ADP Workforce Now vs. Novatime (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ADP Workforce Now
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based HR platform for mid-sized businesses. It features customizable modules of various HR services that businesses can tailor to their specific needs, as well as regulatory monitoring and alerts to help businesses remain compliant.N/A
Novatime (discontinued)
Score 5.6 out of 10
N/A
From Ascentis, NOVAtime was a set of workforce management solutions providing timekeeping, payroll, leave management, and employee scheduling needs. Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022, and along with NOVAtime, will be discontinued.N/A
Pricing
ADP Workforce NowNovatime (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Essential
Contact sales team
Enhanced
Contact sales team
Complete
Contact sales team
HR Pro
Contact sales team
Payroll Essentials
Contact sales team
HR Plus
Contact sales team
Hiring Advantage
Contact sales team
Performance Plus
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ADP Workforce NowNovatime (discontinued)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPlease contact ADP for a product demo and ask about a hands-on "test drive" of Workforce Now.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ADP Workforce NowNovatime (discontinued)
Features
ADP Workforce NowNovatime (discontinued)
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.8
Ratings
1% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.8
Ratings
2% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Pay calculation8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.7
Ratings
4% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Approval workflow7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.7
Ratings
5% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.0
Ratings
29% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.8
Ratings
10% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Report builder7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data5.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.2
Ratings
9% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
New hire portal7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.7
Ratings
3% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.4
Ratings
20% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Performance plans6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans6.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking5.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency6.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.0
Ratings
26% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search6.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development6.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.6
Ratings
16% below category average
Novatime (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention2.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
User Ratings
ADP Workforce NowNovatime (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
5.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
2.2
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
5.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ADP Workforce NowNovatime (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
well suited for folks in manufacturing or building (jobs and tasks required). Good for small and big business, ease of forming to what you want rather then getting oversold on items that you will not use. Lots of training options available
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NOVAtime is an excellent choice for employers who need a timekeeping solution with an easy-to-use and understand user interface, great user experience, and great support from the Ascentis user support teams.
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Pros
  • HRIS that is personalized for the employee and addresses DE&I needs.
  • Payroll, of course! The system addresses all needs, such as deductions, additional pay, premium OT, and shift differentials.
  • Onboarding is an excellent way to stay in compliance and have all documents completed.
  • Tax and Banking and resolution to any issues.
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  • It has some really nice scheduling features that allow managers to see the difference between hours expected to work and actual hours worked as well as overtime, absences, and non-scheduled shifts.
  • There are easy ways you can transfer a manager's caseload/employees to another manager temporarily if that person is going to be out of the office for an extended period of time without giving away too much personal information - just what would be needed for payroll or time off requests (this can be customized by your administrator).
  • The program itself can be customized in many different ways to meet the needs of the company/organization that it is working with.
  • The charts/graphs on the new homepage are somewhat helpful and link to useful information.
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Cons
  • Customized pre-process payroll reports (Limited on pre-process payroll reports)
  • Labor Allocation (Allocations make payroll reporting very hard to review and find any errors )
  • Recruiting (ATS is very basic)
  • Geofencing (should be able to change shape rather than a circle)
  • Pay Classes (should be able to change at Practitioner level rather than reach out to support)
  • Cookies and Cache have to be cleared on a regular basis
  • Only able to see employee documents/acknowledgements one at a time in the employee file
  • Timecards can only be managed/viewed by 1 person
  • Timeoff emails do not have a link
  • Cost per payroll - not just monthly fee so cost with off cycle payrolls
  • Separate I9 step not needed - during onboarding - 2nd Everify step
  • ADP Workforce Now does not pull in allowances for Houly employees into payroll ONLY Salaried employees
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  • For people who don't use it often, they often forget how to navigate the site
  • Be able to narrow down PTO options by company
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Likelihood to Renew
We are happy with the service and options offered by ADP. Although the cost is a bit high for a not-for-profit organization, it is essential that we have multi-jurisdictional support for the 20 plus states where employees work and reside. As our company is diminishing in size, we may need to look at making a change to conserve costs. At this time, that would be the only reason we would not renew our WFN contract.
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The overall satisfaction within the organization has been luke warm, at best. The software may be more conducive for a hospital but I believe there is a reason why we are the lone baseball team utilizing it.
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Usability
Lack of documentation and test environment make it extremely difficult to deploy work processes through the system. While there are a handful of things throughout the system that work well, particularly from an employee's perspective, many tasks, which would be simple for practitioner users in other systems, require these users to ask for administrator support. Additionally, the ghosts in the ADP machine cause established process (e.g. automated report delivery) to stop working with no notice and no error report.
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On the employee's side of things, Novatime is pretty intuitive and fairly easy to use. All they have to do is either press a button to punch in or punch out. If they are entering in their hours, all they have to do is type in the number of hours per day. On the manager's side of things, Novatime is also fairly easy to use. It highlights in red any missed punches and in green any OT that the employee has. There are links on the homepage of the manager's page that will lead them to a list of all their employees' missed punches for a pay period and they can fix them all before payroll is due. Novatime becomes a bit more complicated on the administrator's side. The issues I have run into with Novatime normally come after updates/upgrades to their system. They have been getting better, but the administrator's side is still a bit clunky and takes a while to find what you are looking for. It is not as intuitive as the other sides and takes a bit of computer knowledge to figure it out.
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Reliability and Availability
ADP outages are very rare
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Overall, I think the functionality of the program works pretty well. Sometimes, certain browsers do not work well for the policy function of ADP, but that is the only issue thus far
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Most of it is not local, which impacts barriers and customs. I do think they know a lot, but not the cohesive piece. Some naturally know more about certain things than others. The payroll section should be broken out more because payroll is a big topic with many problems, so it can be hard to get the right person who can actually help you.
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The program itself can be customized in many different ways to meet the needs of the company/organization that it is working with. The charts/graphs on the new homepage are somewhat helpful and link to useful information. It has some really nice scheduling features that allow managers to see the difference between hours expected to work and actual hours worked as well as overtime, absences, and non-scheduled shifts. Processing payroll is quite simple. PTO request off is straightforward.
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In-Person Training
In-person training was pretty good - I think this significantly depends on the trainer. Our trainer was really good and showed what ADP can do - but I know that all trainers are not the same - and this truly makes such as difference. Overall, our training went pretty well.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
At the time training was not as expansive as it is now. If it could go wrong it did for me so the process was difficult and lengthy. I needed to have more in person walkthroughs of things to ensure the transition was done correctly. Not sure what else I can say, we were part of the initial move to Workforce Now when it was introduced.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Either assign more than one specialist to the implementation process, or assign less clients to the implementation specialist. The process requires attention to detail and the ability to test and re-test as well as verify the information. It also requires a lot of back and forth between the client ant the implementation specialist, so they need to be readily available during the whole implementation process.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I also used UltiPro (way back -- it didn't even appear in dropdown). Recommend ADP Workforce Now above all others. Paycor and Paycom were both very clunky. I even helped implement Paycom and could never get it to work how the business needed it to.
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They actually ended up joining forces to make one platform for all timekeeping solutions. With Novatime and all other modules we have from Ascentis, everything flows very easily.
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Scalability
We have been able to grow with ADP from just a few hundred employees to over 10,000 so it's actually very scalable for payroll usage. We do not use the benefits and onboarding offerings for most of our employees but they are built to scale easily enough for when our corporate team has over 1,000 FTE.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • ADP Workforce Now handles all of our tax filing which frees up our time to do other things. They keep us compliant communicating updates on a timely basis.
  • Calculates payrolls accurately. Our management and employees have built a level of confidence due to the ease of pulling statements, year end documents etc.
  • A really nice feature is the follow up email what a change has been made to banking information. There were a couple of times the employee did not make changes to their account information. This kept their funds from getting routed into the wrong hands.
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  • We have had a few scenarios where the PTO accrual dropped off and it did take 3 attempts of reaching out to customer service to get it sorted.
  • The customer service team has collaborated with me in creating new PTO categories to automate certain needs to save me some time.
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ScreenShots

ADP Workforce Now Screenshots

Screenshot of ADP Workforce Now: a simple and complete human capital management solutionScreenshot of Benchmarking by ADP DataCloud: an application with an extensive data set ... available to ADP Workforce Now clientsScreenshot of ADP Workforce Now clients can equip their employees with the ADP Mobile self-service app