By David & Daphné
Features : transforming the needs into a software
Posted on May 12, 2020
In our previous article, we told you how the pandemic had affected our business and how this mandatory downtime made us want to work on a major project. We asked ourselves what we lack in our daily lives and which could help other companies than ours.
After some introspection, we quickly put the finger on the problem : our human resources management tools.
We have long wanted to create an open source project that we could share with as many companies as possible in a spirit of mutual aid. Why not hitting 2 targets with one shot? Create a solution for simple, efficient and accessible resource management, while sharing it on a large scale!
We have never published an open-source project yet so we don't know if it would be realistic compared to a proprietary license, but for now it is our plan A.
So, now that the idea is found and that the match plan is done, et que le plan de match est fait, what do we do next?
The creation of the features!
The features are designed according to the needs that we have had since our beginnings. There are about twenty of us at Alternateeve and we have not found yet any satisfactory software for employee management. Especially for the planning of agendas,
attendance and time monitoring, internal communication and training.
The problem is not that professional solutions do not exist, it is just that they are not suitable for small and medium-sized businesses because of their complexity and costs. These softwares are designed to be used by HR specialists and not by business owners or managers.
We think that paying more than 20 $/month/employee to use 3 different complex softwares doesn't suit our needs, is not optimal and especially unpleasant.
Currently, we are working with a time tracking software and home-made Excel spreadsheet. It's functional, but we can do much better. So we thought about effective features to simplify everyday management.
Here is the list of features that we have identified as "basic" to begin with.
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They were chosen according to our needs and the feedback we had following the first article. However, as we have given ourselves the ambitious goal of finalizing the project in 90 days, it is possible that one or two features will be realized after the beta-test.
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Each employee will have their personal space in the software where they will have access to all the features. Managers will have access to personal space in addition to a section dedicated to employee management.
EMPLOYEES FILES
Centralize all of your employee information in one place including notes, history and files such as an employment contract or personal documents.
(Special thanks to Matthieu for making us realize that this is a feature😉)
AGENDA
Manage your employees' work schedules and vacation requests with the possibility to organize them into teams.
PUNCHCARD
Save money by recording attendance and absence.
Employees can ''punch'' to their personal space or to a multi-user punching system which can be made available on any computer, tablet or cellphone for employees not working on a computer during their shift.
A report will allow you to know very precisely the number of hours worked, making it easier to pay.
HOURS/PROJECT FOLLOW-UP
Optimize the distribution of your employees' tasks by monitoring the use of hours worked.
INTERNAL NEWS
Spread news about your business quickly without using email and follow who has received the information.
TRAINING AND WIKI
Train all your employees simply and at their own pace. The progress of their training will be available in a report.
EXPENSE REPORTS MANAGEMENT
Authorize certain expenses and easily collect all supporting documents.
Those are the features of the project so far!
Do not hesitate to share it, we would really like to join entrepreneurs who already use this type of functionalites or those who could use it within their company.
Talk to you very soon ;)
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In the next weeks, we will write about :
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Step 1 - When a pandemic makes you create new HR software (available)
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The programming,
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Selected technologies,
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Why open-source,
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How to finance yourself and find partners,
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The visual identity of the project and the UX / UI,
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Communication about the project.
You want to stay informed of the latest articles and/or participate in the improvement as an adviser-tester?