Unlock the Full Potential of UKG Pro People Analytics: 5 Hidden Gems

Many organizations invest in powerful HR technology yet often barely scratch the surface of its capabilities. This is a common scenario in the realm of Human Capital Management (HCM) technology: you purchase a robust system like UKG Pro, but daily operations limit your usage to basic reporting and payroll processing.

However, UKG Pro People Analytics is a robust tool that can drive significant efficiency and data visibility when utilized to its full extent. By unlocking specific, often underutilized features, you can transform your HR data from a static record into a dynamic asset that drives decision-making.

Drawing on expert insights from the NeoSystems team—including Kim Huynh, Senior Business Intelligence Consultant; Gregory Giancola, VP of People & Pay Solutions; and Taufiq Habiby, Vice President, Professional Services – AI/BI—this guide explores five powerful, often overlooked features. From automation tools to compliance tracking, these “hidden gems” can revolutionize how HR and payroll teams manage data.

1. Be Proactive with Event Studio

One of the most powerful yet underused tools within the UKG Pro People Analytics suite is Event Studio. Think of Event Studio as your “HR Watchdog”—a Business Intelligence (BI) tool that monitors your data for specific conditions or changes 24/7. Unlike standard reports that you must run manually to see data, Event Studio is always awake, scanning the database for conditions you have defined.

How It Works

Event Studio allows you to set up specific triggers. When a condition hits—meaning a specific event occurs within the data—the system automatically executes a task. This task could be sending a dynamic email notification, running a specific report, or distributing that report to key stakeholders.

Real-World Use Cases

The power of Event Studio lies in shifting your operations from reactive troubleshooting to proactive management.

• Security and Fraud Prevention: You can configure a trigger for direct deposit changes. If an employee’s direct deposit account number changes, the system can instantly alert the employee with a personalized email to verify the change, mitigating the risk of payroll fraud.
• Onboarding Efficiency: When a new hire is added to the system, Event Studio can automatically email IT and Facilities teams, prompting them to set up credentials, prepare laptops, or issue security badges.
• Offboarding Protocols: Upon an employee termination event, the system can notify relevant departments immediately to retrieve assets and disable system access, ensuring security protocols are met without delay.

2. Streamline Operations with Report Scheduling

While real-time alerts are vital, consistent data delivery is the backbone of payroll and HR operations. Report Scheduling allows you to set reports to run automatically on daily, weekly, or monthly schedules, ensuring stakeholders receive the data they need exactly when they need it.

Flexibility in Delivery

This feature offers immense flexibility. Reports can be delivered in multiple formats, including PDF, Excel, CSV, or HTML. Furthermore, you can schedule long-running, data-heavy reports to process during off-hours, ensuring that system performance remains optimal during the business day.

Strategic Alignment

Effective reporting is about timing. By aligning report delivery with key business dates—such as pay periods, open enrollment windows, or compliance deadlines—you remove the manual burden from your team. Stakeholders receive their data without having to log in or submit a request, and your team is freed from the repetitive task of manually generating routine reports.

3. Personalize Data Delivery with Report Bursting

If Report Scheduling is about when data is delivered, Report Bursting is about how it is segmented. A helpful analogy for Report Bursting is “slicing a cake.” You bake the cake (run the report) once, but then the system cuts it up and serves specific slices to specific people.

Concept and Efficiency

Report Bursting splits a single report into personalized sections based on recipients. Instead of running 50 separate reports for 50 different department managers, you run one master report. The system then applies “burst keys”—such as Department ID or Manager Name—to filter the data and deliver a personalized version to each recipient.

Security and Use Cases

This feature is critical for both efficiency and security. It ensures that a manager only sees data relevant to their direct reports, maintaining strict data privacy standards.

• Total Compensation Statements: Distribute individualized compensation letters to thousands of employees simultaneously, with each employee receiving a PDF containing only their financial data.
• Compliance Audits: Send department-specific audit reports to business unit leaders, allowing them to review only the compliance gaps relevant to their teams.

4. Ensure Integrity with Audit Table Reporting & Alerts

Data integrity is non-negotiable, particularly regarding regulatory compliance. Audit Tables in UKG Pro serve as the system’s “black box recorder.” They maintain a historical log of the system, tracking exactly who changed data, when it was changed, and what the values were before and after the modification.

Compliance and Troubleshooting

Querying these audit tables is essential for meeting strict regulatory requirements, such as SOX or HIPAA. Beyond compliance, they are invaluable for troubleshooting. If a sensitive field—like a salary figure or job code—is altered incorrectly, the audit table allows you to pinpoint whether the change was an unauthorized edit or an accidental system update.

Implementation Note

While UKG Pro comes with many audit features enabled, organizations often need to review system configurations to ensure specific tables are being tracked. Leveraging these tables effectively often requires specific BI skills to translate the raw, complex log data into readable, actionable reports. However, once established, these reports provide an unalterable history of your data’s lifecycle.

5. Visualize KPIs with Interactive Dashboards

Traditional spreadsheets are static; they capture a moment in time but offer little in the way of exploration. UKG Pro Analytics Dashboards provide a dynamic alternative, allowing users to visualize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) through interactive charts, graphs, and heat maps.

Interactivity and Insight

The primary value of these dashboards is their interactivity. Users can drill down into the data—for example, clicking on a specific department bar in a chart will automatically filter all other metrics on the screen to reflect only that department’s data. This allows for immediate, granular analysis without generating new reports.

Strategic Value

Dashboards are the ideal tool for executive overviews. Instead of wading through rows of data, leadership can monitor high-level KPIs like headcount, turnover rates, diversity metrics, and labor costs in real-time. By utilizing the drag-and-drop interface of the Dashboarding tool, HR teams can assemble visualizations that provide instant insights into the health of the organization.

Transforming HR Data Management

By leveraging these five hidden gems—Event Studio, Report Scheduling, Report Bursting, Audit Tables, and Dashboards—organizations can move beyond basic reporting. These tools offer a pathway to automated workflows, higher data accuracy, and significant time savings for HR and Payroll teams.

We encourage you to review your current UKG Pro setup. Identify just one of these features to implement this quarter. Whether it is setting up a proactive alert in Event Studio or automating a monthly compliance report via bursting, small steps toward automation can yield massive returns in efficiency.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of these underutilized features and their impact on HR efficiency, we invite you to watch the full on-demand webinar. Access in-depth demonstrations, advanced tips, and real-world applications by watching the on-demand webinar.