This site is dedicated to HRNET software which is provided by company Vizual.
The author has nothing to do with Vizual. He just was got a job where he has to work with HRNET and develop in-house applications.
Here you will find a number of work-arounds, tips and tricks that might be useful when you are trying to develop applications in HRNET.
Please feel free to leave comments and questions. I’m not updating this site on daily basis, but do publish new articles as I go and stumble into problems with HR.Net.
If you are interested in further information about HRNET and in consulting, please contact us via mail@amvcomp.co.uk
If you like this blog and want to say thanks in some way, here is my wish-list on Amazon. It’ll be very cool to get a gift from my subscribers. Just don’t forget to put your name on it -)
I am now in the same position of trying to work with HR .net where staff are totally fed up with all the problems and every issue that arises seems to mean seveal days consultancy for Vizual -yet you search the web and there seems to be nothing but positive comments about the product!
I have found it almost impossible to follow their manuals and online help, so we end up bring in consultants –
Hoping this site may provide some useful information that may make me more self reliant!
Thanks for coming to the site..
I was thinking to give up maintaining it cause nobody is coming here for the info..
You are the first commenter on the site )
Any particular info you are trying to find? I’ve been working with HR.Net for 1.5 years now.. and know quite a lot of hacks.. just lazy to put them up here.
Let me know what you want to read here )
Well it’s not easy to find! Type in ‘Vizual’ and you get a lot of promotional sites.
I have to say, when vizual demonstrated this software it looked very user friendly and I thought I could set about creating workflows that aligned with our HR processes – so far I’ve had no luck although it’s difficult to say why, different problems each time have affected the smooth running of the workflows – and I don’t find the manuals helpful at all.
I have a day with one of their consultants next week who is going to get me started on the design of an online recruitment site. I suspect it will end with them telling me its another 10 days consultancy -so I’m determined to learn how to do these things myself -they charge over £1000 a day.
Anyway, it’s good to know there’s some independent advice out there; If you don’t mind, I will use this site to pose specific questions as I design my online recruitment site and the processes underpining it. Their technical support can be a bit hit and miss -it demends who you get, as I’m sure you’ve found out!
Regards
Amanda
Oh my God! a grand for a day is a lot of money.
We pay them 5K for annual support and that comes in handy on most of the troubles I have.
I’ll try to help you out as much as I can .. and I hope, I’ll pick up topics for articles from your questions )
External recruitment web-site is next on my list of projects to implement )
This is on top of the money we pay for annual support!
I’ll pass on any tips too if this consultant is any use.
Regards
Amanda
We are similarly developing HR.net for our various organisational needs including a recruitment module. It’d be great to make contact with some other people charged with this. Overall, we’ve found it to be a pretty good system, though we’ve had a few complications.
Well done on setting up this site!
I’ve just started a four month contract to project manage the implemention of HR.Net for a TV broadcasting company in London, so it would be good to discuss issues / challenges with other people.
I also work with HR.net, but I have also worked with other HRIS systems before and I find HRnet to be easier to use and modify than system like SAP or Oracle.
I note that one comment relates to the usability of the system. How often do you use the GOAL SEEK or HLOOKUP functions in MS Excel. Probably not often, but would you say Excel is difficult to use. HR.net has the same issues – it offers lots of features and functions with some easier to use than others so the difficulty will depend on what you are trying to achieve.
As for the development time, how clear were you on the work you wanted. I have seen with Vizual and with other organisations that they will provide an estimate based on what they are told, but the customer then changes their mind or adds in more content but doesn’t realise the estimate didn’t include this so is going to increase.
I agree that some of the manuals could be better, but they could never tell you how to develop every possible solution – they can only outline what the workflows do and you then have to ensure you use these correctly. I would say that some of the problems may be due to Vizual pitching this as suitable for HR staff when it is more suited to people with IT systems experience.
So before whinging about Vizual (or any software provider for that matter) a bit of introspection won’t hurt – ensure you are clear on what you want and how you want it to work.
What is your connection with Vizual?
Sorry, Got on my soap box too quickly and forgot to say well done for creating the site. I think it is good to get some external/independent discussion.
Hi,
Just found this site and its already helped me solve a few problems. I’ve only been working on HR.net for four months so I’ll be visiting here often! This site looks really good please keep posting useful snippets.
Talking about useful snippets, do you know if there is a way to debug workflows? I know you can put mailers in but someone told me that its possible to step into workflows on the server but you can’t debug them remotely.
Cheers
Scott
Scott
I’m not aware of any way of debugging the workflows internally.
What I’m doing is either a mailer with required information on the required step, or writing to Debug table.
@Scott – regarding debugging, maybe the reference to the server means viewing the workflow instances within the Admin Console tool. This shows what workflows are currently running, their status, and if it has stalled or not.
However, if you have a workflow stage that fails (like a DB writer) and then you have this send an email before ending, then this won’t appear in the instances, as the workflow will have successfully reached an end stage.
Personally, when building a workflow i prefer not to map any fail paths, and then use the instances to check where it may have errored. The only issue is remembering to map it all correctly once finished (or at least for workflows where a user should be notified that their process hasn’t run).
We’re currently working on an appraisal system within HR.Net and have to admit to finding the process rather frustrating.
A few things we’d really like to be able to do:
1. Upon time-out during form data entry, we’d like a user prompt to extend the time-out period, or, if no response, an automatic save of data so far entered. Also, upon logging in again, we’d like a pop-up giving the user the option of resuming work on the form they were using before the time out (or returning to the home page). surely this can’t be too difficult – but not possible according to Vizual. I’d have thought that it’s possible to refer to a log of recordIDs etc to workout what to save and where to restart?
2. Rather than message boxes and task lists, we’d like to use a single page as an interface/wizard that lists each of 5 tasks that the employee needs to complete (traffic light indicating due date and status of each item). Also an area for managers with a simple list with links of people for whom he/she needs to provide feedback.
3. Integrate with SharePoint 2010 in order to use it’s nice reporting functionality! Or even use it as a general front-end if possible.
Is any of this possible? Is there anyone out there who’d be interested in taking on a commission to help us out in these areas?
Graham
I know this is quite an old post and I guess you may have found a way to auto-save, but if not this is the way we did it. This only works in a screen!
var countDown = 15; // auto-save after this many minutes
var startTime = new Date(); // get current time at screen load
var oneMinute = 1000*60; // calculate one minute
var int = self.setInterval("clock()",oneMinute); // run clock function every minute
function clock() {
var timeNow = new Date(); // get time now
var countUp = Math.ceil((timeNow.getTime() - startTime.getTime()) / oneMinute); // calculate differences in times
var minsRem = countDown - countUp; // calculate time remaining until auto-save
$HRnet("EditBox3").setDisplayValue(minsRem + " minute\(s\)"); // update edit box on screen with number of minutes remaining (optional)
if(minsRem == 0) {
HRnet.Form.UI.Buttons.Save.doClick(); // save screen if auto-save time has elapsed
startTime = new Date(); // reset current time
}
}
clock(); // call clock function on first load
That’s pretty nifty! I’ll post it on if you don’t mind.
Thanks for this! I will have a go at using these although not overly familiar with the scripting part.
Another tip I found was when searching for instances and told I had to write the full name of the workflow (in complete) I have found if you write part of the workflow’s name and put % after it acts as a wildcard charater and returns all workflows that start with that word.
Some people may already know this but I went a couple of years having to find the workflow’s correct name instead!
My training was great but at the time I knew nothing about databases so it was quite overwhelming and it’s taken a few years of support calls to get up to speed.
Steph, some things can look obvious, but you just never think of them in terms of HR.Net. I’ll try posting about some obvious things I use every day.
It’s not possible to pause a workflow (until they added this feature in 4.2).
I use a parameter based workflow with a paramater of ‘Seconds’, which I then pass to a Script with the following complex code. $s is the number of seconds from the parameter. Using the Powershell command of Start-Sleep will actually stop all workflows from running
$starttime = $(Get-Date)
while ($b -lt $s) {$a = New-TimeSpan $starttime $(Get-Date); $b = $a.Seconds}
Hi
I am not sure if you are still active on this site, i can see last post on Nov 30th 2012 but i tring my luck and wish you can help me, i have moved to this new admin role on Hr.net I am looking for some study materials or kind of hand book which i can refer to understand Admin console and document explorer in detail.
Rajneesh, site is not abandoned, I’m just not doing as much work with HR.Net as I used to couple years back.
If you are looking for some guidance – you are out of luck. There is no such thing, unless ADP have provided some form of documentation in their latest releases.
However, I do consultancy on HR.Net and can provide some help if needed. If interested, drop me a line on mail@amvcomp.co.uk.
Cheers,
Max
Hi,
Great resource now i seem to have found myself in an HR.net environment.
A quickie: I’ve got SQL functions to give me HMRC mileage rates for specific dates, but can’t find a way of using functions within HR.net. Am I missing something?
Cheers
I’ve never had to add a SQL function into HR.Net, so can’t advise. There will probably be a very obscure OC_somethingFunctions table that will contain info about available functions. But it might not work.
Another thing you can do is to create a SQL view with start/end dates and mileage values, and then you’ll be able to add that view to HR.Net to be used/joined to.
Sorry, I forgot to reply.
Now if I need anything even slightly complicated in SQL creating a view is the way to go.
Thanks
Hi,
I’m trying to run HR.net in Chrome. I can log in OK and most things work but when I try to open, say, Employee Details in Navigator i get..
“You appear to be using a pop-up blocker which is preventing the application from functioning correctly.”
I’ve specifically turned off the popup blocker in Chrome.
Any ideas? I’ve heard tell the same happens with Edge
Sorry, never tried to go around that. I’m sure that bit of javascript will be hidden somewhere and available for modification. I’d search for this exact phrase and see what comes up.
I’ve seen it before – what a malicious bunch! Not just not working, but putting sticks into your wheels when you try to use other browsers.