Ellucian vs SumTotal

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Our analysts compared Ellucian 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.

Ellucian Software Tool
SumTotal Software Tool

Product Basics

Ellucian Talent Management Suite is a SaaS product designed to facilitate recruiting and hiring processes for organizations in the higher education field. It is especially adept at combining both the hiring and development processes to find and retain highly qualified staff and faculty members, ensuring they become top performers and that the business operates at its highest level. Because it is easy to access, users can benefit by completing various tasks without added stress.
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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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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

  • Attract Top Talent: Post open positions to various channels; source candidates from multiple job boards and social media. Ensure those job postings reach a wider audience, helping to find the most qualified candidates for open positions within your organization. 
  • Develop Employee Skills: Help managers identify skills gaps to discern the training employees need. Identify and reward top performers. Empower workers to pick up the skills they need to advance in the workplace. 
  • Retain Top Employees: Monitor the employee lifecycle and identify specific tracks for employee growth; it helps retain top employees by providing them with clear career paths — ensuring that they see the potential for personal and professional development within the organization. 
  • Better Collaboration: Connects students, instructors, trainers and trainees alike. Allow for a more intense discussion about skill-building and other issues. Share data from department to department to ensure the best possible business and education practices. 
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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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  • Higher Education: Oversee and manage essential parts of college life such as advancement, alumni relations, campus life, enrollment and financial aid. Recruit students for the college and keep track of multiple campaigns to find which work well and which need tweaking. 
  • Recruiting: 
    • Job Posts: Create career site listings and automate job postings that streamline the hiring process. Post jobs to social media, expanding the reach of postings to find the most qualified candidates. 
    • Resume Management: Pre-screen candidates with built-in assessment tools that help prioritize candidates with the specific skills needed for the position. 
  • Compensation Management: Set budget rules based on organizational processes and guidelines. Let managers gain insight into corporate spending to ensure it’s never over what the budget allows. 
  • Core HR: Manage everything from budgeting to time tracking with core HR tools. Motivate current workers and make them feel heard to increase productivity. Track everything from one convenient location. 
  • Learning Management: Access more than 30,000 learning resources, including pre-built templates, assessments and legislative compliance programs. Leverage training modules to help develop employees and meet specific needs of the business. 
  • Performance Management: Review performance appraisals to identify employee goals and determine what development track specific employees should pursue. Track and identify individual skills that employees possess to help recognize when an organization must fill skill gaps. 
  • Fundraising: Push a culture of philanthropy and drive successful charitable giving campaigns through donor activities, personalized engagement plans and searching, reporting and sharing data. 
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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

#62

among all
HR Management Software

#23

among all
HR Management Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 393 reviews
Fair User Sentiment 132 reviews
74%
of users recommend this product

Ellucian has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 74% when considering 393 user reviews from 5 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.

3.8 (158)
3.2 (39)
3.8 (25)
2.7 (7)
3.0 (92)
n/a
4.3 (73)
4.0 (56)
3.9 (45)
2.9 (30)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Functioning Integrations: Over 70% of users who discussed integrations were pleased with the results.
Easy Implementation: Reviewers thought the setup process went reasonably smoothly in over 70% of online talks that mentioned implementation.
Proper Functionality: More than 70% of commenters that discussed the tool’s features felt they worked well.
Excellent Customer Service: Users were pleased with customer service in over 60% of reviews mentioning it.
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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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Outdated Code: Just under 90% of reviewers who discussed the code said it was obsolete and clunky.
Too Expensive: Commenters who talked about price felt too costly in over 80% of reviews.
Clunky, Ugly UI: Over 70% of users who discussed its navigation and UI said it felt dated, ugly, hard to use and hard to learn.
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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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Ellucian is an elearning tool that specializes in higher education. Reviewers were pleased with the range of features, simple setup and functioning integrations. They especially like the customer service, which many described as helpful and timely. One of the most significant issues found across negative reviews was with the outdated code and the user interface. Users reported that the interface was hard to learn, challenging to navigate, ugly, obsolete and frustrating. Last, users weren’t pleased with the price, feeling that it cost too much given the scope of the system. Ellucian looks like a good choice for medium-sized high education institutions. Be sure to demo extensively and establish requirements before purchasing.

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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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