System maintenance

Introduction

• The ongoing task of operating and maintaining the new

system is often forgotten
• Organizations must determine who will be responsible for
the ongoing maintenance of the system – system upgrading
and updating, adjusting to legislative changes and changes
in organizational procedures
• In smaller organization, HR professionals take on HRIS
responsibilities along with their other task
• Larger organization will have one or more dedicated
professionals to manage the system
 What is maintenance?
• Refers primarily to software maintenance rather than
hardware maintenance

• It includes:
• Technical changes that do not alter HRIS functions and
features
• Correcting bugs in programs or data
• Altering data definitions (field sizes, types, and codes)
• Modifying a system already in production
• Fine-tuning a system so that it will run faster
• Major enhancements such as the addition on new modules
 Definition

Maintenance refers to
any changes made to the
HRIS after the system
becomes operational
and has been accepted.
Types of maintenance

Corrective

Adaptive Perfective
 Corrective maintenance
• often occurs early in the HRIS life cycle
• Fixing problems that prevent the system from working the
way the designers and users intended it to work
• Some of the problems that lead to this kind of problem are
• incorrect design (for example bugs that occur from an
improper or incomplete requirements definition),
• development (for example poor coding), or
• implementation
 Adaptive maintenance
• Done when there are changes in technology, government
regulations, or other external forces, such as new system
releases from the vendor.

• Some examples of adaptive maintenance include

• increasing the size of identity card field from eight to fourteen
characters, and
• changing the percentage in the calculation of the Employee
Pension Fund calculation.
 Perfective maintenance
• at optimizing the performance of the system.
• It is done when there is a request from the users and
technicians.
• may not be as important as corrective or adaptive
maintenance, but it can enhance the capability of an HRIS.
• it is mostly carried out during the growing stage of an HRIS
life cycle.
• In a mature system, perfective maintenance occurs because
the users become more expert with the system, that HRSC
integrate new tools and techniques into HRIS work.
• Service Requests
• when the system did not function well at all or it fails to meet
standards completely, OR
• the system works so well that the users see new avenues for
improvement

• User Surveys
• surveys should be conducted in order to find out the current
level of HRIS performance.
• HRIS issues, strengths, and weakness,
• user satisfaction with HRIS and HRSC, and
• changing human resource needs.
 Continue…
• Business and Government Changes
• To remain competitive, businesses must be able to adapt to the
changes that are happening all around it, especially if the
change is instigated by the government. Adapting to these
changes means that the business itself has to undergo some
kind of change. As a result, the IS system used also have to
change, including the HRIS.

• New Developments in the HRIS Field

• The information technology evolves very rapidly. The HRIS
manager should always keep up to date on the latest
development of HRIS-related products, services and project-
management techniques.
 When Maintenance is not Enough
• One reason a system needs to be replace is because the
performance of the system has declined.
• Systems declines due to several reasons, mainly:
• business needs evolve,
• new technology emerges,
• the system has experienced a certain level of change from its
original form,
• the system is more of a encumbrance rather than a service.
How does one knows a systems needs to be
replaced?

• There are many tools that HRSC managers can use to get
this kind of information.
• For example, audits, logs, and user and consultant evaluations.

• Information from these sources can be used to compare the

performance of the system to a predetermined standard.
• Other than that, some of the things that one can watch for
are:
• maintenance resources – both time and money – have been increasing,
• maintenance request increase in number,
• maintenance activities no longer provides dramatic productivity
improvements
Several possible replacement strategies
(Ceriello &Freeman 1991)

• do not replace; let the HRIS collapse,

• replace modules as they reach decline,
• replace the entire system once it reaches decline,
• replace parts of the system as cost-benefits-value
analysis indicates,
• replace the entire system as cost-benefit-value analysis
indicates,
• replace the system before decline begins, but diagnose
the problems early
The end