Aloha 15.1 CFC, HR Bridge, Integration with ADP, lions, tigers and bears. 1

[mahantongo]

Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster.

My Restaurant Organization currently operates approximately 40 table service restaurants in the US, all of varying different concepts. We employ Aloha TS 6.7.x Point-of-Sale at all of our locations and use now EOL'd software as our time-and-attendance solution. Currently our T/A software is integrated with Aloha to push/pull employee information, scheduling matrixes and payroll data. We also use Ultimate software as our HRIS system and it is currently not integrated with Aloha nor our T/A Software.

My organization is now engaging ADP to replace Ultimate Software as our new HRIS/payroll software, and the ADP Vantage/eTime software as our Time-and-attendance software. In the next few months we will be upgrading all POS systems to Aloha version 15.1 as 6.7 is nearing PCI compliance EOL. Our intention is to fully integrate ADP with Aloha 15.1 with the goal of using ADP as the single-point-of-entry for all employee information under our umbrella. To outline our needs, we are looking to:

• Export new and existing employee information from ADP to Aloha POS 15.1
• Export new and existing employee schedules as written in eTime to Aloha POS basic labor scheduler as to allow for the Aloha punctuality module to authenticate employee clock-ins
• Export employee punches as recorded by Aloha POS 15.1 to ADP

I was told by my NCR reps that the solution to my needs may be by "upgrading" to NCR Configuration Center and purchasing a licence to NCR HR Bridge. Great! We'll plunk down the cash for the license, but the problem still remains that despite having CFC and HR Bridge, there is no integration solution. Sadly, i have no in-house resources for software development and neither ADP nor Aloha are able to identify anyone who has done what i am asking now. How do two major corporations not have the solution (or a path to a solution) for what i'm asking?

If anyone can point me in the direction of a business that can provide a means to the end, i would forever be in your debt. I will add that we have phone-support contracts with NCR, and all relatively new H/W in all locations. 1230s, N3000 NCR servers, etc. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

[Series_of_Tubes]

inControl Software may be able to help or guide you in the right direction.

NCR created HR Bridge for a reason so I would think they have people using it. I would really push your reps to get you to the product manager of HR Bridge and see what they have to say. I love Configuration Center but it may not be the answer for you. CFC is really designed for administering one database across multiple locations. It's perfect for chains but if all of your concepts are different it may be more of a nuisance.

 

[mahantongo]

Thanks SOT,

I've been down that road, but going to again revisit. it's my understanding that InControl only exports pay-records and collectables (cash-tips, CC-tips) from aloha CFC over to ADP. not bidirectionally, which i need.

being a long time user of aloha 6.5 & 6.7, i'm still new to NAM and CFC. we've held off implementation of NAM at most sites due to my still-in-place Time and attendance software. Installing the SQL shell of NAM effectively broke my ability to view employees exported from the T/A software to aloha. once exported from the T/A software, the employees would show up in the DBFs and be able to use FOH POS, but managing Manager accounts is painful at best. manager accounts would need to be manually created in NAM and again in the DBF files. A setting in NAM Store settings can be checked off that effectively prevents employees from "writing down" to the emp.dbf. what was originally happening was that the T/A software was dumping employees into emp.dbf (good!) but then once a user loaded NAM and refreshed, it would wipe the emp.dbf (bad), but i digress

regarding the use of CFC at multi-concept units: the majority of our store settings are identical at all of our restaurants: categories, promos, comps, tenders, Aloha GC and Loyalty, and even a lot of menu items. I was hoping that by implementing CFC it would allow me to normalize most of the things that i need to make identical....globally. also, i was really looking forward to allowing my management staff to have more options in connecting to aloha manager as most of our restaurant offices are shoe boxes and we frown upon RDP'ing into servers for obvious reasons.

let me ask this: how do multi-unit organizations simplify the process of getting employees into aloha from a central point? again, we want to create employees in ADP and effectively export them into the aloha target of our choosing with the correct job codes, access levels and pay rates. also, we want to write weekly schedules in ADP and export them to aloha. we rely upon the aloha punctuality module to prevent early clock-ins. I can't believe that someone hasn't done what I'm asking before now.

 

[MenulinkMan]

Here is what I have done in the past:

CFC was being used to manage 3 different concepts. Alot of records were held at the global level, but some were created at the "Corporate" level so each concept could not see the others items. I might have had 3 Coke's in the system, but with each at their own corporate level, it allowed for different database layouts, different naming of the same item ( easier than versioning ), and such. If you allow sites to edit their own submenu's, this is the way I would go.

As for employee entry: We used HR Bridge to push data to our sites. I had my IT company write the program to interface with the HRBridge API. The employees would get entered into ADP, which would push a file to a server that we would grab, the script would work its magic, and the employee would magically appear in our database. (HRB can push to CFC or Menulink)

Labor export: We used Menulink as our Inventory/Labor program (I was the admin), and we had an auto export that would build our labor file. Our payroll admin would edit as necessary, then submit to ADP for processing.

Scheduling: I'm not familiar with eTime. Menulink in my past, HotSchedules currently. I know both of those can export the required SCH files for punctuality to be enabled.

 

[mahantongo]

Menulinkman Awesome!

can you identify "my IT company"? sadly we don't have any internal resources to write the program to interface with HRBridge API. can you identify for me? This sounds like exactly what we are looking for. amazing response, and thank you.

 

[PosTech72]

Menulink certainly sounds like it would be a great tool for your company Mahantongo

 

[MenulinkMan]

Menulink has its ups and downs. You will need a dedicated person internally to manage all the recipes, users, user levels, and reporting. Its not the cheapest, but is good for small to medium sized companies. Larger companies will probably want more indepth data. Lots of people hate it, lots love it.

As for the company that did this for me, they managed my WAN infrastructure, VPN, PBX, and such. They did alot of one off things for us such as build out our loyalty program's web interface and mobile app, HRBridge, etc. It is nto their primary item of interest. Let me ask them and see if they are interested in working with this again.

 

[Micros888]

I am considering a new POS simple n PCI complience chip enabled.
I have used micros n Aloha and looking at Toast
1bar n 2 server terminals. Any feedback greatly helpful.

 

[PosGuyUS]

Micros, look at POSitouch. Has all the features that Micros and Aloha has and more and can probably run on your Micros terminals.
Toast is still too new. Just read a doc they sent on their offline mode, sounds like a mess.

If you want a good Enterprise Inventory system that integrates to your POS here's a few:
Crunctime
Compeat
Optimum/Tracrite

 

[ScottWilkins]

All this mess that Aloha is in these days with communicating with 3rd party software/services is why I'm looking into other POS solutions. I'm kind of centered on PAR/BRINK, they seem to have a very open API and like to work with 3rd party provides from what I've heard. The future is cloud and open comm between apps. Aloha is just too old school for that it seems.