How drilldowns really work:
When we think about how we want integration to look when brought forward to the user interface, we want true usability as opposed to the simple presentation of data. As we make life easier for our managers and employees, what we’re really doing is making the process simpler and allowing managers to forward employee careers more efficiently. This is a simple way of saying it’s all for the benefit if higher engagement and retention rates.
Let’s return to the performance and compensation integration conversation for a moment. Pretend you are a manager working on a merit compensation review. You see a performance score and click on the hyperlink presented for that score. There are a couple of scenarios. In the first, you are linked over to the performance system to drill down into the original performance review. You are given access to all the data you require to make a good compensation decision. In the second scenario, rather than linking to the performance system, you are presented with various reports, scorecards, and other data that has already been digested and no longer in the raw form. With this type of data, you can filter though the pertinent data much more quickly.
My basic point is that when implementing a manager portal from a vendor or creating one from scratch, what I don’t want is a bunch of hyperlinks to the source applications. This type of “integration” is really only half a step better than my logging into the source application manually and digging around. What I want is a presentation of useful and usable information that has been deciphered for me.
The fabled hyperlink expressed above should pull not an application, but an entire new page filled with reports and summaries for the employee’s performance review I’m inquiring about. Whether this is pulled through XML, a pre-built query, or some sort of application logic sitting somewhere I can’t imagine at the moment, the manager needs quick and easy. Anything else and the manager simply allocates arbitrary merit increase values, totally nullifying the potential positive effect your talent management strategy could have had.
