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Robin...we are Kronos customers currently but we're in the process of implementing a different Time and Attendance software called Legiant. Your scenario is similar to the ones we've had with Kronos but not exactly the same. About 3yrs ago, we had an older version of Kronos and we received a letter stating that we had to upgrade. I can't remember exactly how much it was going to cost us, but it wasn't cheap to upgrade. So we paid the money and did the upgrade. The bad thing about that upgrade was that Kronos couldn't migrate their own data to the new version of Kronos. So we now had two different PC's with Kronos on them: one PC for our older version with historical payroll data and a new PC with the new version (Timekeeper Central 4.3) that we just upgraded to. About a year later, we received another letter from Kronos stating that Timekeeper Central 4.3 was not going to be supported after a certain date and that we needed to upgrade to the newer web version of their product. And by the way, your clocks will all have to be changed out b/c they're not compatible with the newer version of Kronos. So we asked for a quote to do the upgrade w/newer clocks and it was upwards of $200K!!! Needless to say, we started to look for other options. We evaluated Kronos' new web version (I can't remember the name of it now), API, and Legiant. Our conclusion after seeing all the products was that Legiant was the best solution for us. On top of that, the price point was extremely more palatable for what we considered to be a better product. So, we signed a contract with them and are about 40% complete with our implementation of Legiant right now. Speaking of contracts, Kronos' support contract states that they only support us from 8am - 5pm. Anything outside of those hours will cost you $187.50 per hour...with a minimum of 1.5hrs charge. And in our support contract there is a "scope" of things they cover. Anything outside that "scope" and you will be charged $187.50 per hour no matter what time you call. For instance, we had to setup some "events" in Kronos last week b/c our payroll PC had some hard drive issues. After prepping a spare PC, installing Kronos, Kronos Connect, restoring databases, etc...we called Kronos' support to help us re-setup the events that run in their software. The response was, sure we'll help...for $187.50 per hour. We found out that setting up events wasn't in the support contract. I've been in this business for a long time and I've never seen anything like this in a support contract. We weren't happy about paying to setup something that we thought should be included in our contract but it also helped confirm the decision that we made a few months earlier to switch to Legiant. Please understand that I'm not bashing Kronos. I think they have a good product but I don't like the way they do business. I'd recommend that anyone looking for a Time & Attendance software do their homework and look at *all* the products available, use a weighted matrix to determine what best fits your hospital's needs, and make a decision based on that. There are other vendors besides Kronos that have successfully implemented their Time and Attendance software with Meditech. If you find after a full evaluation that Kronos is still the best way to go for your facility, use the other companies price points (which will be much less that Kronos) as a negotiating tool with Kronos. If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me. Thank you, Owen Huett Systems Analyst Brazosport Regional Health System -----Original Message----- From: Robin Gullickson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:29 PM To: Meditech-l Subject: [MEDITECH-L] kronos upgrade questions All messages should be posted in plain text. HTML will be converted to attachments. The meditech-l web site is MTUsers.com ====================================== I have been asked to post this question re: Kronos Time and Attendance - We have been using Kronos for a couple of years and now want to do an upgrade. We are hearing from a Kronos person that the update is free but if we want Kronos to assist/answer questions (their professional services) re: the update we will need to pay them - not only once but twice (once for the live environment and once for the test environment). It seems to me this defeats the purpose of a maintenance contract. For anyone using Kronos has this been your experience or is the person we are speaking with have his information incorrect? Robin Robin Gullickson Information Systems Director North Country Regional Hospital 218-333-5806 (office) _______________________________________________ meditech-l mailing list [email protected] http://mtusers.com/mailman/listinfo/meditech-l _______________________________________________ meditech-l mailing list [email protected] http://mtusers.com/mailman/listinfo/meditech-l
