Employee/Human Resources Open Source Packages?

Linker3000 asks: "I'm a great fan of Open Source software (I just wish my programming skills allowed me to give something back) and I have already impressed my boss by implementing a company intranet based on eGroupware, our broadband connected servers are monitored by Nagios, staff can participate in online surveys using PHPSurveyor and they can also attend online learning using Moodle, but so far I have not found anything to take care of our Personnel/HR requirements - a simple tool that would keep employee details, allow the Web-based booking, signing off and tracking of holiday requests and act as a repository for personnel-level correspondence and activities between staff and Area Managers. I have had a look through Sourceforge, Freshmeat and Google without finding anything even near to ideal (there's a few things in various states of readiness and planning), so am I missing that 'one' Open Source HRMS (Human Resources Management System) that 'everyone talks about' or do I need to start looking at commercial apps? Either way, your advice and experiences would be appreciated."

Comments

Excuses excuses.

[TheTomcat]

[Yes, I know this is offtopic. I'm posting without the bonus, however, I do half-expect to get modded through the basement for it. Please be gentle.]

"I'm a great fan of Open Source software (I just wish my programming skills allowed me to give something back)"

"I don't have good programming skills" is a pathetic excuse, when it comes to Open Source. There are tons of ways to give back, without having high-end C/C++/Java/whatever skills.

Two ways that come to mind, immediately, are:

• Help with a project's documentation. Many OSS projects have mediocre documentation. It doesn't take a lot of skill to fix typos, expand sections and write up HOWTOs on things you've done. Perhaps you even know a language other than English, and can help with translation? The same concept applies to projects' User Interfaces, if you're artistically inclined.
• Help newbies. Many projects have general-inquiry mailing lists that are flooded with simple-to-answer questions. You've probably already overcome some of the hassles of installing the software that you use on a given configuration. Share your knowledge.

Other areas in which you can help are: sysadmin, mailing list moderation, meta-projects, hosting... etc.

If you already do [some of] these things, then kudos to you--you DO give back.

(as you might've guessed from the links, I'm involved with PHP's documentation, but I don't write much C. Though I don't frequent php.general, I do give back in a number of ways..)

S

HR types don't like things like this...

[bergeron76]

In my experience, HR types typically _hate_ when IT guys get in their business. I've found that they hold on to the little bubble of power that they have, and don't want Sys. Admins knowing anything about anything HR related (who gets paid what, etc).

That's just been my experience. I tried to have the HR girl at one of previous jobs use an "Add new employee" intranet page that would add the user to the network, phone system, and even print them out a little sheet of paper with their phone extension, user sign-on's etc. She reluctantly obliged my department half of the time. The other half of the time, it was a pissing match about "it's not my job to add users" (I told her it was a user-add "request").

Anyway, just be weary of HR types when you try to come into their space to make their lives easier.