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OrganizationPaycor is a leading provider of human resource (HR) and payroll services, with more than 800 employees, 25,000 customers, and $100 million in annual revenue.

The ChallengeGive clients a more comprehensive view of HR operations by extending existing solutions with advanced analysis and data visualization capabilities.

The StrategyIntegrate a full-featured BI platform into Paycor’s product suite, unifying data from different product databases and providing users with innovative functionality.

The ResultsClients have access to powerful analytics and reporting capabilities not offered by other providers. This has increased customer acquisition and retention.

Information Builders SolutionWebFOCUS with Web Services, ReportCaster, Education, and Professional Services

Snapshot

Customer Profile

Paycor

Paycor Boosts Client Satisfaction With Smarter HR Services Embeds BI and Analytics Into Cloud Applications

Paycor provides human resource (HR) management services, such as payroll, time and attendance, and benefits administration, to more than 25,000 small- and mid-sized businesses throughout the U.S. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, the company employs more than 800 people in offices across 22 cities, as well as three client service centers in Ohio, Florida, and Kansas. Since its founding in 1990, Paycor has grown to become one of the country’s largest payroll and human resource providers, with more than $100 million in annual revenue.

Paycor’s comprehensive services are delivered through a suite of online applications that help clients efficiently manage data about various aspects of their HR operations. The high performance and innovative functionality of these software solutions gives Paycor a competitive edge in its industry. To further differentiate itself and provide innovative services to its clients, Paycor looked for business intelligence (BI) functionality that could be embedded in its products. The goal was to provide

WebFOCUS iWay Software Omni

WebFOCUS has helped Paycor provide more advanced data visualization and analytic capabilities for its HR and payroll reports.

information within its application workflows to make it easier for end users. After carefully evaluating several well-known BI vendors, Paycor selected the WebFOCUS BI platform from Information Builders for its high level of customization.

“Our main goal was to unify and enhance the user experience by offering customers a more feature-rich and intuitive reporting environment,” explains Kevin Armour, vice president of Technology at Paycor. “Previously, our clients were able to run basic HR and payroll reports, including those required by law. We selected WebFOCUS to provide more advanced data visualization and analytic capabilities.”

Today, WebFOCUS is seamlessly integrated into Paycor’s cloud-based HR, payroll, and timekeeping software solutions, giving clients broader data access, more intuitive ad hoc reporting, dynamic report scheduling, and flexible output options. Dubbed “Custom Reporting,” this powerful BI environment provides powerful, yet easy-to-use analytic capabilities that are unlike anything offered by Paycor’s competitors.

“Now our customers have a unified reporting environment that gives them a consolidated view of HR and payroll data,” says Armour. “We’ve seen substantial increases in market share, customer satisfaction, and revenue as a direct result of the new reporting features that we have added to our products.”

Intelligent HR Extends Client AnalysisInitially, Paycor’s IT team developed custom reporting and analysis functionality for the company’s software solutions. WebFOCUS gives them a general-purpose reporting and analytics environment with sophisticated capabilities for embedding function-specific applications without requiring clients to install or download any on-premises software.

“We needed a BI platform that was easy to implement and administer, and would help us quickly roll out new BI applications to our clients,” says James Schroth, product manager at Paycor. “Information Builders had the technology we needed. In addition, they were the only vendor willing to take the time to help us integrate their BI platform with our cloud-based products.”

Information Builders Professional Services assisted Paycor’s IT staff with planning and installation services. Working closely with Schroth and his team, they created a series of web services to incorporate the BI capabilities of WebFOCUS directly into Paycor’s HR solutions.

WebFOCUS can be embedded via web services or InfoApps™. An InfoApp is a custom web-based or mobile app that is purpose-built and highly interactive. Each business-focused InfoApp is designed to support specific avenues of inquiry and decision-making. They allow business users to analyze data, answer specific questions, and solve unique problems. People with little or no technical skills can interact with an InfoApp and instantly get the results they need.

Within each custom InfoApp, users can select from hundreds of fields and data elements to generate a wide array of reports, graphs, or dashboards, effortlessly tying together information

“Previously, our clients were able to run basic HR and payroll reports, including those required by law. We selected WebFOCUS to provide more advanced data visualization and analytic capabilities.”

Kevin ArmourVice President of Technology Paycor

about various HR operations. This versatile architecture allows Paycor’s customers to extend their in-house HR solutions with advanced data manipulation, analysis, and reporting capabilities. Paycor’s BI apps access information from a series of SQL Server databases, which are refreshed regularly as that information is updated in the core HR, payroll, and timekeeping applications. For example, users can quickly answer questions about total compensation, labor distribution, General Ledger issues, and employee overtime.

Each request for a report, dashboard, or analytic function can be executed dynamically or scheduled to run at a later date. InfoApps include robust parameterization capabilities to permit nearly unlimited flexibility. Users can pick fields based on related data groups. The resulting information is displayed through dashboards, charts, and graphs and can be saved in Excel, PDF, and HTML formats.

Robust Web Services Functionality Simplifies IntegrationVinay Kumar, senior application development manager at Paycor, insisted on a BI platform with strong support for web services because it would allow Paycor to make new features available to customers as quickly as possible. Security was also a big concern. “Payroll and human resources data is highly sensitive in nature and our clients rely on us to keep it confidential,” Kumar notes. “WebFOCUS is able to work seamlessly with our security architecture to keep information fully protected.”

“While our solution is very easy to deploy and use, advanced users can directly tie in other applications to obtain reports without going through a standard user interface,” adds Armour. “They can set up web service calls to obtain data using any tool. For example, a customer might prefer to use Microsoft Excel to analyze information or bring it directly into a custom application. WebFOCUS provides a versatile architecture for an embedded BI solution because it gives us lots of options for utilizing the reporting server.”

Powerful BI Capabilities Increase Options for Small BusinessesPaycor’s client base is made up primarily of businesses with less than 5,000 employees. Many of them are very small companies with just a few staff members. Custom Reporting gives Paycor a strategic advantage since it allows the company to offer industrial-caliber reporting services to these small businesses.

“We’re the only HR and payroll provider targeting small organizations that offers advanced yet intuitive reporting capabilities,” says Armour. “Some of our competitors offer custom reporting tools, but they lack functionality or are difficult to use.”

As a result, Custom Reporting has helped Paycor open up new revenue streams. Armour credits the embedded BI platform with helping the company extend a new product to 45 percent of its client base. Its broad feature set and ease of use have encouraged more users to rely on reports as part of their day-to-day HR operations. This, in turn, has improved customer satisfaction and retention, since customers are less likely to consider competitive offerings if it means giving up valuable reporting capabilities.

“Information Builders had the technology we needed. In addition, they were the only vendor willing to take the time to help us integrate their BI platform with our cloud-based products.”

Kevin ArmourVice President of Technology Paycor

“We are highly confident in our selection of Information Builders as a partner and our subsequent success with Custom Reporting,” Schroth says. “One client told us that she was able to generate five new reports in less than one hour. It used to take her five days to accomplish that with other tools.”

Paycor has received many accolades for Custom Reporting and related business services. For example, the company was named a finalist for an Innovation Award from the Cincinnati Business Courier and received the honor of “Best Customer Presentation” from attendees at a recent Information Builders Summit User Conference. At a corporate level, Paycor has made the Inc. list of fastest growing companies in the U.S. four times and was named to Deloitte’s list of the 100 largest privately owned companies in the Greater Cincinnati area.

As Paycor continues to grow and gain market share, Armour and his team plan to expand the reporting features within their cloud-based HR products. The team continually collects feedback and suggestions for product enhancements from the user base. Future plans include incorporating predictive analytics and other cutting-edge BI capabilities into this unique set of reporting solutions.

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