SumTotal vs Built for Teams

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Our analysts compared SumTotal vs Built for Teams 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

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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Built for Teams provides small to mid-sized companies with robust employee management solutions in a web-based environment. It provides modules that support PTO tracking, recruiting, record keeping and more. Its inclusions let managers and stakeholders hire and retain a successful workforce with analytics tools that provide valuable insights for educated decision making.

It gives employees an accessible source of information to make requests and check personal data like PTO. Managers can leverage organizational charts to gain clear visibility into all of their employees.
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$5/User, Monthly
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$1/User, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
Small
Medium
Large
Small
Medium
Large
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

  • 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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  • Improved Organization: Built for Teams includes robust organizational charts that give managers valuable visibility into everyone working at the business. Users can also benefit from numerous scheduling and PTO request features to keep track of who is working when. 
  • Hire the Best: This suite gives hiring managers the tools needed to find, hire and maintain the best-in-class employees for a stable and productive working environment. Search by certification, skill set, availability and more for the best matches. 
  • Better Strategic Decision Making: Built for Teams gives users the ability to set up strategic hiring plans and successions to ensure that you’re never left in a tough spot when you lose an employee. Ramp up your hiring in conjunction with other business processes or slow it down when a good point is reached. 
  • Boost Process Accuracy: Users can actively manage salaries, employee position statuses and hiring plans for consistent and accurate hiring practices. A historical record of all changes to these processes is automatically kept by the system for increased accountability and accuracy. 
  • Easy to Access and Intuitive: Built for Teams focuses on providing users with an accessible and simple platform. Users can easily edit single employees, teams or whole departments with drag-and-drop support. Everything is easily accessible via web browser and supports interactive charts with zoom, pan and navigation features. 
  • Quick and Easy Approvals: Managers can receive automatic notifications when someone requests time off. These notifications include information on who else has requested the day off, a full request summary and a quick link to approve or deny the request. Optional alerts can also be set to notify employees that their leave request was accepted or denied. 
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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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  • Customizable Org Charts: Built for Teams includes flexible organizational charts that display the hierarchy of the entire organization. Each employee in the chart comes with easy to access information, including department, contact info, location, schedule, a personal bio and more. Team members can be color-coded for more in-depth organization. 
  • Chart Metrics: Users can leverage organizational charts to view open positions, hiring progress, headcounts and the overall span of control. This information, along with the entire chart itself, can be printed, published through a company’s intranet and shared with employees. 
  • Applicant Tracking: Managers can gain instant visibility into critical hiring processes. Users can see hiring progress for open positions, how many people have applied to a certain position, how many days a position has been open and more. 
  • PTO Tracking:  Users can completely customize their leave and PTO request settings to include things like sick, personal and holidays leave. Users can create an unlimited amount of these settings. The system can also carry over unused time, blackout days, waiting periods and more. This feature also supports the automatic increase of rates based on tenure. 
  • Time Off Requests: Employees can easily submit requests for time off from mobile, desktop and the Slack application. They can also see their remaining hourly balances, transaction histories and request statuses. Company calendars ensure that there are no conflicts with multiple people asking for the same day off. 
  • Slack Integration: Built for Teams features integration with Slack that allows employees to easily submit requests from the application itself. Users can also see their current balances and PTO accounts. 
  • Automation and Reporting: Users can leverage automation to cut down on time-intensive manual entry that allows managers to focus on more important tasks. Reporting features track and displays time off requests, balances and employee statistics. 
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Product Ranking

#23

among all
HR Management Software

#208

among all
HR Management Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Fair User Sentiment 132 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 1222 reviews
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.

94%
of users recommend this product

Built for Teams has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 94% when considering 1222 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

3.2 (39)
4.6 (58)
2.7 (7)
4.74 (573)
n/a
4.7 (572)
4.0 (56)
n/a
2.9 (30)
3.9 (19)

Awards

No awards.

Built for Teams stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

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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Centralized Employee Database: Built for Teams offers a centralized location to store and manage employee data, including contact information, emergency contacts, job titles, and more. This eliminates the need for paper files or multiple spreadsheets, making it easier to keep track of employee information and ensure accuracy.
Streamlined Onboarding: The platform simplifies the onboarding process for new hires by providing a structured framework for collecting necessary information, assigning tasks, and tracking progress. This ensures a smooth and efficient onboarding experience for both new employees and HR staff.
Time-Off Management: Built for Teams includes tools for managing employee time off, including vacation, sick leave, and personal days. Employees can easily request time off through the platform, and managers can approve or deny requests with a few clicks. The system also tracks accruals and balances, ensuring that employees are using their time off appropriately.
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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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Limited Customization: Users have expressed frustration over the platform's limited ability to tailor the system to their specific needs, particularly when it comes to complex workflows and unique organizational structures.
Reporting Functionality: Generating comprehensive reports, especially for performance management or identifying trends, has proven to be cumbersome for some users due to the platform's reporting limitations.
Mobile App Experience: The mobile app has received mixed reviews, with some users finding it less intuitive and feature-rich compared to the desktop version, impacting accessibility and ease of use.
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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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Is Built for Teams actually built for teams? User reviews from the last year suggest that while Built for Teams offers a solid foundation for HR processes, it may not be the most robust or feature-rich compared to competitors like BambooHR or Namely. Users appreciate the platform's intuitive design and ease of use, particularly for core HR functions like managing employee data, tracking time off, and approving requests. The shared calendar feature, allowing employees to visualize leave time, is frequently cited as a major plus. However, some users find the reporting functionality limited and crave more customization options. Others express a desire for more advanced features, such as performance management tools with in-depth feedback mechanisms or more sophisticated compensation management capabilities. Essentially, Built for Teams seems best suited for smaller organizations or those with relatively straightforward HR needs. Its strength lies in simplifying core HR tasks and centralizing employee information. However, companies with complex requirements or a desire for granular control over HR processes might find Built for Teams lacking. They may be better served exploring alternatives that offer a broader and deeper range of functionalities.

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