Suite Tackles Work Force Issues

Building on its expertise in automating employee time and attendance reporting, CyberShift Inc. later this month will roll out a suite of applications designed to help companies make better use of their employees time and skills.

CyberShift Workforce Management Suite features applications that let business managers tackle a range of human resource optimization issues, including scheduling employees time, tracking the cost of employees, monitoring compliance with union contracts and matching professional services staff to projects that require their skills, said CyberShift CEO Robert Farina.

Key features in the suite are a unified Web browser interface for all its applications and a configurable rules engine. The software also provides features for analyzing work force activities and forecasting needs.

The first applications, which will be available this month, include Time Management, which addresses time entry and approval; Scheduling, which includes a skills matching component; Acquisition Devices, for connecting Workforce Management Suite to third-party enterprise applications and other data sources; and Process Automation, for process mapping and workflow automation.

By the end of the year, the Parsippany, N.J., company will make available modules for analytics and reporting, performance management, job and project optimization, and security.

The suite now includes a knowledge repository with basic work rules and best practices. CyberShift is working on adding knowledge from third parties for optimization standards and industry-specific metrics, Farina said.

Also in the future, CyberShift plans to add a point-of-presence feature that allows professional services companies to locate employees who spend a lot of time at customer sites.

The Toronto Public Library is deploying the CyberShift software to track the time and attendance of its 2,670 employees at 101 locations.

The software will help managers comply with union rules, said Holly Dewar, manager of human resources. "We have complicated scheduling rules," Dewar said. "The product will help us deal with fairly complex situations."

Pricing for Workforce Management Suite can run from $100,000 to more than $1 million based on the scope of a project, officials said.