Linux HR Management Systems?

dgcrawford writes "A growing, 100-person company I work for is looking to integrate a Human Resources Management System into their Linux computer base. Does anyone have experience with any products that fit this need? Does it interface well with payroll, applicant tracking, maybe even finance and stock or other non-monetary compensation? I realize most of you would look at this from an IT point of view, but how did the system work across fields? And how important/useful did you find this interoperability?"

Comments

Try this

[Martz]

I haven't tested it, but I was looking into something similar. Open Source at least.

http://www.orangehrm.com/home/

VMWare Appliance for quick testing: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/72 1

Re:Try this

[GNUDeep]

I have installed Orangehrm. Installation is very simple and it has a nice GUI. Currently I am evaluating the product. Orangehrm is a PHP Mysql application. Deep

Re:Try this

[sarixe]

Dear Anonymous Coward,

Sure, having better relationships will make you happier. Think about it. The essence of a good relationship is happiness, right? So the better the relationship, the happier you'll be.

The one thing that gets me about your post, though, is that you seem unwilling to accept women as real people, instead resorting to easy answers like a psychiatrist, or a For Dummies book. The answer is not that simple. You have to treat it as such.

Re:Try this

[endianx]

Unless you are still in school (then I suggest you do it through the normal means), eHarmony. No joke. Expensive but worth it. Been with the first girl I dated from there for 9 months now.

I have never been to a shrink, but I suspect they are BS. A book might be able to show you how to trick a woman into sleeping with you.

eHarmony.

(Sorry for the OT everybody, but I thought I'd try and help.)

Re:Try this

[Linker3000]

We've looked at OrangeHRM and may start a pilot in house shortly (approx 250 employees). It has promise but it's not there yet - good basic functionality, a slightly quirky interface but not a lot of internationalistion yet.

Sure worth a peek and keeping an eye on.

Re:Try this

[brsmith4]

I have never been to a shrink, but I suspect they are BS

What leads you to suspect this?

GP, perhaps you should ignore this person. Therapists can be helpful, if this is truly a problem for you. Though I suspect that WHBT.

Re:Try this

[endianx]

I disagree with you. Isn't that the definition of trolling?

Anyway, I just don't think a therapist is going to talk you through anything a friend couldn't in regard to relationship advice. Being introverted or shy, or whatever, are not mental disorders. I bet if you were to spend one hour a week in meditation on the subject, or talking with a friend, instead of paying hundreds of dollars to someone so they could listen to your talk, you would do just as well.

Now if every time you get around a girl, you start to hyperventilate and then pass out, or something, then yes, maybe that is the point where you need to seek professional help.

Didn't mean to upset mental health workers. The point of something like eHarmony over therapy or a book, is that with eHarmony, you try and find someone who likes you, whereas with therapy or a book, you are trying to change yourself so that someone will like you.

Re:Try this

[brsmith4]

Perhaps you've had a sour experience with one "shrink". Thats no basis for knocking the entire profession. You also present many traits of one with a closed mind (towards the process), a great degree of cynicism, and a general distrust of other individuals. You already have it out for the guy because you think he's trying to exploit you for money so he can drive a BMW. You need to tell him this. Something tells me, also, that the court is not going to hold you liable for $7.5 Million dollars for court-appointed treatment. Thats just absurd. Many therapists negotiate their rates for their patient's financial situation.

Re:Try this

[brsmith4]

I agree with much of what you said, except that a persistent and pervasive pattern of shyness that keeps you away from social situations and badly affects how you live your life (one recognizable symptom of this can be a lack of a sex life) is probably more than just plain shyness. I'm not saying that therapy will definitely help, only that its worth it to talk with someone. If you show up for your first session and they write you an Rx that day, obviously, you'd be best served by seeing someone else. Its worth some investment to see if it will do something for you.

instead of paying hundreds of dollars to someone so they could listen to your talk, you would do just as well

I think this statement speaks to an overall misunderstanding and ignorance of how the process works. I'm not a mental health worker, but I am someone that has seen some great benefits from work with a therapist. I have also seen people that have gone to therapists who should have just talked to some friends. Sometimes it can be hard to draw a line to distinguish what constitutes a pattern of behavior that requires treatment and one that can be overcome by getting a little help from one's friends. If a problem has been affecting one for much of their life or is the result of serious trauma, its probably not something a friend will talk you out of. I think the GGP's description of his problem reflects something more similar to this though I could be wrong.

ofbiz / opentaps

[ls671]

Does anybody on /. have experience with ofbiz / opentaps to do HR management and linking to payroll?

I have been looking briefly at opentaps recently. I did not find much documentation so far and I am looking forward to hear success stories with the product.

Any hints or evaluation of the product is welcome !

Thanks,

Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

For payroll my company uses something called a "ledger", which is a sheet of paper where you keep track of what you're paying people. For applicant tracking and stock/other compensation, I'd suggest a "file cabinet".

Applicant Tracking

[j3tt]

Installed and currently trying this Applicant Tracking System ... http://www.catsone.com/index.php May not directly answer your question but it's an interesting HR-related app.

Lots of HR systems run on Linux

[MartijnL]

The question wouldn't be that you're looking for a Linux HR system but something that runs on Linux. There are lot's of business apps that run on Linux such as Peoplesoft. They officially support running it on Linux since april '04. SAP HR also does Linux. Lot's of smaller web-based HR systems also run on Apache/WebSphere etc. so integrating those into a Linux oriented infrastructure will not be a problem. Interfacing with the apps mentioned in the question is what every HR application should to correctly (payrolling being no.1) just make a first selection based on rough features and invite the companies over for a chat.

Re:Lots of HR systems run on Linux

[GreyPoopon]

Add SAP to the list of vendors that provides an HR module that runs on Linux. In fact, their enterprise systems work by adding a standard virtual layer to whatever operating system you choose. So, should you want to migrate to another OS in the future, it would be no problem. They provide pretty much everything you could possibly want. They only question is about cost -- in your case you should check our their small business products to see if something suits you. (Business One comes to mind) http://www.sap.com/smallbusiness/index.epx

Re:Lots of HR systems run on Linux

[Bovarchist]

Unless you really need some of the features of PeopleSoft, like multi-language support, I would advise against it for such a small company. It's cost can be enormous, even if it is on Linux. It was designed for much larger institutions and even though I'm sure it would work fine for your HR needs, it is probably overkill. I spent 2 years as PeopleSoft developer and I would never use it for my own company.

scalc

[MichaelSmith]

Since our HR department does everything in Excel, this tool would probably do the entire job.

Re:scalc

[Bazman]

Does your HR department keep these Excel spreadsheets on a shared network drive too?

I've been trying to get our department to sort out some kind of department information system to keep track of which offices staff are in, phone numbers, emails, statuses, who supervises who and all that, but no, we will continue to use a DASS[1] system because that's what the admin people are used to. Every so often they print out the staff list spreadsheet and stick it in every pigeonhole. In three days time its out of date - someone has moved office or a new person has started. I really want to build something with a framework like Django but I don't have the time and I suspect the Head of Dept won't sanction spending techie time on this when we spend all our time firefighting user problems... Okay, rant over. I'll see if any of the other solutions in this thread are usable straight off...

B

[1] Diverse Assortment of Shared Spreadsheets

Re:scalc

[MichaelSmith]

Does your HR department keep these Excel spreadsheets on a shared network drive too?

Of course. The really silly bit is that they are always referred to as databases.

Re:scalc

[jacksonj04]

Ah, you obviously need to inform your HR department about the new EINA-FDB recommendations. The industry has been trying to get them generally accepted for years now.

(Excel Is Not A Fucking DataBase)

Re:scalc

[thethibs]

(Excel Is Not A Fucking DataBase)

The neither were DBase or Paradox. Excel does everything they did and more.

SAP

[Anonymous Coward]

you could try SAP - its got an HR module - plus integration into others...
it runs on linux
it comes with source code for all the appliactions (not open source though)
it runs on an open source db (maxdb) ...
its not cheap though!

We have a simillar issue..

[robzon]

.. in our company and we're considering creating a custom solution (Ruby on Rails makes it possible at sensible cost!). Plus, it's easier to later adjust your own code rather than something written in PHP. And of course then we can map proccesses occuring in our company onto the application, not the other way round. This way is good for some companies (not for everyone tho).

Re:We have a simillar issue..

[Anonymous Coward]

We're an ISP that's created a lot of management software in house, including our time clock system. We track hours in a MySQL database. We have a few legacy PCs with a touch screen LCD and a barcode scanner at the entrance to each of our offices. Everyone scans their bar code and enters a 4 digit PIN on the touchscreen when entering (clocking in), and scans their bar code when exiting (no PIN needed when leaving / clocking out). Add a PS/2 keyboard wedge to the barcode scanner, a standard HTML form with an input box, a little JavaScript (specifically, we set our focus to the input box when the "swipe" screen is up, and monitor the number of characters in the barcode input box, waiting for a whole barcode to be scanned).

So, with all of our employee hours in a database already, it would not be hard for us to write an application to manage our payroll and export data to any application (or even a PDF) to be printed onto a real check automatically. Granted, I would probably wait 20 or 30 checks working on the alignment when creating the PDF, but the up front cost savings would be large. But, there are some things that are better left to outside companies. Payroll is one of these things, as there is a bit more to it then (hours*wage-(wage*tax rate)).. Payroll can be a time consuming and involved process.Let a company handle it for you. They will take out taxes, allow you to offer direct deposit, and will be your agent for dealing with the state in regards to taxes, unemployment, and workman's compensation insurance. Also, when an employee files for unemployment (or, better yet, gets fired, moves away, and files in a different state where you haven't even established an account before), they will be your liaison with the state in regards to all unemployment proceedings. The service we use (Paychex) will even go to court for you for matters of unemployment and workman's comp.

Re:We have a simillar issue..

[passion4]

Or you could just use TimeTrex, the open source payroll and time management suite and save yourself all the effort and money.

My company has been using it for over a year now and its like night and day compared to maintaining our old in-house system, plus it handles ALL our time and payroll needs.

Oh yeah, being able to view my pay check online from home is great too!

Oracle E-business Suite R12 would fit the bill

[sricetx]

Oracle HRMS + iRecruitment would do the job.

ABS

[ClaraBow]

At our company we use ABS software packages which run on Linux servers and are accessed on the desktop via ANSI terminal. Very reliable, but it does it isn't free.

Mod AC up

[Bearhouse]

There's more to HRM than payroll, but fully agree that payroll is something best left to the specialists, unless you're a 500+ enterprise with a dedicated payroll dept. Two reasons; 1. Confidentiality & security. 2. Keeping track of relevant legislation & incorporating it into the app. Also, do you wanna be the tech that has to explain to x angry people why their salary did not arrive? I've been there - was not nice.

Stick to recording and pre-processing time & expenses...

Debian has it all ;-)

[Skinny Rav]

A quick 'apt-cache search human resources' revealed The Truth:

craft - Warcraft 2-like multi-player real-time strategy game
dstat - versatile resource statistics tool
t1utils - A collection of simple Type 1 font manipulation programs

Bugger, it might not be what you were looking for after all ;-)

Cheers

Raf

Tiny ERP

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tinyerp.org/ has a nice HR module. Should be worth give it a try.

Brightmove ATS

[q-the-impaler]

This is a software-as-a-service system that I heard will be open sourced soon.

http://www.brightmove.com

google says...

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

search linux payroll software yes, I know HR is more than payroll, but you know... if the payroll modules work well it is kind of an important indicator...

timetrex.com

http://www.paythyme.com/

then there a about a dozen sponsored links...

Tiny ERP

[Marc D.M.]

I've been following this project for a couple of years now. Tiny ERP is an open-source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite written in Python and uses PostgreSQL.

It's a client server application, with the client available on Windows, Linux and Mac. The server will run on Linux.

It has HR and many other modules that you can use. And you can use one module or many modules for your installation. It will also allow you to integrate with your existing data sources. Check it out.

Oh, and I don't work for them, just like the software.

]project-open[ includes HR components, no Payroll

[fraber]

Hi,

]project-open[ is a project management system with several HR components. Links: http://www.project-open.com/ and http://www.project-open.org/

There is:
- An integrated employee file with all available information
- Basic employee information and hiring workflow
- Portrait component & "Employee of the day" option
- (Very) basic payroll information, specially protected.
- A skill database (non-FOSS extension module)
- A forum associated with each employee for comments etc.
- A file storage associated with each user to store CV etc.

No idea if that suits your needs, but it might be a good starting point for further development. The only inconvenience: The system is written in TCL and based on PostgreSQL, which might require a few hours of training for PHP developers...

Cheers,
Frank

Re:]project-open[ includes HR components, no Payro

[fraber]

Sorry, forgot:

- Absences/vacation/travel
- Travel Expenses and
- Timesheet Management

All the big ones

[afabbro]

Oracle, Peoplesoft, SAP, etc. all run on Linux...

...unless you're using the word "Linux" to mean "no cost".

suggestion

[TheSHAD0W]

I recommend you send an email to Catbert, he has some uber-delicious tools. I've only seen a few, but they're quite useful!

Linux+VirtualBox+WinXP

[flyingfsck]

For the odd thing that won't run on Linux, VirtualBox, Qemu or VMware and WinXP seems to be quite usable.

An alternative is Apple Mac with Parallels and WinXP.

That works like a charm and when Windoze screws up, you can restore the virtual machine from a backup tar ball.

Compiere/Adempiere

[BoBG]

Compiere and it's fork Adempiere are 2 open source options. They are fairly extensive and there is an active consulting base that can help you to get things running. The primary DB for these applications is Oracle, but Postgres is beginning to become an option.

Re:Okay, this does it.

[Provocateur]

Please. To have to interface well with payroll, and have applicant tracking, maybe even finance and stock or other non-monetary compensation, AND block Zonk's posts is reaallly asking a bit too much of any HR management software, open source or otherwise.

A few options

[caseih]

Possibly http://freshmeat.net/search?q=erp may give you a place to start.

From what I've heard, http://www.compiere.org/ is a good one.

HR Ceridian Payroll

[aoteoroa]

Our company is has ~120 employees so a similar size to the poster.

We use software by Ceridian to handle our payroll and HR

Their payroll application called prism is browser based and runs on *their* server which keeps critical payroll information from accidentally falling into the hands of Information Systems Managers like myself.

An enormous, interesting, but rarely discussed

[WetCat]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ck-erp/

TimeTrex

[passion4]

Take a look at TimeTrex. It handles employee scheduling, attendance, job costing, and does payroll for you if you want (ie: no exporting to another app). Its open source, and free too!

Here's a good system for Talen Management

[MaximusMentiz]

This system is web-based and can be integrated with other HRIS software applications. http://www.businessdecisions.com/Human_Resources_S oftware.asp

Fauxpen source

[robla]

Interesting license clause for an 'open source' project: "You MAY NOT use the Licensed Software to operate in or as a time-sharing, outsourcing, service bureau, application service provider or managed service provider environment."

It's more open than most (i.e. other than that clause and a somewhat obnoxious advertising clause), it's MPL. It's a lot better than the typical EULA attached to this type of software. But, it'd be nice to reclaim the phrase "open source", per Michael Tiemann's essay on the subject. It lacks a lot of the obnoxious prohibitions on reverse engineering, so it's most likely better than the competition.

Perhaps its time to come up with a pithy name for this type of software, without resorting to anything /too/ derogatory. I nominate "fauxpen source".

Re:Okay, this does it.

[Roydd McWilson]

Go here and uncheck Zonk: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome

Why not a web based application service?

[PDG]

There are a lot of them available that will integrate with your existing systems.

Authoria (http://www.authoria.com) is one such company which offers a full suite of HCM based products.

But Excel is a database

[einhverfr]

Sure, it might not be a relational database, or an object oriented database, but a large workbook with many related sheets is no less a database than say, a General Ledger or a filing cabinet.

On the other hand, I will agree that it is overused and abused and is not the best choices of technologies for complex informaton storage.

Excel is a spreadsheet

[mackyrae]

Access is a databasing program. The OOo version being Base

Re:Excel is a spreadsheet

[einhverfr]

The difference between a well designed spreadsheet and a flat-file database being?

Re:Excel is a spreadsheet

[mackyrae]

Queries, ability to make a more-user-friendly form for input...

Re:Excel is a spreadsheet

[mackyrae]

Oh yeah, sorting, forgot that one. I don't use databases much. I don't do much that can't be done in vim, and if I need more a word processor is enough.

Re:Excel is a spreadsheet

[einhverfr]

Can't you do this with VBA?

Re:Excel is a spreadsheet

[einhverfr]

Note that the *only* differences I can find between a simple flat ISAM-type database (not RDBMS, mind you) and Excel are:

1) ISAM tends to structure rows a bit more than Excel
2) Excel has no indexing capability
3) THe 65k record limit.

Interestingly nobody seems to be able to give me some sort of definition of a database that includes, say BDB, Oracle, and ISAM but not a spreadsheet. Hence I would conclude that Excel could be considered to be a form of a database suited for simply entering, storing, and generating reports on small amounts of non-critical data.

So, if I am wrong: what are the necessary and sufficient qualities for something to be considered to be a "database?" How does one include flat file, hierarchical, and relational systems under that model but exclude Excel?

None of the issues you mention seem to prevent Excel from being some form of flat-file db, though perhaps the free-form structure might.

Interesting, regarding the GGP post for Access being a databasing program, it has a fairly small size limit, no granular security, no dedicated process to maintain data integrity, can only *safely* maintain one concurrent connection (and is not truly safe for use across the network). Seems like Access is not much more of a databasing program than Excel is by your definition.

Berkeley Database fails on a number of your counts as well.

Now, if you read my post carefully, you would see I wasn't advocating using Excel where there were better database technologies available (a *real* relational database like PostgreSQL will almost always beat other technologies in terms of long-term maintenance, interop, etc). However, when people say "this is not a [umbrella term]," I have to wonder about *what* exactly disqualifies it.

Had the original poster said "Excel is not an RDBMS" I would have agreed. Unfortunately the term "database" is sufficiently ambiguous to make his statement debatable.

To be clear

[einhverfr]

The problem with saying that "Excel is not a database" is that the term "database" refers to a large number of very different technologies, some of which aren't that different from Excel and all of which have different ideas on how data should be stored. If a database is simply a "data storage and retrieval system" then wouldn't excel qualify?

Wouldn't echo, awk, and some convention for storing a text file qualify as a database? Couldn't you refer to /etc/passwd as a "password database?" What about Berkeley Database? What do ISAM-based systems, BDB, and RDBMS's have that qualify them as databases that spreadsheets lack?

This being said....

I never said that there wasn't a difference between Excel and an RDBMS. And certainly using Excel in place of an RDBMS is stupid for the same reason that using any other flat-file system in place of a relational one is stupid. So this is not justifying a choice of technology, but challenging a choice of words.

This is a guess...

[ebbomega]

You can't program your own interface would be my best guess.

Spreadsheets you're limited to raw data and charts to display the information. No way for you to plug into it with some kind of external application. You can import the data into another member of Office, but even then the only way to program your results by any means other than an equation is through Access, their databasing software.

Re:This is a guess...

[einhverfr]

Object databases rarely if ever have multi-application support (outside of access libraries that handle this sort of thing-- not unlike the MS Office COM components). I don't think that can be a criteria.

Re:This is a guess...

[Nefarious Wheel]

Spreadsheets you're limited to raw data and charts to display the information. No way for you to plug into it with some kind of external application.

Actually, that turns out not to be the case. You can back Excel with a database, just use ODBC or suchlike. And connecting to files is dirt simple.

Here's a little exercise for you -- find a comp with Excel on it. Open an new Excel spreadsheet. Create a macro, and within it open a file -- a CSV file would be best. Close the macro. Next, enter ALT-F11. Voila, VBA application IDE and code framework. In the code you'll see all the VBA to open and process a file. Edit to fit, massage data into different forms, do subs, whatever. It's a programming language, and there's a fair bit of functionality in it (and a place to enter comments, you lazy sods!).

It's this convenience that causes a lot of spreadsheet creep into large financial organisations -- often they have to move quickly, get something developed in a hurry. Getting it written in a decent language or platform would require many hoops to be jumped through, but if you're "just writing a few macros" the dev effort goes into a different budget, and an "Excel expert" is easier to justify than a "programmer". I know it's semantic BS, but then that's how a lot of development money is allocated these days.

Use SAP HR

[Gery]

We use SAP HR in our company and are about to migrate to Linux (Server). If you just need something that "runs on Linux", I would suggest you use a standard application like SAP (which is quite ok for the size of your company). If you look for something open-source, you have to keep looking.

Although, SAP's source-code is "open" as far as you can download, read and modify the source (ABAP?). You would have to pay for your users (onetime fee and maintanance fee) depending on how much data the user sees...

Yours, Gery

Sources of HRIS on Linux

[ClotharLoveSeeker]

While it is contrary to the purity of Open Source, there are a number of commercial HRIS (Human Resource Research and Information Systems) available for Linux. http://vendorlocator.hreonline.com/hreonline/Searc hServlet?ksAction=Search&col=kslive&rf=0&srchtype= key&stype=&bi=1&ei=11&oq=qt%3AHRIS%40%40col%3Aksli ve%40%40type%3Akey%40%40ptype%3A%40%40sgroup%3A%40 %40rf%3A0%40%40tax%3A0%40%40providerid%3A0%40%40ss n%3A0%40%40sid%3A942383749%40%40datasource%3AHREON LINE%40%40bi%3A1~~&vf=&tId=&sId=942383749&sSeq=1&r egId=&lsTime=null&type=kw&isAdv=false&kw=HRIS+Linu x If your goal is to utimately embrace full open-source solutions, it is best to at least BE in the environment as you make a gradual transition to your business processes. With most open source solutions being not quite there in terms of addressing the needs of most country-specific requirements, let alone the full suite/range of functionality to meet every company's needs, a Linux-based commercial package may be your best alternative to give your business the flexibility to adopt various independent/integrated HRIS packages/modules as they evolve to the point of being deemed "production systems" (i.e. no constant intervention/troubleshooting/patching) and able to supplant elements of the commercial suites. I have no experience with any of the packages, other than as reviewing their capability, leading me to back away until OSS reach a business-level quality threshold. Good luck, Eric

But in that case...

[ebbomega]

You can back Excel with a database, just use ODBC or suchlike. And connecting to files is dirt simple.
Excel isn't being the database though, it's just the frontend. ODBC is providing you with the database (isn't that SQL?).

I've never done that trick, I'll have to check it out before I comment on that functionality. But I'm still skeptical, it kind of sounds like an expanded version of opening a cell with the equal sign. Again, that's not programming access to a database, that's just applying more complex math to it. I still get the feeling you wouldn't be able to produce a query through it. And not to mention, how many of the people who are using excel to track data as if it were a database actually use that?

And "Excel experts" get paid about way less than "Programmers".

Re:But in that case...

[Nefarious Wheel]

There is still an on-shore niche for Excel/VBA programmers, definitely in the financial industry (I know one top-tier bank that has serious financial reporting done that way, and it's NOT niche). And they do fit nicely in between the macro expert and the full-on multi-tiered .NET or J2EE etc. programmer. Pay isn't great, but it isn't bad, and can keep a programmer from selling his shoes if the rest of the work goes to Mangalore.

Yes, Excel is the front end of the database (and certainly not the best, but the customers are married to their spreadsheets) -- the data source is in what the ODBC definition, generally set up through the control panel/admin tools/data sources. You can fit a lot of logic in an SQL stored procedure & then show it in a view attached to ODBC DS, but when you want to do serious transforms on the data (e.g. turning cryptic SWIFT transactions into something you can read into a ledger (something I've done this way) you often need the heavy Al Gore Rhythm of program code. Typically though a table or view is represented as an odbc "data source" and you tap into that.

And the Alt-F11 trick needs Visual Studio in the latest version, I believe -- but 2003 and before should have the IDE there for you without it. And yes, I've done that trick a few times.

An Excel macro itself is nothing but a hidden bit of VBA code, and the built-in IDE lets you tap that if you need a bit more strength in your algorithm. No magic.