Support and Training Resources for New System Users

Overview

This article outlines some of the additional support resources that are available for our customers, which can be helpful if you're new to the system.

These resources are covered off by your Implementation Consultant when you're first onboarding, but if you're a new user that has joined one of our customers, this is a handy reference to get them up to speed on what's available to you.

Release Notes Mailing List - System Updates & Changes

We send out Release Notes communications to subscribed contacts that cover off any new functionality that is released, changes and updates to our system, and important information around legislative changes that may impact your processing. 

You can sign up to receive these emails. In the subscription form:

1. Enter your contact email address, first and last name, then enter their Astute portal in the Client field. The User Type field is optional.
2. In the Tags field, type in the regions enabled in your Astute portal (eg AU, NZ) to ensure that you receive the appropriate communications. 
3. Click Subscribe.
4. Follow the prompts in the reCaptcha screen to verify you are not a robot then click Subscribe. 
5. You'll be sent an email to your nominated email address to confirm that you would like to subscribe to the mailing, as an additional level of security. Click the link the email to finalise your subscription.

Help Centre and Support Desk

As you find your feet using Astute Payroll, you may have questions from time to time. As a first point of reference, we have this online Help Centre for self-service, which provides an overview of the functionality available in the Astute software and detailed guides on how to use the system. 

The Help Centre homepage includes a search bar where you can enter keywords to find an article, as well as dedicated sections for administrators, approvers, and employees, broken down into smaller sub-sections for the different features available. We'll also sometimes promote particular articles on the homepage, depending on the time of the year and our newest functionality so they're easily accessible.

If you're unable to find an answer in the Help Centre or your query is time critical (eg preventing you from processing a pay), please reach out to our Support Team either by emailing [e-mail] or by clicking the green Support icon in the bottom right of your screen.

You'll need to enter a search term (this can be anything, it's simply to activate the form), click Enter, then select Contact Us and provide the details of your query to submit from within the Help Centre. 

We ask that you include as much relevant information as possible in your original query, as this will help us to assist you you more efficiently.

While we offer a primarily email-based support service, we also understand that some queries are best resolved with a phone call so we're happy to reach out in these cases. We do ask that, even in cases where a phone call is preferable, you provide all the necessary details in your initial query as this will allow us to understand the issue you're having and do any necessary investigation and testing before we get in touch.

Sandboxes

A sandbox is a sample portal that contains your live portal's data and is available to you so that you can test config or process changes to make sure that they're set up correctly before you make substantial changes to your live data.

A sandbox is essentially a copy of your portal at that point in time, and can be requested from our Support team.

Monthly Webinars + Other Web Series Training

We run free webinars on a monthly basis to wrap up the month, outline the new features that have been released, and offer upskilling on other commonly used features, reports, and workflows. Our Monthly Wrap-up webinars generally run for 30-60 minutes per session and are a valuable resource for ensuring that you're using the system correctly.

We also offer frequent online webinar series on our Rules Engine, as well as generic system training. All of our webinars and web series are recorded, so if you register but cannot attend a session, you'll still have access to the recording.

To view more details on upcoming webinars and web series, please visit our Training page.

Paid Rules Engine Training

We run frequent paid training courses on how to use the Astute Payroll Rules Engine. The training covers the use of the Rules Enging in depth, covering subjects including Pay Items, Holiday Groups, Rate Cards, Rules, Rule Groups, as well as how these interact with each other and how you can build out new rule groups.

These sessions are run via Zoom, with a recording available after each session. These sessions are of particular benefit to users who will be using our Rules Engine functionality, so if you have a straightforward payroll with no automatic timesheet interpretation, it's unlikely to be something you'll need.

Our in depth Rules Engine series are run every 2-3 months, with sessions lasting 90 minutes for 4 consecutive weeks. The cost to attend is $500 (+ GST).  For more information, please visit our Training page. 

Paid Personalised 1-on-1 Training

In addition to our online webinars and web series, we're always happy to help out with customised training sessions, so that you're getting information on the features and functions that are most important to your business and to your position. This can focus on just payroll processing, overview the entire system, or fall somewhere in between.

Personalised 1-on-1 training is generally conducted via Zoom and can range anywhere between 2-10 hours, charged at $225/hour (+ GST). To enquire, please sent an email to [e-mail] with the details of what you'd like included in your training, and our consulting team can help to arrange this for you.