How UCD Transformed Their People Analytics Function

University College Dublin wanted one solution to cater for all of their HR and Payroll data needs. They previously relied on multiple legacy and bespoke tools to meet their operational HR and Payroll needs, and there was a very heavy reliance on a small number of internal resources to manage and maintain these solutions.  The production of management information for HR was manual and resource-intensive and did not offer a full end-to-end data experience to the key users.

University College Dublin chose MakoData to be their HR & Payroll Analytics provider in 2020. Since then both organisations have worked together to meet all of UCD’s operational, strategic and deep-need requirements. MakoData is underpinned by the world-leading Tableau Analytics platform, which UCD have now rolled out across the University as their strategic reporting and analytics solution.

Beginning in November 2020 MakoData began by providing the team at UCD with the standard suite of HR and Payroll metrics, management analytics and operational reports, allowing the team to begin discovering their data in a whole new way.

One key area of interest for the team at UCD was the MakoData HR and Recruitment (Resourcing) Subject Areas. The new visual capabilities allowed for users to see their HR and Recruitment data like never before, unearthing new insights for every step of the Resourcing process.

In addition to the quick wins delivered by the standard suite of HR and Payroll dashboards and analytics, the teams began working closely on the migration of reports from the multiple toolsets in use.

Following on from a detailed analysis of the existing estate of legacy reports and a wish list of new reports, the project was structured into a series of agile sprints to ensure a successful migration of over 300 reports.

As part of the migration, additional improvements were made to their reports to maximise the value of the project and ongoing usage.

After a successful project and implementation, the team at UCD were provided with a state-of-the-art reporting and analytics solution that will cater for all of their reporting and data needs into the future.

MakoData was selected following a competitive review of five people analytics platforms. The decisive factors: it connected directly to UCD’s existing CoreHR and payroll infrastructure without requiring a data migration, and it was purpose-built for HR — not a generic tool requiring data engineering expertise.

The implementation was delivered in a short few weeks, including full historical data validation, dashboard configuration, and a structured onboarding programme for the HR & Payroll team. A dedicated project manager then passed the team over to support for any ongoing queries, an approach the UCD team specifically cited as critical to adoption success.

Early success was achieved thanks to a well aligned sprint process and impeccable work from both teams. In a few short months the team at UCD enthusiastically expanded their knowledge of the solution and their data. With all reports migrated and training completed there were many significant wins for the University.

MakoData delivered a comprehensive set of Recruitment (Resourcing) reports to service requirements set out by the Resourcing team. These reports allow the team to report on the competitions at each stage of the application process, open competitions by assignee, time to fill competitions and much more, giving huge insight into Recruitment and Resourcing across each department and the organisation as a whole. Reports were also created that merged data from their HR system with external SLA data in order to monitor the adherence of their resourcing processes to the various SLA KPIs.

Aside from progressing along the analytics journey, the MakoData outputs used by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion unit for HR and Recruitment has meant they can easily analyse employees and potential candidates across the nine protected grounds. Ensuring recruitment and resourcing is always in line with Equality legislation.

Accurate and timely payroll reporting is of critical importance to all organisations. With MakoData the University has completely revamped their payroll control and validation reporting, with outputs supporting data checking, exceptions checking, period variance reporting, year-end and legislative pension returns to name just a few. This has seen a reduction in the amount of manual effort and time involved in the payroll validation process.

Since the successful implementation and migration, UCD have also implemented the MakoData Gender Pay Gap solution. With reporting ongoing since 2022, UCD have been able to see and understand their Gender Pay Gap data as well as meeting all reporting requirements. The team at UCD can meet all of their legislative returns, now and into the future.

Here at MakoData, we look forward to continuing to work with the amazing team at University College Dublin and supporting them with any requirements they may have.