OrangeHRM Live builds on an open source solution that is freely downloadable from the project home page and can be run on customer's own hardware of choice. However, the Live version offers quality hosting and the possibility of very fast implementation in a matter of minutes. OrangeHRM is the most widespread open source solution in the industry with more than a million users globally.
Customization
OrangeHRM Live is also one of the most comprehensive solutions on the market. Not only it's full of great features, but it's also easily customizable at all places where you (might) need it. For instance, if your business has special demands on employee profile, then there is no problem to add additional fields to suit these needs. You can fill data to OrangeHRM Live manually or import them from an external file. Even here you can configure the whole process according to the import file structure, so you add precisely what you want and need. This can be of course a double-edged sword for some; especially some smaller companies won't need that many features OrangeHRM Live offers and might get lost in such a comprehensive solution.
Directory
The core of every HRM application is a directory of employees. OrangeHRM Live is no exception here, but its directory offers a really wide range of possibilities. It contains not only basic personal and professional data, but also information on the qualifications, skills or education, and you can attach files to the profile as well. The only problem we see is an issue of consistency with other parts of OrangeHRM Live. The application often assumes that some fields (e.g. job description, qualification, or skills) are already pre-filled in the administration section. Simply put, dialog boxes could be better linked. However, after the first initialization this problem disappears. Our suggestion would thus be: start filling the directory, only then move to other functionality of OrangeHRM.
Managing Leaves
OrangeHRM Live includes functionality to manage employee leaves or sick days. Again, the service is offering a variety of settings, making it possible to adjust the service to specific conditions of a particular country. It can also create downloadable reports which you can use for work on your local computer. Apart from vacancy reports, you can create a large number of other reports; all of which are user definable and downloadable to your computer.
Recruitment and Development
OrangeHRM Live also offers the recruitment functionality, which is however fairly limited and will only satisfy undemanding and modest companies. Furthermore, OrangeHRM Live offers a very simple property tracker and a tracking tool for trainings and for monitoring employee performance through KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Pricing
Unfortunatelly, OrangeHRM Live doesn't offer any clear price list. However, when we asked their support, we were told that the price starts from $6.25 per employee/month and can go down to $0.25/employee/month including technical support, training, etc. Frankly speaking, we don't like this approach very much. Fortunately, this approach is an exception in the field of cloud services, so let's hope that even OrangeHRM Live will eventually find out that the open pricing policy attracts more potential customers. So, if you are interested in the system, try it first and then ask for a specific price tailored "just for you" or simply go to a solution where the price is known upfront.
Conclusion
OrangeHRM is free to try, and after the trial period it charges for each employee. It is a service that is sometimes a little rough around edges, but compensates it all with plenty of options, functions and settings, so it is very easy to adapt it to your specific needs.
What we liked:
- Really complex solution which is being actively developed. You can also vote for new features on the web page of the project.
- Amount of functions and customization options.
- Strong in importing and exporting data.
What we didn't like:
- Sometimes rough around edges, for instance dialog boxes could be linked better.
- Its complexity might be confusing for some users. It would be nice to have simple and advanced version or simplified user interface.
- Recruiting section is limited and doesn't offer standard features like saving applicant's files such as resumes.
- Non-transparent pricing options.