When considering a new HRIS or Human Capital Management Software purchase, increasing numbers of employers are looking for integrated HR systems, automated processes, and intuitive report writing. Understandably so—most have built their HR administration software suite from various different providers with wonky integrations.

If you want a truly integrated HR technology, you have to take system-architecture into consideration, and here’s why. WARNING: This is not a terribly exciting read, but if you are serious about finding a truly integrated workforce solution, this is must-have information.

Total workforce management software providers have built their solution in one of the following ways:

Multi-Database Architecture

• They have a legacy system that performed a single workforce function (like payroll) and have built their own proprietary software solution and database, and then integrated it with their original system and database (built their own HRIS, time and labor tracking, etc.)
• They have a legacy system that performed a single workforce function (like payroll), acquired another system (like time and labor tracking) and built an integration between the two systems and databases

Single-Database Architecture

• They have a single database that feeds data to various workforce modules (tracking employee hours, payroll, HRIS, Scheduling)

Here’s the catch: most vendors, whether they have a multi-database architecture (MDA) or a single-database architecture (SDA) will market their product as “integrated” or “synchronized”. But in a MDA, the system is only integrated to the extent that the provider has built the integrated data super-highways between the various databases. Their version of integrated may mean that a portion of the data can be exchanged between various systems (payroll/HRIS/time and labor), but it does not mean that the system is “fully-integrated” for dynamic reporting and data-sharing.

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Where Multi-database Architecture gets messy

Working with a MDA software can be a lot like ordering a martini and having the bartender place two glasses in front of you, one with dry gin and another of sweet vermouth, handing you two straws, and saying “Enjoy!” While the raw ingredients of the concoction will end up in the same place, the experience of the drink has been eroded, to say the least!

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Here are some of the eroded experiences that MDA HRIS users often experience:

1. Increased outages and maintenance cost: Just like patches on your jeans can weaken and tear overtime, continued system updates and a MDA HR Suite often have unforeseen ripple-effects that erode system integration. This makes the maintenance and upkeep constant and expensive, and translates to higher costs and increased system outages to the user.
2. Multi-screen and double-data entry: In MDA, updating data (employee name, spouse or dependent information, pay scale, etc.) in one database does not mean it automatically updates real-time in another. In some cases, there is a delay in updating one system to another (i.e. payroll to time and labor) as the system integration may be set to do this update in a nightly batch process. In other cases, administrators have to navigate between multiple screens when onboarding a new employee in order to input all of the employee’s data into each system.
3. Lack of dynamic custom reports: In order to generate reports that draw data from multiple databases, MDA HR systems will typically have a limited option of generic reports for the most common business functions. There will typically be little to no ability to customize a report. Single-databases, because they draw data from a common source, have greater flexibility for building custom reports that cross analyze data from payroll, time and labor, and HRIS, or perform business processes (like Affordable Care Act Compliance and Reporting) that draw data from multiple systems within a Total Workforce Management solution.