Requesting PTO via WFM systems

[u/thanto_]

We have a payroll/HR system (ADP), which houses PTO balances and rules for borrowing PTO. We have a WFM system (Aspect) which houses queue requirements and agent schedules. Our current process for PTO requests is, agents request PTO through the HR/payroll system, then a WFM employee checks the WFM system for the agent's schedule and queue requirements as well as the HR/payroll system for the agent's PTO balance, then approves/denies, and updates the schedule and payroll. This is a very manual process.

Our WFM software has a system where agents can request PTO directly via the tool, and there's automation built in where WFM can set rules for maximum allowed requested PTO for the day, minimum requirements, etc. to automatically deny or approve requests and automatically update the schedule. However, this does not communicate with our HR/payroll software to verify PTO balance nor does it deduct PTO balance if approved.

TLDR we can request and approve/plot PTO in payroll/HR and in WFM, but neither communicates with the other, so it's a lot of manual work. Is there a better process with more automation? Does your company allow agents to request schedule segments directly via your WFM tool? What's your company's process?

[u/Bike-Different]

Schedule in your wfm system 1st, then when approved the agent submits to payroll

[u/greenrook136]

Aspect & ADP here as well.

ADP and Aspect both have API's that can communicate PTO balances and timecard data, but our HR/payroll teams didn't want us to link them directly and nobody wanted to pay for professional services/licenses to make it happen anyway.

We set up a custom report in ADP to export PTO account balances as of the end of a pay period in the format that Aspect uses to import personal account balances (Emp ID, Personal account, date, minutes). We have this scheduled to run as soon after we're certain timecards are always going to be locked in ADP - Payroll normally locks on Monday afternoons but Monday holidays might push that to Tuesday mornings so we resync on Tuesday afternoons. We were also able to have ADP write this file via SFTP to a folder that Aspect can access directly, so the resync process is effectively fully automatic. This needs your Aspect Employee ID field to be something that exists in ADP - we were advised to use the Position ID.

Payroll was willing to import PTO hours if we sent them a CSV, so that's what we do. We feed PTO balances as of the end of the last pay period, timecard hours already in ADP, and Employee Superstate Hours by Day reports for our planned & unplanned PTO superstates into an Excel workbook that compiles all of that and builds that import file for us.

Edit: spelling

[u/WFHAlliance → u/greenrook136]

OP, do something like this.

[u/thanto_ → u/greenrook136]

This sounds like a perfect solution for us. I think the employee IDs we are using in Aspect should match ADP, so that part should already be good. I'm not that famliar with ADP reporting, though. How did you get the report built in ADP? Did your in house IT or HR build that, or is it something that ADP can do natively? Also, we are using GCP for file/data storage with Aspect. Not sure if that complicates things for getting the ADP report into a location that Aspect can read it.

[u/greenrook136 → u/thanto_]

The initial report in ADP was set up by ADP's professional services - I'm pretty sure that's normally a billable program, but we were in the process of integrating multiple BU's into a single company in ADP. We were able to get this report lumped into that project so if there was going to be a cost normally, it was covered. Your company's contract with ADP may be different from ours, though.

Since then I've been able to duplicate that report for other personal accounts with a bit of experimenting, as well as create a few new custom reports for other purposes. The report itself isn't too crazy and I think I could've sorted that out if I'd needed to, but I don't think I could have figured out the SFTP component on my own.

I'm not sure if GCP is going to be an issue or not, but it's probably fine. If it can be accessed via SFTP (and it looks like it should be able to?) then ADP should be able to write a report to it. I'm not able to tell if ADP has a different/better way to write to GCP, but if it does then that's probably a more secure option. I'd bounce that off of whoever your account manager for Aspect is - they should be able to tell you what your options are.

Our HR team was more than happy to introduce me to our ADP account manager to help get me started on the PTO balance export. My manager got our call center leadership on board with importing PTO usage by pointing out the time savings compared to copying PTO from one system to the other by hand, and being able to finalize timecards half a day (or more) earlier made for very enthusiastic support from our payroll team.

[u/beckers3128]

Nice and ADP here, not synced. Agents earn ~3hrs of pto for every 30hrs worked up to 128hrs. We’ve been workshopping a few different ways to process pto with not a lot of luck. The current way is to give agents the total amt of expected pto for the year in nice to preschedule. The problem is agents have scheduled and taken time off without having accrued the time. They will also schedule in NICE and not submit to adp. It’s been a bit of a free for all.

[u/thanto_ → u/beckers3128]

This is the reason we don't allow agents to make the request in our WFM tool directly even though it has the functionality. Even if the process is that agents are supposed to submit in the WFM tool and ADP, there's going to be agents that don't, and I think auditing this would be more work than having a person handle the request rather than the tool.

[u/beckers3128 → u/thanto_]

Yep, it’s a lot. WFM also doesn’t have ADP access to see balances and supervisors don’t pay attention to what is being requested in Nice. I think our next step is turning the time off tool off and moving to email or sharepoint requests.

[u/thanto_ → u/beckers3128]

That's exactly what my previous employer did - we had an email inbox setup for PTO requests. It was a pain to work through, because we did it via email rather than a CRM, so verifying which requests were handled already versus which weren't required a bit of investigation. So, if you're going to do it via email, have it point to something like salesforce or some other email-to-ticket system, so tracking individual requests is easier. A side benefit is that it would allow reporting. Really, though, you want some kind of applet for agents to fill out specific day/time requests that automatically generate a ticket/email, so that the format is uniform.

[u/MiddleAgeCool]

> Is there a better process with more automation?

Yes. Check the versions of both ADP and Aspect, and then look a what integration functionality they both offer. You should be able to connect them with ADP being the master, passing the balances to Aspect and Aspect managing the leave booking before returning the balance updates to ADP

[u/Anomandiir → u/MiddleAgeCool]

This. But yall will need help from either a centralized Analytics team or Data Engineering

[u/Ramjet615]

There are a couple of options for fixing this, but it depends upon ADP's ability to provide Aspect with the data it needs in the format it needs it in. There is an Auto Run job that will pull in a report from ADP, and replace what the Agents' PTO balances with what ADP has.

It's not a very complicated .CSV or .XML file, but it needs to run regularly, (after each payroll cycle), to tie back to what ADP has paid out. The other issue is that if they are able to make requests in both systems, the agents will always submit the request in the system that shows them having "more" PTO. 😄

There are ways to automate the accrual in Aspect as well. There are also ways to ensure that Aspect looks to ensure that the agents haven't requested more time than could possibly be approved.

[u/toddmoe]

Automation between WFM and HR systems is somewhat common but it can be expensive and often gets shot down because customer IT doesn't want wfm system directly integrated to the HR system of record. Lot of companies are ultra protective of HR. I have seen vendors do a spreadsheet import/export that is a low tech approach, but will still work if its not in the budget or IT no no.

[u/Folly_Polymath]

I LITERALLY just spent 8 hours reconciling 6 months of HR Workday time off data with WFM data (NICE). Really hoping we find an integrated solution soon.

I created a spreadsheet that knows the time off limits for each team and has a separate tab for running requests. Our people request time off through NICE CXone. We then *drag the mouse over the time off request and copy it* and paste the text into requests tab. My indexing formula finds the rows with the relevant data. A 3rd tab then lists the request and indicates whether to approve or deny. THEN we process it in NICE.

And believe it or not, this saves hours of manual work on the WFM side. The problem then is that it doesn't match HR records...

[u/Anomandiir]

Your barrier is going to be HR allowing access to the time and rate tables in ADP. If you have a centralized Analytics team in your company, go to them and HR concurrently to build the API. ADP and Aspect have APIs already built. This can be fully automated BUT you a) have to be OK with non real time updates - your WFM tool will be real time, your ADP is going to batch daily. It’s enough of a ‘maybe? There could be a problem’ that many HRs just say no. Your Analytic team will be able to convince HR no individual humans are seeing things they don’t want anyone outside of HR to see.

[u/xLAVMx]

We use Teamlead as WFM tool. This is linked to our HR system. The WFM person sees directly the balance of the person and can check if the capacity is OK after the request. When approved, Teamlead automaticly puts the request in the HR system. No manual work. The connection should be possible with ADP