human resource management solution (HRMS) available as a cloud based application that can be deployed independently or as part of a wider ERP deployment of Dynamics 365.

Axsoftware have long been recognised as specialists providers of Human Resource consultancy, supplying consultants directly to end user clients and the wider Microsoft Partner network sine 2005.

With extensive experience of some of the most high profile and complex deployments there have been to date of HR, Axsoftware have been involved on both client and partner side implementations guiding both as to the best way of leveraging the most out of Microsoft D365HR’s capabilities.

Microsoft’s continued investment in Human Resource functionality demonstrates the importance they place on this once over looked area of Dynamics. As most employers will state it’s all about your employees and workers and we are seeing continuous improvements to D365HR.

As a consequence of this continual improvement, the need to develop additional functionality has dramatically reduced (at one time it was normal to expect to have to develop OOB capabilities). New tools such as MS Form’s and Power App’s have also added new ways of enhancing the standard behaviour of D365, we are not suggesting these become the perfect answer to functional GAPs but they do bring flexibility to the system and less of a reliance on your Microsoft Partner company.

Microsoft D365HR built upon the functionality available within AX2012, taking what were some solid foundations but considerably enhancing the capabilities and processes that surrounded them to the point that D365HR can be positioned as a stand-alone HRM system but better still can bolt into the wider capabilities of D365FO

Here is a quick summary of some of those enhancements we particularly like noting that workflow and approval capabilities underpin all of these new functions:-

Absence Management – With absence types, plans and entitlements, carry overs in hours and/or days this type of functionality significantly enhances what used to rely on an ISV bolt on application or alternatively heavy development.

Absence entitlement plans can be defined in hours or days, hours being particularly important to organisations that have part time working patterns.

This functionality also extends to the definition of the job and position an employee occupies with FTE being a factor that will accrue entitlements based on what the FTE equivalent factor is set at i.e. a worker with an FTE of 0.5 will accrue only half of the entitlement of a worker with a FTE of 1.0.

This kind of flexibility allows you to configure a minimal number of absence entitlement plans, an important consideration should always be the on-going maintenance effort associated with having too much differing configuration (someone has to administer it!)

Power Objects – Most features within D365 Human Resources have their own comprehensive and predefined list of Power Object reports that graphically display the information within the form you are in.

These out of the box analytical reports are designed around the functionality you configure in Dynamics, with sorts, filters and tools that allow them to be visually rendered on the form or easily exported etc. These greatly improve the look and feel of the product and remove what used to be a significant reporting configuration effort with associated costs.

It is fair to say however that in our experience clients always want more and this is were a BI reporting approach may also need to be considered as reports are very personal to an organisation and we find that there is never enough OOB variation and capability to satisfy everyone.

BI is also one of those specialised areas of expertise that we have within Axsoftware having a skills we often provide to other Microsoft Partner companies particularly around the Human Resources structure which is not so widely understood within the partner community.

Checklists & Tasks – Creating Checklists with your own definitions of Tasks is a great way to identify what needs be done, when and by whom whenever a worker on-boards, transitions to another position or company or off-boards an organisation.

Think of it as a simplistic workflow but without the technical overhead often associated with defining rules and conditions and you have a tool here that can be used to great effect within your HR department as well as your employee self service portal.

With the ability to detail exactly what needs to be done, with prompts of outstanding activities and tasks it is used to inform and track the progress of important tasks within your organisation. Users get to see what’s assigned to them and with administrator views you can centrally monitor that the wider organisation is adhering to the activities that need to be followed that ultimately provides you with accurate employee data as well as those efficiencies that prompt action brings i.e. I forgot becomes a redundant argument when its a prompt on your screen!

Dynamics Human Resources or standalone HRM Solution

We often get asked why we think an organisation should buy D365HR rather than a stand alone HRM solution which could be interfaced to Dynamics 365, it’s an option but here are some things to consider:-

1. The rest of the business will be familiar with Dynamics D365 using it on a daily basis to run the organisation, a different method of navigation, look and feel and possibly two sources of information can cause confusion in your work force

2. Workflow is an important productivity tool within most modern systems, many work flow activities follow reporting hierarchies these would need to be replicated in both systems. Developing functionality or creating an interface to do this will be complex, expensive and might not be that robust, whereas maintaining records manually is prone to error as well as admin heavy.

3.As work flows often need logic and are semi-technical in nature, the HR department will need their own administrator/expert as they would not be able to rely on support from the rest of the business who will have their own system to manage.

4.The wider business will never be as dynamically aware of the situation with regards to workers when two separate systems are involved, creating interfaces to help alleviate this can be expensive and impractical as many might be required.

5. Everything can be doubled up when implementing separate systems, data migration, configuration, training, maintenance, documentation, support, reporting – all need separate resources to perform these activities and the cost will rapidly escalate

It is fair to say that D365HR may not win a beauty parade when standing next to some of the well known HR systems available but you have look at the wider picture and beyond the looks. We implement D365FO as well as D365HR and we have integrated stand alone products previously to D365FO however the cost and the level of integration have often been a compromise and never as optimal as one would like.

Therefore as experienced partners we will not be afraid to challenge our customers where we see them making what we consider to be a poor decision, implementation is what we do for a living, our candour and pragmatism are generally received well and we would be doing our customers a disservice were we not to make a friendly challenge where needed.