Are you using the HR and Payroll modules within Dynamics GP and looking to extend the information and functionality of these modules to your entire organization. If so, SharePoint provides the perfect platform to accomplish the following Employee Self Service (ESS) functions:
- Employee Profile – Give your employees the ability to view and correct their own personal data leading to improved data quality
- Dependents and Emergency Contacts – Add, delete and edit personal contacts that are imperative in case of an emergency or for insurance validation
- Manager Self Service – Managers can view the personnel, pay, skills and performance data for their team without having to ask someone in HR to provide it to them
- Pay Stub and Direct Deposit – No need to distribute pay stubs if employees can view them and change their direct deposit accounts all online
- Taxes – Provide state and federal tax withholding forms enabling employees to change their withholdings when the choose
- Departmental Transfers – Automate department transfers by triggering the appropriate chain of approvals to streamline the approval process for both the employee and HR
- Consideration Stand Alone Web Application SharePoint
Dynamics GP – Business Portal: What is Available Out of the Box?
If you are using Dynamics GP the Business Portal provides the foundation for building your Portal on the SharePoint platform. However if Dynamics GP Business Portal is not meeting all your business requirements before you throw in the towel and look at Employee Self-Service solutions that cost per user/per month investigate how can extend the base portal to meet your employee needs and streamline your administrative tasks.
Business Portal gives the basic framework for typical ESS needs however we so often hear how hand-cuffed you are with limitations. By utilizing SharePoint you can extend the benefits of your existing Business Portal deployment that highlight additional information to the employees and allow for further automation of administrative tasks with a holistic .
Why use SharePoint for ESS?
If you are already running Business Portal for GP you have an ESS framework established and SharePoint will keep you from re-creating the wheel and paying per user fees monthly while you design the balance of the functionality that is uniquely needed for your organization.
In the case that you already utilize SharePoint for Document Management within your organization you can take ESS to the next level by leveraging several benefits of SharePoint. There is no need to duplicate the work you have already done. SharePoint will allow you to take advantage of Active Directory Windows authentication vs. deploying a third party stand-alone web application which will require you to re-create and manage users in another application. Plus you can leverage native Outlook integration for easy review and approval of tasks triggered from the ESS site. Additionally, you will be able to leverage either Active Directory or the Dynamics GP HR modules for organizational approval hierarchies rather than again re-creating and managing the list in another application.
Allowing employees to manage their personnel information and streamlining HR tasks with an Employee Self Service site will save on overhead costs with payroll and HR but more importantly give employees the privacy and timeliness to directly view and update their own data. At our team can work with you to ensure you are utilizing the out-of-the box functionality to the utmost of its capability and if your requirements are not entirely supported by the Business Portal, our development team specializes in extending its functionality to the next level via SharePoint.
Let’s see if Business Portal and SharePoint is the right fit … schedule a demonstration of Business Portal today or call me at 562.366.0827 with your ESS/Business Portal challenges.
By Mike Marcin, Systematica Inc.,
