Kronos Workforce Integration Manager (WIM) is a specialized application designed to streamline the complex process of sharing data between your Kronos application (now UKG) and various third-party systems, including HR, payroll, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
When systems struggle to communicate, WIM steps in to resolve disorganized, inefficient data exchange. It simplifies data management across multiple systems with its built-in Interface Designer and comprehensive functionality, ensuring a reliable, seamless flow of information between your core workforce management system and external applications.
Benefits of Kronos WIM Integration
Managing all the data in your Kronos workforce management system and external applications can seem like a daunting task. Kronos WIM seamlessly integrates your Kronos applications with other third-party systems and can even handle your most complex interface requirements. Let’s take a closer look at a few of the ways the Kronos Workforce Integration Manager can benefit your workforce.
Streamlines Your Systems
Everyone knows that a lack of connection and communication between business systems can be detrimental to effective workforce management, costing you valuable time and significant money. Building, maintaining, and integrating complex systems, applications, and interfaces can be tough, but Kronos WIM simplifies this by streamlining these systems and processes with ease.
By providing a single integration tool that lets users design and maintain complex interfaces, Kronos WIM eliminates the need for complex code and expensive third-party interface vendors, saving you time and minimizing interface creation and modification costs.
Decreases Your Risk for Error
Unsynchronized systems can lead to inconsistent workforce data, errors in its processing, and, even worse, a lack of security to protect your most valuable and confidential information. Synchronizing your systems is crucial for keeping your data safe and reducing errors in data processing, management, or storage – that’s where Kronos WIM comes in.
The Kronos WIM interface enables users to consolidate all their data and separate interfaces into a single system, eliminating the need for complex multi-system interface management and frequent code reconfiguration to track essential data and its storage locations.
Saves You Time
With Kronos WIM, users can consolidate their systems, manage and share critical data, and eliminate tedious manual tasks, saving them valuable time. The Kronos WIM interface automatically extracts, converts, and transfers data between your Kronos system and third-party applications, with no extra headaches.
Regardless of how basic or complex your integration needs are, Kronos WIM has the functionality to automate data management and sharing between systems, freeing up extra time to focus on critical workforce management initiatives that don’t involve unnecessary manual tasks.
Common Mistakes of Using Kronos WIM (and How to Avoid Them)
If used correctly, WIM enables your Kronos solution to collaborate seamlessly with other business-critical solutions across your organization. This is particularly beneficial as streamlining workforce data sharing can enhance workforce efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize data errors.
However, our consultants have found that clients sometimes take shortcuts when using WIM—shortcuts that lead to costly repairs down the road. Here are four common mistakes people often run into when using the Kronos Workforce Integration Manager, as well as how to avoid them:
1) Not Assigning Variables to Fields
One common shortcut WIM users take is not assigning variables to fields. In other words, developers create field definitions for records using position numbers from the source—such as assigning the first field as position 1, which aligns to the column “first name” in the source query—instead of following the WIM best practice of assigning each field a variable like “first name” or “employee number” instead. Why is this an issue? When you’re trying to export data to a CSV file and need to change the position of your columns, fields without variables are going to give you a lot of trouble. Here’s an example.
Let’s say you need to pull data from a Kronos table, your input is a SQL query, and your output is a CSV file. Your table has 25 columns, and someone wants five of those positions changed—perhaps they’d like the first column to be “employee number” instead of “first name.” If you took the common shortcut of not assigning variables to your field, changing that column is going to take an extensive amount of coding.
We find that people usually make this mistake only once (and spend hours fixing it) before it becomes a habit of assigning variables to fields.
2) Not Using Special Lookup Tables
Often, a developer working in WIM will create variables that get their values from static text, source fields, calculations, and SQL queries before output. A common shortcut people take in this situation is to run an SQL call inside that variable as a detailed type interval. Why is that an issue? Let’s take a look at an example.
Let’s say you want to look up an employee’s most recent status. If they’ve ever taken leave time, that person may have more than one status at your company. Kronos stores all these statuses as separate records, so if you don’t specify that you’re only interested in the most recent record, it could return all of them. (Now imagine how long your interface will run trying to process 50,000 employees’ records, one by one…)
That’s why the best practice for WIM when working with SQL is to use a dedicated lookup table. A special lookup table assigns a single value to each employee, which remains consistent regardless of the number of records they have. Using a special lookup table first will improve the interface’s performance, as it knows exactly what you’re asking it to look for.
3) Putting APIs in One Link
When someone creates an interface in WIM, they can choose from a variety of APIs. For example, if you have APIs for “demographics” and “attendance,” consider taking a shortcut by combining them into a single link. Easier than making two separate ones, right?
In a perfect world, putting both of your APIs in a single link wouldn’t be an issue, but if that doubled-up link ever gives you an error, how will you know which API caused it?
You wouldn’t, which is why the best practice for using APIs when creating interfaces is to separate them by logical grouping. (In other words, keeping the “demographics” API in one link and the “attendance” API in a separate link.) Doing so may require a slightly larger up-front investment of time, but the grief you’ll save yourself when troubleshooting an error makes it worthwhile.
4) Not Documenting Your Interface
When you open the interface in WIM, there’s an intro section where you can put the name of the person who wrote the interface, date, etc.. Far too often, people don’t enter this information in an effort to “save time” (AKA a shortcut). Not only is that information valuable by itself, but you can also put even more detail about purpose and variables in the intro section of the WIM interface, which means people won’t have to look at the data behind the scenes to identify it, saving you more time in the long run.
A Word doc is a great place to put this sort of documentation so it’s easily shared, whether that’s with someone who needs to make changes down the road, or if you need a consultant to help with your system.
How Can We Help?
Whether you need additional help with your Kronos WIM Integration or an extra hand with your Kronos Workforce Central operations, our consultants can provide support wherever you need it. Our network of senior-level Kronos consultants can assist with integrations, perform system assessments, and migrations (just in case you’re thinking about moving to Kronos Workforce Dimensions, for example). And, to give you a better idea of what to expect when partnering with us, we’ve included a sample profile of one of our high-quality Kronos WIM consultants.
Surety Senior Kronos WIM Consultant
- 20+ Years of Kronos experience
- Strong understanding of Accruals (both front-end configuration and backend)
- Unique blend of functional and technical knowledge
- Strong with both Kronos HRMS and Timekeeper integrations
- WIM expert, as well as Kronos HRMS integration tools
- Both inbound and outbound Kronos data feeds (API’s, SQL, Stored Procedures, etc.)
- Strong with Kronos reporting, as well as several reporting packages
Contact us today to learn more or get started on a project with our team.
