BambooHR vs SumTotal

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Our analysts compared BambooHR vs SumTotal based on data from our 400+ point analysis of HR Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

SumTotal Software Tool

Product Basics

BambooHR is an HRMS designed for small and medium-sized businesses, and provides solutions for organizations in all industries. Based in the cloud, it streamlines data collection throughout the employee lifecycle, warehousing relevant information in a centralized database to make it easily accessible for managers and individual employees.

It facilitates hiring, onboarding, compensation administration, performance management, provides employee self-service capabilities and everything in-between. It allows organizations to make customizations, set multiple administrators and maintain inactive employees.
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SumTotal is a cloud-based HR Management software catering to mid-sized to large organizations. It packs a comprehensive suite of features covering talent acquisition, learning & development, workforce management, and performance management. Users praise its robust reporting & analytics, rich learning library, and mobile-friendly accessibility. However, the extensive customization options and powerful tools come with a steeper learning curve for administrators. Additionally, SumTotal's potential for high integration costs and higher price point compared to basic solutions make it less suitable for smaller companies. While some users struggle with complex content creation tools and limited instructor-led options, SumTotal shines in its ability to scale and adapt to dynamic needs, making it a strong contender for organizations seeking a feature-rich, customizable HR management platform, especially those with substantial training requirements and a dispersed workforce.

Pros
  • Comprehensive learning library
  • Robust reporting & analytics
  • Scalable for large organizations
  • Mobile-friendly learning
  • Customizable user experience
Cons
  • Steep learning curve for admins
  • Limited instructor-led options
  • Complex content creation tools
  • Potentially high integration costs
  • Pricey for smaller companies
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$175 Monthly, quote-based
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$5/User, Monthly
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Apps Marketplace: Find official partner integrations and solutions in a unified location to choose add-ons that make BambooHR a more robust solution. 
  • Employee Self-Service: Employees can log in to view personal information, including time off balances, benefits information and the employee directory. Administrators can set reminders to notify employees when they have documents ready to e-sign or other tasks to complete. 
  • Ensure Privacy: Administrators can set permissions to allow employees to view and edit their personal information while restricting access to other sensitive data. Ensures that all individual employee information is kept private and protects important company information from employees who don’t need to see it. 
  • Live Support: Access live chat and phone support Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. 
  • Progress Tracking: Gain visibility into the progress of individual projects and activities to oversee workflows and approvals, as well as which individuals have completed them. 
  • Security and Peace of Mind: Guarantees enterprise-level data security for any data that is housed within the system, ensuring compliance for organizations with security needs. 
  • Self Onboarding: Enable employees to e-sign and complete documents as well as enter their own information to streamline the onboarding process and free up managers to focus on other important tasks. Employees and new hires can also send introduction emails to meet team members before the newest employee starts their first shift. 
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  • Employee Retention: Provide tools for employee development, management and learning practices that encourage employee retention. 
  • Enhanced Productivity: Talent managers can continuously onboarding to speed up overall productivity. 
  • Organizational Stability: Learning-centered employee development builds an agile workforce that is adaptable to changing business environments. 
  • Learning Ecosystem: Invest in research and development on the latest learning trends, which managers can leverage to enhance employees' learning experience. 
  • Talent Engagement: Engage top talent while moving through the recruitment process, understand the workforce, identify the best talent and build a seamless experience for candidates as well as hiring teams. 
  • Enhanced Candidate Experience: Offer smartphone-optimized sites with intelligent and automated interview tools, candidate matching, and an easy-to-use mobile app interface. Keep applicants informed about upcoming interview details via a user dashboard. 
  • Accelerated Time-to-Performance: Seamless onboarding training helps new hires get up to speed quickly. Provide unique company policies and work culture for them to become familiar with the company. 
  • Smooth Role Switch: Access onboarding plans for new roles that include defined goals, new teams and KPI’s that ensure a more seamless transition to new responsibilities. 
  • Robust Manager and Admin Capabilities: Managers and administrators can easily view, schedule, filter, mark up and share reports from a mobile dashboard. Leverage reporting tools, advanced reports and dashboards at a single click. 
  • Informed Compensation Plans: Create smart, data-driven compensation plans according to preset or custom parameters. Real-time performance insights and budget modeling make compensation informed, fair and cost-effective. 
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  • Applicant Tracking System (ATS): Allows recruiters to post jobs to popular job sharing sites and social media. Sends alerts to notify recruiters as candidates move through the application process and offers in-app messaging features to answer candidate questions directly. 
  • Overtime Compliance: Checks overtime regulations in all 50 states and territories, ensuring compliance. 
  • Benefits Administration: Provides an option to set a variable rate health plan or enable users to sync with Maxwell Health, a third-party benefits administration outsourcer. 
  • Calendars: Generate a “Who’s Out” calendar to track which employees are out on sick leave or PTO. Integrates with popular third-party calendar apps such as Google Calendar, iCalendar and Outlook Calendar, enabling employees to synchronize their devices so they can easily view who will be available and when. 
  • Custom Workflows: Build data entry workflows that allow different individuals to be assigned to tasks and enter information. Up to five different individuals can make changes and approve workflows. 
  • Employee Reviews: Measure employee satisfaction and see how to boost employee engagement via anonymous scorecards that allow employees to evaluate the workplace. Combines eNPS and intelligent feedback analysis to gauge all aspects of the employee experience. 
  • Inbox Notifications: Alerts managers when an employee submits a time off request and reminds managers when they need to take action, such as approving or denying these requests. 
  • Mobile Capability: Provides desktop benefits from anywhere. Android and iOS-compatible apps allow employees to view time off balances, request time off, view company directories, contact employees via direct message and more. 
  • Offboarding Alerts: Send reminders to system administrators and managers to ensure that all aspects of the offboarding process are completed before an employee leaves their position and it’s too late. 
  • Performance Management Add-On: Allows employees to leave peer reviews through an objective feedback questionnaire to provide more robust evaluations. Aids managers in evaluating and comparing employee performance on an individual and departmental level, as well as across the entire company. 
  • Streamlined Reporting: Quickly generate a variety of reports including EEO-1 via the library of built-in reports. Set custom permissions to keep confidential information safe and then share reports with an unlimited number of individuals for review. 
  • Time Off Calculator: Employees can check their current PTO balances, see any upcoming time off that they have scheduled and make PTO calculations with the in-app calculator to determine how much PTO they will accrue in the future. 
  • Time Tracking: Allows employees to clock-in and clock-out for shifts as well as view their timesheets. Alerts remind employees and managers to keep their timesheets up to date with accurate hours and approve timecards when necessary. 
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  • Talent Development: Provides combined functionality of talent onboarding, talent management and learning management solutions to cater to talent development requirements. 
  • Talent Acquisition: Helps create a streamlined hiring cycle, hire the right talent, engage fresh recruits and drive productivity from day one. 
  • Learning Management:  
    •  Helps provide a customized, personalized and engaging learning experience tailored to the skill and competency of individuals rather than the whole team. 
    •  Ease of access on all devices, along with an offline mode, ensures seamless and consistent access to content and courses. 
  • Talent Management: Personalized and intuitive tools help employees pursue career growth and development. Capabilities include performance management, 360-degree feedback, succession planning and compensation management. 
  • Performance Management: Provides comprehensive feedback and tools that make feedback actionable, constructive and insightful. Measures workforce productivity, progress and priorities in real time. 
  • Succession Planning: Enables talent managers to identify and assess skill gaps, build agile talent pools, and align employee success with business goals and objectives. 
  • Compensation Management: Simplifies and streamline compensation plans, and helps build competitive packages to attract and retain top recruits. Workflow automation and compensation management tools aid compliance with complex global policies. 
  • Workforce Management: Bundled payroll, benefits and expense management minimize time, cost and efforts while maximizing accuracy. Features include automated scheduling, time and attendance, absence management, and compliance. 
  • Applicant Tracking System: Includes real-time alerts and notifications for offer approvals, a unique dashboard and reports widgets, customizable requisitions, and a consolidated requisition workspace. 
  • Mobility: Provides access to tools and reporting capabilities at all times and from any location. The dashboard can be operated using a tablet, desktop, mobile app or a phone browser. 
  • Growth Edition: Caters to the needs of fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses. Includes webinars, instructor-led training, approvals, and additional learning resources that users can access and configure anytime. 
  • Extended Enterprise: Helps build a brand image, accelerate growth and drive new sources of potential revenue. Facilitates an enriched and optimized learning experience for distributors, partners and customers. 
  • Gamified and Collaborative Learning: Helps: 
    •  Assess and accelerate learning with gamification capabilities that include leaderboards, points, levels and badges. 
    •  Enhance employee engagement by identifying and rewarding the right learning behaviors. 
    •  Enrich the knowledge of new hires with collaborative learning, up-to-date content, feedback and social ratings. 
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Product Ranking

#38

among all
HR Management Software

#23

among all
HR Management Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

59
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62
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21
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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

BambooHR
SumTotal
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Applicant Tracking And Recruiting Benefits Management Compensation Management Document Management Employee Engagement Employee Onboarding And Administration Employee Self Service Learning Management Payroll Management Performance Management Platform Capabilities Reporting And Dashboard Succession Management Time And Attendance Management Workforce Management 62 49 21 78 79 80 60 36 49 53 61 62 25 54 31 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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SumTotal
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Availability And Scalability Deployment Options Integrations And Extensibility Mobile Platform Security 71 50 71 75 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Vendor Qualification Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 4948 reviews
Fair User Sentiment 132 reviews
91%
of users recommend this product

BambooHR has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 4948 user reviews from 6 recognized software review sites.

69%
of users recommend this product

SumTotal has a 'fair' User Satisfaction Rating of 69% when considering 132 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (38)
n/a
4.4 (1048)
3.2 (39)
4.58 (1773)
2.7 (7)
4.6 (1589)
n/a
4.6 (272)
4.0 (56)
4.3 (228)
2.9 (30)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated BambooHR and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Vendor Information. BambooHR stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Vendor Information Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease to Use: BambooHR has an intuitive and user-friendly interface, according to 100% of reviews on the UI.
Leave and Attendance Management: 85% of reviews on leave and ATS indicated that it’s quick and efficient for recording and updating these details.
Employee Self-Service: 100% of reviews mentioning self-service observed that it helps easily update personal information, view job history, and generate pay stubs and benefits information.
Onboarding: Automated workflows make the onboarding experience simpler and faster, according to all reviews referring to this aspect.
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Robust Tools: All reviews on this feature suggest that SumTotal provides a robust set of talent development and management, payroll, and workforce management solutions.
Effective Tracking: According to 80% of reviews on tracking, the software optimizes talent management by tracking development and career growth.
Self-Service: Managers and employees can access and complete training courses at their convenience, according to all reviews on self-service.
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Lacks Crucial Tools: Lacks functions such as attaching documents for employee benefits, restrictions on editing employee forms once saved and more, according to all reviews on this element.
Custom Report Filters: According to 100% of reviews on reports, it doesn't provide any option to customize report filters.
Payroll Processing and Management: All reviews mentioning this element noted that the software lacks an in-house tool for payroll processing and management.
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Outdated Course Content: About 70% of reviews on course content reported that some modules aren’t frequently updated, resulting in an outdated learning experience.
Non-Intuitive Functions: Most features and functions aren’t intuitive, making it difficult to navigate, according to all reviews on this aspect.
Access to Reports: Accessing and pulling reports is extremely tedious and slow, according to 100% of reviews on reporting.
Customer Service: All reviews on customer support suggest that customer service is very slow and unresponsive.
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BambooHR provides hiring, onboarding, compensation administration, performance management and employee self-service capabilities to companies of all sizes and industries. Reviews suggest that it has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Employee self-service and a simplified onboarding experience are some noteworthy capabilities. The most repeated drawbacks include the absence of crucial functionality and the inability to customize report filters. Moreover, in-house payroll processing and management isn’t included. It can be a solid choice for companies willing to integrate with a third-party payroll provider.

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SumTotal users paint a mixed picture, praising its robust functionality and mobile accessibility while critiquing its clunky interface and steep learning curve. Many laud its comprehensive suite, encompassing everything from onboarding to performance management, finding it a one-stop shop for HR needs. One user gushes, "It's like having a whole HR department in the cloud!" However, ease of use seems to be a major sticking point. Comments like "The interface feels outdated and unintuitive" and "Learning curve is a mountain, not a hill" pop up frequently. This is often contrasted with praise for competitors like Workday, lauded for its sleek design and user-friendliness. One user sums it up: "SumTotal has the depth, Workday has the polish." Mobile accessibility shines as a bright spot, with users appreciating the ability to manage tasks on the go. This stands out compared to some competitors, making SumTotal a good fit for companies with a mobile workforce. Ultimately, SumTotal seems to be a powerful tool for organizations willing to invest the time and effort in mastering its complexities. As one user puts it, "It's not perfect, but it's incredibly versatile. If you can handle the initial climb, the view from the top is pretty good."

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Screenshots

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