OrangeHRM — An Open Source HRM Tool

Sufyan bin Uzayr, Freelance Writer, Graphic Artist and Photographer www.sufyan.co.nr

HR is a critical asset for any organization. An enterprise's success or failure depends on its human resources and how they are handled. Tools for human resource management (HRM) play a significant role managing human resources. One such HRM tool is OrangeHRM, which is flexible, open source and has been built keeping the SMEs' needs in mind.

I recently got a chance to implement OrangeHRM for an SME. So, I thought , through this article I shall elaborate my experiences and also tell why OrangeHRM was chosen for the purpose and how to go about with its operation.

The pre-requisites

The SME organization that requested me for deploying the HRM solution wanted “a cost effective, and user friendly HRM tool”. They were looking at a solution that would centralize all employee details, track work timings (including over time), attendance (leaves/absence), and recruitments. OrangeHRM was recommended for the job because it was open source, and there was no need to purchase licenses. There is a paid version as well, in case you don't have inhouse technical expertise to customize its implementation.

Moreover, OrangeHRM has a modular architecture, which lets you handle the following HR related tasks with ease:

• Easily define job categories, skills, requirements.
• Specify pay scales and categories.
• Keep track of employee profiles.
• Restrict or grant access to data as and when needed.
• Manage leave entitlement, attendance, etc.
• Manage employee recruitments and benefits.
• Create and distribute reports.

Installation

Installing OrangeHRM is a simple process. It is written in PHP and relies on MySQL to access the database. Thus, you can run it using LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) software. Further more, you can employ XAMPP (Windows, Mac and other UNIX devices) along with Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl and phpMyAdmin. OrangeHRM comes with a one-click installer (roughly 75 MB in size) that takes care of the entire installation procedure. However, if you wish to do things the longer way, you can download the package and set it up yourself!

OrangeHRM interface

OrangeHRM comes with the following modules:

• Admin: This is where the administrative tasks are performed, such as defining employee hierarchy, pay grades, user rights, etc.
• PIM: It deals with information pertaining to employees, such as job profile, work experience, qualifications, etc. Information stored here is frequently used by all other modules (this helps avoid data redundancy).
• Employee self-service: Here, you can selectively allow your employees to update their credentials. For instance, employees can change their profile info, if so desired. Security and permission settings for this module can be edited in the Admin module.
• Reports: You can create customized reports based on available data. Once created, reports can also be saved as templates for future use.
• Leaves: This manages features such as leave entitlement, application and approval.
• Time and Attendance: It automates attendance tracking procedure. Once you've installed OrangeHRM, you will need to configure this module first in the Admin section.
• Benefits: This module deals with medical, health and holiday benefits as applicable to employees based on their designation. Certain settings can be tweaked in the Admin section, such as, combining medical and dental health benefits into one field rather than separately.
• Recruitment: It deals with the entire recruitment procedure, such as vacancies, applications, requirements, short-listed candidates, interview notes, etc. You can also generate templates and documentation to streamline the whole recruitment process.