Much commotion was made about AJAX last year when it took hold in the web marketplace. Certainly the web applications of it are marvelous and bloggers like myself spent much time wondering where it would go and what forms it might take shape in. I personally held my opinion until I saw more of it and could really have a clear vision in how I thought it might impact HR.
First however, perhaps not everyone is familiar with AJAX as a technology. Basically, it’s asynchronous java script something or other… What all that really means is that when you load a webpage, a java script is loaded with the HTML calling additional data from the server. AJAX is asynchronous (meaning not real time) because the server side data is requested only once during the page load. What this data does is rather dynamic, but the possibilities are endless.
One of the best examples is on the Google maps page. If you search for an address and then click the link for nearby businesses, each of those businesses will dynamically display over the map with pertinent information such as web links, reviews, and images. This is all done without calling for a data refresh because the data was prepared and made available when you originally loaded the page.
Looking forward to seeing how AJAX can make HR pages more rich, the easiest place to start is employee and manager self service portal applications. Imagine loading your performance reviews and immediately being able to pop up new overlays of reports, prior review history, and workflow without having to wait the extra two or three seconds. All of this is possible because AJAX would keep loading data even after you’ve finished loading the current page. Saving 2-3 seconds may not seem like a whole lot, but when you have 5 employees to review, and 10 pages to look at for each to gather data, it adds up. From an employee view, you might be able to provide better help and navigation assistance with AJAX, or simply more convenient pages rather than re-navigating through the menu tree.
Certainly AJAX also holds much promise is HR applications as well. Consider an employee profile screen in your HRMS. This might have elements such as job, department, personal data, etc, but imagine if the detail of each of these continued to load and a simple click expanded the specific data you wanted to drill down into?
I’m fairly sure that my fellow bloggers will thing I missed the boat on this one, but I think that understanding where Google and Yahoo have taken AJAX give us much better insight into how our HR vendors might shape their development futures. Needless to say, AJAX is cool stuff and I look forward to seeing it in HR, hoping of course that I never realize it’s there working in the background.
9 responses to “AJAX User Interface in HR”
systematicHR – Human Resources Strategy and Technology » AJAX User Interface in HR
Dubs-
Great post. AJAX holds a lot of promise for simplifying navigation and ease of use. The challenge for the HR vendors, though, is what do they build versus what is built into the browser. Anyone can download a Firefox add-on called cooliris with mouse-over, AJAX-like functionality today. Similarly, one of the advantages with Safari (Apple’s browser) and the new iPhone is the browser functionality is all AJAX based.
You did not miss the boat
SAP uses a technology called Webdynpro to achieve the same thing as AJAX. By now most SAP HCM functionality will be available in Webdynpro via SAP’s enterprise portal.
Successfactors is also doing a lot with AJAX type technology. See: http://www.successfactors.com/next/ and finally you’ll also find some cool usage of flash from HumanConcepts, see: http://www.orgpluslive.com/.
You may be getting forgetful in your old age, Dubs – haven’t we talked about this? In any case, spot on. My friend Rich Manalang at Oracle has been pushing this envelope for some time and released some stuff in the wild that plays well with Peoplesoft/Oracle apps. It appears to be getting some cred at HQ, he’s now helping Paul Pedrazzi to show the way. Check out oracleappslab.com
systematic
Not sure if “the detail of each of these continued to load and a simple click expanded the specific data you wanted to drill down into?” is the real killer-app here. What intrigues me is the ability to use the technology to create mash-ups with the data – as you mention in the Google Maps example.
What if I was able to see my credentials matched up with openings within a company to determine career planning. Or better yet – what if each manager put their plan for their team/department in the data base – and the skills they may need in the future – so I can now start planning my career path.
To me the real benefit is the stuff the technology allows you to create – that you haven’t thought of – not just more data faster.
I
…before I got cut off…what I meant to say was, “I love AJAX.”
Thanks for all the AJAX comments. I’ll definitely be looking at Carol’s and Systematic’s links.
-Dubs