PUTTING PEOPLE AT THE

CENTER OF TECHNOLOGY
DESIGN

AN OVERVIEW OF ULTIMATE SOFTWARES TECHNOLOGY

STRATEGY AND DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
A PEOPLE-FIRST APPROACH
MARKET OVERVIEW
FUTURE-PROOF ARCHITECTURE
TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS
CLOUD TECHNOLOGY
CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION
As a leading cloud provider of people management
solutions for global businesses, Ultimate Software
has been dedicated to building the highest-quality,
cutting-edge solutions for HR, payroll, and talent
management since 1990. Over this time, Ultimate
has been consistently recognized as not only a
product development and technology leader, but
one of the fastest-growing and most successful
human capital management (HCM) providers
serving more than 3,000 customers today with
employees in 160 countries.
Ultimate operates with the mission to always put
people first. This mission is the foundation for
Ultimates unique corporate culture, its partnership
with customers, and its design for the UltiPro
solution.
This paper explains the main drivers behind
Ultimates people-first technology strategy and
architecture, and how its approach is improving
the work experiences for its customers and their
employees.

A PEOPLE-FIRST

APPROACH
Building upon its corporate mission, Ultimate aligns its products and technology strategy around being people first.
What does this mean for customers? Ultimates UltiPro solution is designed for all employees not commodities, not
IT geniuses, not accountants.
One hundred percent of Ultimates resources are devoted to the research, design, and delivery of HCM technology
because its that important. Its exclusive attention and commitment has gained Ultimate and UltiPro continuous
recognition and accolades from industry experts as it has expanded its solutions over the years.
Ranked #8 on Forbes magazines list of the Most Innovative Growth Companies in 2014
Won the Gold Award from Brandon Hall Group for the Best Advance in Unique Talent Technology in 2014
Ranked on the annual InformationWeek Elite 100 in 2014 and 2015 a list of the top business
technology innovators in the U.S

Was recognized as a Leader in HCM by Nucleus Research in 2014 and 2015 by delivering a pure,
cloud-based solution that manages all stages of the employee lifecycle

Year after year Ultimate continues to invest approximately 20% of total

revenues into research and development of UltiPro. Over 80% of Ultimates
employees work in the Development and Services organizations.
The force behind Ultimates success?
Company-wide commitment to simplifying and improving work experiences for all employees
Continually evolving development approach that enables Ultimate to easily adapt UltiPro to changing
market and customer demands
Use of cutting-edge user experience and development techniques and technologies
Empowerment of internal development teams through flexibility, collaboration, and autonomy
Partnerships with customers that includes them in the design process
Another way Ultimate puts people first is by inviting its customers to be major contributors and influencers to the
future direction of UltiPro. Customers have access to an exclusive online community where they can post their ideas for
enhancements and new features in UltiPro. Fellow customers then vote and comment on these ideas.
Ultimates product managers are active participants in the customer community as well, monitoring the activity,
interacting with customers, and encouraging participation. Since the launch of this community, Ultimate has
implemented over 1,500 improvements based on customers' suggestions into UltiPro.

MARKET

OVERVIEW
We live in a technology-driven world. And as technological advances are changing faster than ever before, people
expect to have the latest and greatest tools instantly available. Consider what happens today when technology doesnt
work as you want it to. Most people get impatient and frustrated. They will likely look for an alternative application or
tool thats easier to use and that provides a more enjoyable experience.
And this level of immediate access isnt just the case in the consumer world anymore. Expectations at work have
changed dramatically especially as the younger generation is becoming a large part of the workforce. Using the
same, sometimes obsolete technologies is burdening organizations and causing poor experiences for employees,
inefficiencies for the business, and low adoption and engagement.
Why is this? In traditional technology systems, the architecture has a one-size-fits-all approach. These technology
frameworks dont support newer ideas, concepts, and functionality that people want, and need, in todays world.
Technology drivers today Social, Mobile, Big Data, Integration, etc. require new ways of thinking when it comes to
building and delivering business solutions.
Over time, as market needs cause product portfolios to expand, technology vendors end up with massive applications
full of heavy-handed frameworks. The resulting challenges include:
Interwoven and complex architectures
Potential ripple effects from any change, significantly impacting other areas of the solution
Erosion of the quality that once existed
Increased defects and bugs
Frustration and low adoption among individuals who are using these systems
Ultimate Software invests in a future-proof technology strategy that circumvents these issues and prevents its
customers from being limited or restricted by legacy technology decisions.

FUTURE-PROOF
ARCHITECTURE
Because of its evolving technology approach and architecture, Ultimate can easily adapt and make adjustments as
technology and market changes occur without negatively impacting other areas of UltiPro and without causing
disruptions to customers.
Business benefits for customers include:
Increased speed of delivery
Faster, more efficient internal teams
More features being built
New products and features being delivered faster
Increased return on investment
How is Ultimate accomplishing this?
Ultimate leverages industry-recognized service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles and best practices. These
standards provide the basis for software that is loosely-coupled and interoperable via Web Services and APIs, enabling
agility for the evolution of products and their ecosystem.
UltiPro is delivered as one, unified solution constructed of many software components and services working in unison.
Instead of having a massive, stagnant system like legacy technology vendors, this flexible approach enables Ultimate to
evolve its solution without the ripple effect of change typical of traditional monolithic architectures. In other words,
changes and updates can easily be made to one aspect of the solution, without causing massive disruption to other
areas within UltiPro. This means Ultimates development teams can build and deliver new enhancements and get them
in customers hands faster.
In addition, Ultimate uses modern object-oriented programming languages, such as .NET and JavaScript, and modern
principles and design patterns to ensure quality, ease of maintenance, and adaptability. A key design principle Ultimate
has committed to is a strict separation of concerns, exemplified by the Model-View-Controller pattern. By having
applied this pattern in its architecture, Ultimate has ensured that the user interface (UI) is strictly separated from
business logic, allowing for these components to change at different rates. As a result, UltiPros UI may change more
rapidly to keep up with end user expectations without having an adverse effect on business logic.
UltiPros agile architecture addresses three key areas for customers:
User Experience. Technology and architecture play a key role in the overall user experience
delivered with HCM solutions. And user experience is much more than just how it
looks. Its about the usability, performance, and quality of the solution Is it seamless to use?
Can it be accessed via any device? Is it simple and intuitive?

Speed of Delivery. Ultimate is continuously increasing the amount of products and features being
developed as well as the quality and delivery time. In addition to customers being able to enjoy
the latest innovations at an accelerated rate, Ultimates approach also enables faster customer
feedback. Therefore, UltiPro is truly designed to meet the individual needs of every employee.
Sustainable Innovation. Creating sustainable innovation is critical in todays rapid-paced,
technology-driven business environment. As the landscape evolves, Ultimate can easily adapt
and change UltiPro, helping companies remain innovative and competitive.

TECHNOLOGY

HIGHLIGHTS
There are several key components of Ultimates technology strategy that truly set it apart and bring significant benefits
to customers.

The Right Tools to Deliver the Right Results. Reflective of its people-first philosophy, Ultimate
provides its development teams with a great deal of flexibility when it comes to technology
decisions so they can deliver the best experience to customers in the quickest way possible.
Other technology vendors are often forced by their monolithic architectures to use technologies
that are ill-suited for a given problem, creating even more complexity while producing
compromised results. Ultimate is committed to using the right technology to deliver the best results.
For example, Ultimate recently implemented MongoDB a document-oriented database. MongoDBs
flexible schema, performance characteristics, and native ability to scale horizontally are critical
requirements in todays cloud-based solutions.
The flexibility Ultimate provides to its development teams has paid off. These technology decisions have
resulted in a highly responsive application that performs under extreme stress, scales effortlessly as
customers organizations grow, and provides an experience unequalled in the market.

UCloud. UCloud is Ultimates next-generation cloud platform on which its solutions are built,
tested, and delivered. Combining todays cutting-edge, transformative cloud technologies and
innovative delivery approaches, UCloud offers agility to its development teams which then
improves the quality of products and services delivered to customers. With many technology
vendors, the delivery process can be manual and time-consuming. With that comes a high risk of
failures and inconsistencies. In the development and delivery of UltiPro, once code is developed,
all necessary tests run with 100% automation. This enables Ultimate to achieve continuous
delivery and get new features into customer hands. The elastic scalability provided by UCloud
enables Ultimate to provide the best support to customers as it continues to grow and as its
customers continue to grow.

UCloud propelled Ultimate Software to No. 50 on the 2014 InformationWeek Elite

100 a list of the top business technology innovators in the U.S. UCloud was also
singled out by InformationWeek as an inspiration for other companies, and named
one of the 20 Great Ideas to Steal in 2014.

Mobile Experience. As part of Ultimates strategy to simplify and improve work experiences for
all employees, its solutions are completely mobile ready. By leveraging cutting-edge HTML5
technology, Ultimate is building solutions that can be accessed via any mobile browser no
downloading of native apps necessary. The solutions responsive design dynamically adapts to
the screen size and device being used for an optimal experience for customers.

Integration. Seamless integration with other business solutions is a key component of Ultimates
overall technology strategy. Ultimate believes integrations should be a business decision for its
customers, not a technology hurdle. Ultimates goal is to simplify complex integrations and
empower business users to create and manage timely, secure, and reliable integrations between
UltiPro and other business systems, without having to rely on IT departments.
Ultimate uses APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) as the foundation for integrations and
connectedness with UltiPro. Legacy practices with integrations put significant dependency on the system,
which slows down development and makes it more difficult to change that system. APIs enable Ultimate to
avoid those dependencies and ensure integrations are safe, secure, and sustainable.
Ultimate provides its customers with a self-service integration tool within UltiPro the Integration
Studio. Using the tools and features provided in UltiPros Integration Studio, customers can easily create
and manage integrations between UltiPro and other systems. This includes integrations delivered
standard within UltiPro such as the bi-directional payroll connector to leading global payroll provider,
Celergo, which enables customers to process payroll for employees outside of the U.S. and Canada.
Ultimate continues to deliver more UltiPro connectors within the Integration Studio to further simplify
integrations and expand its cloud ecosystem.

CLOUD
TECHNOLOGY
According to the Sierra-Cedar 20142015 HR Systems Survey White Paper, 17th
Annual Edition,the #1 reason businesses cited for moving to SaaS for HRMS (68%)
was improved user experience for employees, managers, and HR teams.
There has been a continued shift in organizations opting for cloud solutions over on-premise solutions. In fact,
according to Towers Watsons 2013 HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey, 88% of organizations will look at
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as a replacement for their existing HRMS.
Key benefits that organizations experience with SaaS include:
Rapid delivery of innovations
No hardware to maintain
Cost savings
Increased flexibility and scalability
Its important to note though that not all SaaS is created equal. Delivering UltiPro via the cloud since 2002, Ultimate
was the first to provide HR and payroll solutions as such and currently supports more than 20 million employee in
its SaaS environment. Ultimates solutions are delivered via multi-tenant SaaS.
Why should this matter to customers? Multi-tenancy means a single-instance software serving multiple customers,
and because all of Ultimates customers are running on shared applications and infrastructure resources, they are
always enjoying the most recent version of UltiPro. In addition, because resources are shared, cost savings go back to
the customers, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership. Single-tenant SaaS can be more expensive because
resources are not shared across tenants.

In 2013, Ultimate Software received the highest possible ranking for its cloud
services from Constellation Research. Ultimate was given the prestigious rating
of Epic as part of the Constellation Cosmos Certification for the Cloud Buyers
Bill of Rights a comparison guide that helps buyers and prospective buyers of
enterprise cloud apps enter into contracts with their vendor as an equal and
collaborative long-term partner.

Ultimates multi-tenant SaaS technologies:

Enable improved scalability and performance for a better customer experience
Reduce the downtime for upgrades
Deliver new product enhancements at a faster rate
Provide higher levels of security and reliability
One of the greatest concerns with confidential people data is the safety and security of that data.
Ultimate is committed to protecting customers assets from security threats, whether internal or external, and was the
first HR and payroll service provider awarded the ISO/IEC 27001: 2013 certification. ISO/IEC 27001 is a global industry
standard created by the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical
Commission. It validates organizations that have implemented a sound and secure management system for
information security.
Ultimates data centers are secure, hardened facilities equipped with the most advanced technologies. Security
features include:
World-class data protection and encryption for sensitive workforce data
Built-in solution and database protection designed to prevent unauthorized access to
information, including layers of redundancy, encryption, network and web firewalls, intrusion
detection, and user authentication
Full-time security personnel, many accredited as Certified Information Systems Security
Professionals (CISSP), managing security CISSP indicates rigorous industry testing and
signifies a more elevated skill set in information-security and related best practices
Proactive business continuity planning and protection strategy with geographically dispersed
centers that have fully redundant power subsystems and protection against fires, natural
disasters, power outages, sabotage, or theft
Nightly back-up of customers data sent to an alternate Ultimate facility
Continuous, automatic monitoring for viruses to ensure privacy and data integrity
In addition, Ultimates SaaS model is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and SOC1 Type II audited to ensure it meets stringent
criteria for security and reliability. Ultimate also provides a contractual addendum that is considered an acceptable
alternative to the EU Data Protection Reform Commission's Safe Harbor policy.

CONCLUSION
Ultimates people-focused technology strategy and architecture enables it to build solutions that are truly designed
around peoples needs and expectations for today and tomorrow.

By aligning technology with the person-centric experiences, Ultimates customers are free of the complexities related
to legacy technology decisions.
With this foundation in place, Ultimate is building the overall best user experience for its customers and their
employees, quickly delivering new products and enhancements, and helping customers reach sustainable innovation
for long-term business results.