By 2016, it is estimated that 80 percent of the U.S. population will use smartphones, and 50 percent will leverage tablet devices such as iPads. With the mobile revolution clearly here to stay, Paylocity quickly identified the need for a mobile app to help its employee self-service users access their critical payroll and HR information easily and on-the-go, regardless of their preferred device.
Paylocity evaluated whether to develop a traditional native mobile application, or take advantage of HTML5. Both approaches have distinct, and in some cases, unique benefits. Several factors influenced Paylocity’s customer-focused decision to use HTML5. First, the app needed to be developed quickly and leverage the current skill set of the Paylocity development team. Second, it needed to map to both existing and developing mobile application standards. This helped ensure the app would excel on the current generation of mobile devices, and also easily adapt to future form factors, accommodating the next-generation technology stack. The Paylocity application needed to work across multiple platforms. Since a native approach requires development of three separate apps, HTML5 wrapped in a native container and a single code base seemed to be the obvious choice. “We take great pride in our customer retention rates—the best in the industry. With more than 7,000 clients in our Payroll and HR application, we needed the mobile app to work perfectly out of the gate. If not, the ramifications would be palpable, to say the least. With very specific requirements outlined at the outset, we knew what needed to be done and it was imperative that we find a platform that could address all of our current and future needs,” said Chuck Cooper, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Architecture and CISO, Paylocity.