How to create an HR/Employee Document Management System with Oracle E-Business Suite and Applaud

Ed Waller is an Oracle Managed Service Support Analyst at Claremont. He says that in his role it’s not always all about the large-scale implementations, digital transformation projects, or leveraging new technologies. A lot of his and the team's primary work function is just the opposite, it's about ensuring continuity, stability, and reliability of the underlying solution.

As well as these aspects it's imperative that the underlying Oracle Technology is up to date with the latest legislative updates, that the system is secure and that the CPU and product patches have been applied.

Part of Ed's work involves closely working with HR and Payroll departments ensuring that the systems in place allow all the day-to-day tasks the system facilitates to happen without question and that the HR and Payroll department's critical functions can occur.

This includes ensuring that everyone gets paid the right amount on the right day at the right time, requesting leave, booking an absence, registering an overtime claim, applying for a new role, etc.

What is Employee Document Management Software and why is it important to use one?

A key element of any HR department is the collection of sensitive employee data. An employee file typically contains offer letters, employee contracts, salary information, benefits, disability information, and other personal information.

Employee Document Management Solutions are becoming increasingly popular and important for businesses and their HR departments as a single platform that improves efficiency and productivity while also ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

Employee Document Management Solutions securely store, manage, and allow the sharing of employee documents improving collaboration and communication among employees and their HR departments.

They also keep track of employee documents and ensure that these documents are up to date, keep track of employee observance of company policies as well as allow for an audit trail of the HR function.

What are the benefits of an Employee Document Management Solution?

An Employee Document Management (EDM) solution can be used to store, track, and retrieve employee records and create and manage employee workflows. EDM software can help organisations improve efficiency and compliance while reducing the risk of data loss.

Employee self-service is a major benefit of using an Employee Document Management System, by giving employees access to their own records, they can take care of many routine tasks without needing to contact HR.

How to set up an HR Employee Document Management System with Oracle E-Business Suite

An existing client mentioned to the Claremont Oracle Managed Services team that they needed to improve their existing labour-intensive, paper-based, and entirely off-system Human Resources onboarding process.

The team at Claremont took a closer look at the current onboarding system in place. The capture of documents for new starters was largely a manual process and relied heavily on the hiring manager to initiate the activity and was open to human error and delay.

The process to capture documents was diverse across hiring managers, with people working on what they thought was best rather than a common effective task flow. Because there was no mechanism for centrally recording or reporting the process, this meant that the process lacked visibility and transparency.

Without an understanding of completed activities, holding hiring managers and the HR team to account was time-consuming and didn't allow for administrative efficiency.

Claremont was keen to listen and had the perfect solution on how to create an Employee Document Management System, while still utilising their current Oracle EBS technology.

Creating a system that allows for administrative efficiency

The customer needed a more holistic end-to-end solution, providing a clear and repeatable mechanism for capturing the right employee information in the right format.

A solution incorporating automated communications to set expectations and deadlines, check point progress and send reminders for outstanding tasks. With data stored “on system”, this would allow for Management Information (MI) reporting and allow for improved visibility of tasks completed or outstanding.

Claremont's Employee/HR Document Management Solution

After discussing our customer’s requirements, we worked together on a solution that leveraged the standard functionality of Oracle E-Business Suite and Applaud HR's software. And by utilising Oracle's Documents of Record, meant that it was a natural fit for storing the employees’ documents within the application.

Applaud’s support for Oracle's Document of Record allowed us to tailor the solution to make it straightforward and easy to use for managers. Applaud allowed us to build a customised form with drop-down, free text, and date fields to capture the required information about each document to be stored in the application.

Applaud's support for mobile and tablet devices allows managers to upload information quickly and easily without logging onto a desktop or laptop.

It allows managers to be prompted to complete only the fields they need to based on previous values chosen. Information entered into the form is validated and appropriate error messages are displayed to the manager.

Oracle Alerts were leveraged to remind managers to upload documents on the hiring date of their new employees. Reminders were sent to managers if the information hadn’t been uploaded a week later. This was configured to be escalated to the HR team if the information still wasn’t added. As the solution uses Oracle’s Document of Record functionality, HR Administrators can view and amend any uploads without any customisations or changes to the application.

What benefits does this Employee Document Management Solution offer?

The solution only requires limited configuration and leverages standard Oracle and Applaud functionality. It allowed us to build a cost-effective solution that appears completely bespoke to the managers. The solution improves the onboarding process for the managers as they are reminded of what they need to upload for their new employees. Previously this was something they needed to remember to do themselves. Uploads can be reported on by HR so any gaps can be investigated and managers can be prompted to complete the required uploads.

The Business Outputs

It’s surprising how it’s not always the largest or most obvious changes that deliver the most benefit to our customers. Our analysts have been able to bring together a group of uncomplicated existing system components and greatly improve an area of the business previously considered to be a problem area.

Claremont's Oracle Managed Service is about more than just keeping the lights on

Our analysts have a hugely pivotal role to play with our end users to ensure that they are getting the most out of their existing Oracle EBS solution, engaging and educating users on systems usage, and sharing knowledge on potential process improvements. It's also about ensuring that the systems are complementary to their needs and that they make the end users' and the employees' lives more efficient, effective, and easier.

Choosing the right Managed Services Provider

If you are looking for an Oracle Partner who can help you with your Oracle Managed Services, goes about it the right way, and can back up the talk, then contact us.

And if you would like to find out more about Employee Document Management Solution or have a question, you can email us at info@claremont.co.uk or phone us on +44 (0) 1483 549004.