We do not shift our focus and in each release we continue to work on improving the user experience of the SMART HCM & LMS platform. In addition to global functional updates, our team has modified the platform interface using a more modern and faster React technology. Interface improvements have been made to the main page, recruitment and goal setting sections. And the mobile version of the platform has become even more user-friendly.
Keep reading to learn about the functional updates in SMART HCM & LMS.
Linking employee’s position with individual development plans
Before moving on to the main updates of the 2nd part of the release, let’s mention the July update for the IDPs. In the 1st part of Release 21, we wrote about the new possibility for employees to self-assign individual development plans.
We found it relevant for such plans to be linked with the employee’s position. That is, now when creating an individual plan in the system, it is linked to the main position occupied by the employee. This will help distribute and have several development plans in the case when an employee combines positions.
Improved assessment of employee’s goals
We have made important updates to the goal-setting process, which allow us to more accurately process data and asses employee performance. In addition, the section itself has become more convenient to use.
New rules for making changes to tasks
In this release, we have improved the logic for editing tasks. Now the ability to make changes to tasks is assigned to their statuses.
How does it work?
For example, if your task has a “Completed” status, the data in it is not editable. This will help avoid distortion of the result assessment data.
Renaming “My Goals” to “Individual Goals”
Customers who have already installed the Release 21 update may have noticed that in the Personal Grades tab, the My Goals option and related fields on the platform pages have been changed to Individual Goals. Why was it done? According to customer feedback, it turned out that My Goals were also associated with the General Goals of the employee.
How does it work?
In the Personal Grades tab, an employee can see the general goals of the company, division, etc., and their individual goals assigned to them in accordance with the occupied position. This gives the employee an understanding of their importance in the global picture of business processes and how the achievement of their individual goals affects the achievement of the general goals of the company.
Modification of the goal deletion mechanism
We have improved the procedure for deleting goals to avoid storing irrelevant tasks in the system.
How does it work?
When a goal is deleted in the portal, the tasks related to the selected goal are cascaded out in the database. This is convenient, because the user does not need to waste time searching for links with inactive goals and manually deleting such tasks.
Linking field description to goal result calculation
You can now add tooltip text for the Result Calculation Rule field on the goals page. The HR manager can leave a clarification for deeper processing of the results in the future.
How does it work?
- In the administrative panel, in the Fields Description list, find the Result Calculation Rule record and open the card.
- In the Description field, enter the text to display in the tooltip.
- After saving, the portal user can view additional information by hovering over the tooltip icon.
Updated logic for displaying irrelevant positions
The My Team Goals and My Team Grades pages only display active employee positions.
How does it work?
The HR manager deactivates the position in SMART HCM & LMS -> Positions. This may occur in the event of dismissal, making an employee redundant, or for other reasons.
When a manager continues to work with the My Team Goals or My Team Grades pages, the deactivated position is not displayed.
Assessing result measurement by assigned goals
The system offers to assess the result of achieving the goal by three main parameters: “Percentage of goal completion”, “Weighted result” and “Adjusted percentage of completion”. For the convenience of measuring goal achievement, we supplemented the form with the goals assigned to the employee and the “Adjusted percentage of completion” parameter, which allows you to assess the result of the goal in accordance with the levels indicated in the scale.
How does it work?
The value in the “Adjusted percentage of completion” field corresponds to the value obtained on the scale used to assess the goal and the weighted result calculation. The system automatically fills in the field with the scale value after calculating the “Weighted result”.
Improved grading scale filtering by goal
We have made the Scales directory in SMART HCM & LMS adaptive for working with different HR processes. Scales can be used in assessing skills, competencies, assessing the level of certain knowledge, as well as assessing goals.
For the convenience of managing grading scales, the mechanism for selecting scales, that is, filtering, has been improved.
How does it work?
When creating an Assessment Procedure with the “Goal” type in the “Scales” field, you get the result of selecting only the scales of the “Goal” type.
Employees have access to the results of skills and competencies assessment
We have received a request from our customer to make the assessment results available to employees. Therefore, the Skills and Competencies Assessment module has acquired new functionality.
How does it work?
In the Results section on the portal, the employee selects the required assessment procedure and, by clicking the View Results button, receives a detailed picture of the assessment results:
- a list of skills, competencies for which the assessment was carried out,
- list of respondents who participated in the assessment,
- grades given for each skill or competency,
- the average score obtained as a result of the assessment of skill or competence by all respondents,
- average score obtained for a group of skills or competencies,
- comments received from respondents – both within the framework of a specific skill or competence, and on the results of the assessment as a whole.
Extended recruiting capabilities
Improved automated recruitment procedure
At the recruiting stage, when you have already decided on the final candidate, the recruitment process using the Hire button starts automatically. For convenience, we have improved the message informing about the completion of recruiting a new employee.
How does it work?
The system independently creates and fills in the fields in the employee card, the Contract and Position Assignment forms. After completing this procedure, the corresponding message will be available to the HR manager in the Notification system field.
Please note: in order for the data to be correctly pulled up, you must first enter information in the following forms:
- Vacancy: data on the position to which the employee will be assigned after hiring,
- Position: data about the manager, administrative manager, and manager’s position.
Work of external users with the portal
Our customers always tell us what they lack in working with the portal. We listen to them and implement their wishes. This release adds a beta version of the functionality that expands the possibilities of searching for candidates: an external user (not an employee of the company) can go to the portal and leave a response to a vacancy of interest. When responding, they can attach several files at the same time, which allows the candidate to submit not only a resume, but also other files, such as a cover letter or portfolio if you are looking for a graphic designer.
New functionality for more convenient work with candidates
In Release 21, the recruiting section was technically modified, thanks to which the following functionality became available to users:
- on the page with the list of applications for vacancies, the principle of displaying inactive vacancies has been changed: all rejected or closed vacancies are displayed in gray and are available only for viewing data,
- fast scrolling in the vacancy application card to view a large amount of data,
- on the candidate’s page, the manager can view the feedback about the candidate and respond to it.
Planning training with delayed start
We’ve improved the possibility of a delayed start for assigned training modules, courses, and plans.
How does it work?
When creating a template for a training item, the HR manager specifies the number of days in which the training item will be available for the employee to complete after assignment.
The employee sees the assigned training modules on the portal and the time in which they will be available for passing. This allows them to estimate the volume of training materials in advance and plan their workload in order to more conveniently enter the learning process.
Convenient filtering of corporate events
The page interface of the corporate event management section has acquired a new user-friendly design.
Now you can use filters and sort events by period or interest.
You can view the upcoming sessions and apply for participation.
Clicking on an event or session tile takes the user directly to the activity page to learn more about the event.
The new Praise tool is one of the methods for providing feedback. It differs from the standard 360 assessment process in that it allows employees to provide feedback to colleagues in a simple and informal way at any time without waiting for a regulated period. In previous releases, the Praise functionality was available only in the chatbot interface. In the new release, we moved it to the portal interface, making it the only point of feedback for all employees.
How does it work?
Users will be able to independently view the received praise, see their number by category, or thank a colleague by creating a new praise in the Achievements -> Praise tab.
Thanking a colleague is easy: an employee just needs to click -> Create Praise, fill in the form fields and click -> Submit.
Before submitting, you can view how the praise will look.
By default, the Praise page displays data for the current month, while an employee can display data for the entire period by selecting the desired option.
The employee has access to all the praises in the selected category.
We have added the ability for employees to view the rating area, which reflects the achievements of each employee:
- employees who have been praised most,
- employees who have become leaders by sending most praise messages to their colleagues,
- the most active user of the Praise section.
Good motivation, right?
As we already mentioned, the Praise functionality can be used from the system and chatbot interfaces, that is, information and all processes are displayed in both places. When working from the system interface, the Portal mark is automatically added to the Praise card, so it will be convenient to track the origin of activity for statistics on the use of this functionality.
Stronger security measures and data protection
New document access rights system
We understand that all documents and data uploaded by users to the portal must be protected, and access to them must be personalized.
To increase the level of security when accessing or saving documents in the system, improvements were made that make it impossible for other users of the portal to access the document database, and also restrict the access of unregistered users to employee documents. The new system of access rights does not store a link to a file, but only its ID.
We improved the reliability of data transfer in the event of errors in the operation of the Azure Service Bus and added an informational message for customers if an error occurred during data transfer.
Token authentication with Azure AD
Due to the fact that Microsoft Dynamics Business Central/Navision will no longer support basic authorization (login/password), we implemented authorization using Azure AD and improved the API architecture so that our customers use integration with the system in the future through secure authorization.
SMART HCM & LMS Security Policy
In addition, we have developed the SMART HCM & LMS Security Policy, a document containing and describing the principles on which the solution is built:
- a list of Microsoft services on which the product is based, level of their certification,
- cookie and personal data storage policy,
- means of protection against high-risk threats,
- methods for protecting integration with third-party systems,
- security monitoring tools.
Such a document will greatly facilitate maintaining the system on your own.
