Octopus HR / Cascade Go - SME professional services firm

Good cloud-based and self service software. Back end for HR Admin is a bit complicated with "where clauses" etc. to get to grips with but since they were acquired by the Cascade/Iris software group there is a larger support team to help with this.

Pros

The self service elements are excellent and are employees picked up using a self-serve HRIS well and without a lot of teething problems. The tracking of holidays, absences, the inbuilt total reward statement and uploading of documents is proving very useful - we no longer get loads of requests for paper appraisal forms each appraisal season. We also use the e-recruitment module which helps us with applicant tracking and vacancy management.

Cons

The training we got, to begin with, was not great as it was very in-depth but we were told not to take notes as it was all covered in user guides. This was not really the case so my advice would take lots of notes in your training! Since then the software support team has grown and we have found our needs better supported. We are still struggling to use payroll features for seamless payroll integration.

User friendly with top notch support!

Pros

Being able to centralise everything in to one system is ideal for a company of our size. It gives us visibility of the details we need at all levels whilst also being user friendly for all users.

Cons

Not many things. The where clause stuff can be a bit fiddly but the team are always updating and improving things (where clause builder was released recently) and the support team are always quick to respond and help with issues. Even when there have been the odd tricky bits, they have always been resolved.
Exports on more of the analytical information could be "punchier" in graph styles, although admittedly I have not had to use these functions to their fullest so this may just be may limited experience.

First Class Customer Service

Since using Octopus I have received the best customer experience ever. I must contact customer service on a daily basis asking questions and get a very quick response with brilliant guidance. All members of the team are exceptionally patient.

Pros

Visually its very simplistic and ease of use

Cons

It would be brilliant to have help guides which could aid members of staff around the system. Our company is encouraging managers to self service but I can only find help guides for the Administrators.

Great experience and prompt responses to enquiries

No hesitation in recommending OCTOPUSHR.

Pros

From the first phone call to every phone call there after, they are the most knowledgeable people about their products. No pushy sales people. They give you just what you need to run your business efficiently. Ease of use and the speed at which bugs get fixed. Support staff helpful and attentive; The best customer service.

Excellent HR Software and First Class Support

Pros

HR Self Service functionality is excellent and very easy to use.

Cons

Octopus has met all our core requirements. I would recommend that you attend the training courses to gain maximum benefit from all the functionality on offer.

Fantastic Product and Service

Pros

It has made my life so much easier and automates much of the admin that used to take up my time. I've found it easy to use, the roll-out to our staff was been easy too. If I ever get stuck on something the support team have been really helpful and get back to me very quickly.

Cons

Only thing I'd say is that it's so in depth that it can take some effort to understand everything.

Great HR Online System - Highly Recommended

This has improved our recording of holidays and sickness dramatically. Employees can view their own personnel files at any time, view training documents etc. The help & Support from Octopus is fantastic, we have found they respond within a few hours of raising a query / question. Staff are kept updated more with company policies, holidays and events within the company now we are using Octopus. Huge improvement!

Pros

Ease of use
Documents can be uploaded quickly
All employees have access
Great support from Octopus
Set Rights for everyone

Cons

Why didn't we use this sooner.

HR for a small startup

Pros

As a small company we didn't want to spend a lot of time familiarising ourselves with lots of functionality that we might not need, but Octopus was easy to use and easy to show others within the company how to use the features that are most useful to us. If we had any questions about the functionality the support team were fantastic at helping us.

Cons

We had to invest in an initial training session, we had hoped we could pick it up from just a couple of online videos but to be honest, we're glad to have done the training as it's so in-depth and really worth it.

Terrible Customer Service

The front end user experience is great however the back end is too limiting and the customer service received from CascadeGo is dreadful!!

Pros

Easy to use front end for staff, visually appealing compared to other systems

Cons

Very basic, no workflow functionality and reporting facilities are basic - not how it was sold!

Great software choice

This is a comprehensive piece of software that caters for all HR requirements

Pros

It does everything we need it to

Cons

It takes a little investment time to begin with to become familiar with it and get it set up, but to be honest no decent piece of business software or equipment is without the need to spend some time in the early days so I don't begrudge this.