This case study discusses the implementation of Empxtrack for a customer who had an existing appraisal system. During the migration to Empxtrack, they also wanted to capture the data from the old system. Since this situation may exist with many companies, we discuss the technical challenges and approach for meeting this time bound task.
The client
The client is a mid-sized U.S. based bank holding company that provides full service banking facilities to its customers. They had an electronic Performance Appraisal system which they were looking to upgrade. This case study discusses how Empxtrack could meet their needs.
Existing performance appraisal system
The existing legacy performance appraisal system (PAS) was not easy to use and there were numerous support issues. The system required employees to document their accomplishments and their managers to assess these and provide ratings. The existing workflows did not allow this to happen seamlessly.
Further, HR was not able to review the quality and consistency of the feedback and monitor the progress of the review cycle. Since the performance review used last year goals and past performance data, it was extremely important to retain all the old data.
The client wanted a performance management system that could support their newly introduced Situational Leadership II program and help employees setup and track individual goals and define development plans. Also the new system was expected to be compatible with all browsers.
Key requirements
- » Managing data for 700+ employees, 130 managers, and 4 HR managers in the new system.
- » Retaining old data that was available in the old PAS database.
- » Completely secure system with single sign on and integration with active directory.
- » Retaining old process such that the system could be easily accepted by the existing staff, yet introducing new features to handle changing needs.
- » The go-live to happen within 2 months to meet PAS guidelines.
The approach and solution
Empxtrack analysts quickly documented the existing process and created a gap document for the customization team. In addition, they created formats for capture of legacy data.
The implementation teams configured the appraisal system as per the requirements. This included the setup of 3 goalsheets (past, current and next year), a competency section and a development planning section that mapped to the Situational leadership program. The data migration team developed templates and code to move data from existing data to the new system.
The new solution was implemented within 20 days and released for initial review. At this stage, additional changes related to language customizations and images were achieved in a short timeframe. The system was ready for rollout with all employees and relationships setup in the system.
During data testing, it was observed that the legacy data in many cases was incorrect or of wrong formats. On analysis, we observed that the legacy data contained binary formats and non-standard HTML. A number of employees and managers whose reviews existed in the legacy system were no longer in the organization. The legacy system had been changed multiple times since it was implemented first and there were inconsistent appraisal formats in the database.
Empxtrack migration team worked tirelessly and wrote a number of data cleanup and migration utilities that looked at each legacy appraisal and converted it to either the new database format or PDF files (if conversion was not possible). All of this was completed in the original deadline and the new system was released as per schedule.
Benefits
- » The client got a new performance management system that mapped to their specific needs.
- » All legacy data was migrated to the new system.
- » Employees quickly adapted to the new system without any re-training.
- » The new system supported multiple browsers and was integrated with their Active Directory for Single sign on.
- » HR was able to monitor and review the progress of the review cycle with dashboards and reports.
- » Empxtrack teams met or exceeded all the expectations set before them.
Disclaimer: Maintaining security of our client data is our prime responsibility. The name of the company is not disclosed in the case study due to confidentiality agreement signed with our client.
