We are pleased to unveil OrangeHRM 2.6.1 is now stable and is ready to be used for production. Since the first beta and through the release candidate versions earlier this year we have been able to turn out a much more user-friendly system.

2.6.1 Has a remarkably improved UI for the leave module by reducing the clicks to get to information and records are displayed more lucidly.

In addition, the new version has a more advanced notifications system allowing HR to keep track of events in the leave module.

An upgrader is now being developed for existing users to move to the latest version, while others can download the latest version from the main site, however instructions for manual upgrading will be soon available on the OrangeHRM Wiki.

We take this opportunity to thank the community for the continuous support they have shown us to and made OrangeHRM “The World’s Most Popular Open Source HR Management System.”

The OrangeHRM engineering team has made available a looming new version. The release serves as a trial-candidate before 2.6.1 is released on 20th January 2011.

It’s a reticent improvement that personifies OrangeHRM’s effort to boost the frequency the open-source  HRIS is developed.The new version was targeted at enhancing the usability of the leave module with some fine tuning touches and feature additions, the most commonly used feature around the world. This release is set to be tested out by over 2000 members around the world and more than 10,000 production users will be using the new version when it is released later this month.

Options to define company leave periods, an enhanced leave summary and leave list and improved leave notifications are some of the highlights in the release.
As always OrangeHRM never fails to reward the efforts and commitment of the community to build a classy HRIS, this season OrangeHRM will select the best feedback and reward it with a 10 user OrangeHRM Live instance for one year. We urge our users to write their ideas, thoughts and improvements to support@orangehrm.com.

Speaking to OrangeHRM Co-Founder and CEO Sujee Saparamadu, he said, “Our aspiration is to deliver a highly usable product to our end users; our community’s call to increase the usability of the leave module has been answered with this release. We will continue to enhance usability while adding new elements to the system and give the users a striking experience.”

Try it out today and give us feedback and be part of a grand open source community.

What’s New In 2.6.1?

The more your business matures and flourishes the more challenges it is going to face. People management is by far one of the earliest challenges you will face.
In order to keep up with the demands of this growing and evolving workforce, your company’s Human Resource executives need to be equipped with useful and efficient tools to assist in streamlining the constant flow of information and help them do their jobs. Even the best administrators can only do so much; and when a business needs to surpass the HR management’s ability to fulfill them, the company will find itself operating inefficiently and below its potential. OrangeHRM was designed as a solution to this disparity: Human Resource Information Software, or OrangeHRM Live, a system which amplifies the capabilities of your executives by automating many of their basic tasks and thus allowing them to focus on more specialized work.

Looking Back at OrangeHRM Live

OrangeHRM Live, the Software as a service (SaaS) version of the world famous Open-Source (Free) HR Software,” OrangeHRM” has simplified many HR functions with it’s cost effective pay as you go model, which was launched in July 2010.
OrangeHRM Live deals with a business’s most valuable asset, the employees. HR’s ability to make crucial decisions that relies on the availability and accuracy of the relevant employee data.
OrangeHRM Live fuels a vast database that is well-organized and easily accessible to all who needs it. Information is secure and readily available the moment it is needed. All-in-all, OrangeHRM Live cuts out the need for delay and uncertainty, and assists executives in making swift and confident company decisions.
After the launch of OrangeHRM Live there have been over 700 instances deployed, and in this situation numbers can speak for it’s self.

Enhancements in OrangeHRM Live

OrangeHRM Live was launched with a flare, the system contains a set of modules and features that any HR Manager would like to have.
OrangeHRM Live includes;

• Administration
• Personal Information Management
• Employee Self Service
• Leave Management
• Time and Attendance Management
• Performance Management
• Recruitment Management

Since the launch, OrangeHRM Live has been enriched with many new modules and features;
OrangeHRM Live has become one of the most sought after SaaS or HR Software’s in the SME sector. A significant advantage of using OrangeHRM over all other HR software’s would be the fact that new features added to the system are available for use at no extra cost. The OrangeHRM development team is constantly developing new tools which will plugged into live when they are ready.

The Future of OrangeHRM Live

In the near future all HR Personal can look forward to a brand new feature been implemented in to OrangeHRM Live. The worst nightmare of any HR person would be to calculate leave accruals and carry forwards every year, month, week or day. The OrangeHRM Live Leave Accrual Engine will solve this. Many customers have reuested for customizations to suit their leave management system which is developed using the leave accrual engine as a base. With more features and enhancements to be made, OrangeHRM Live hopes to deliver a prosperous HRIS to its users in 2011.

In our endeavor to make OrangeHRM a highly secure enterprise application, we’ll soon be releasing a patch (2.5.0.5) for the latest stable version of OrangeHRM, with a few security improvements. We’re thankful to our community and various organizations that continue to test OrangeHRM and bring existing issues to our attention. We’re committed to fix these issues as soon as possible, and continue to improve the level of security in OrangeHRM.

The following bugs have been reported, and our development team is now fixing them:

• 3003346     Potential SQL injection vulnerability with ess login
• 3001611     Ess module is vulenerable to xss
• 3003358     Possible CSRF and PHP code injection
• 3003361     Not sanitized ajax reponses leads to XSS vulnerability
• 3000555     Sanitize the input data in jobs.php

We will soon make the fixes available with OrangeHRM 2.5.0.5.

In addition to security testing performed by external organizations, we’ve internally formed a security testing team, who will continue to test each new version of OrangeHRM thoroughly for possible security flaws.

We’ll be posting updates about our progress on this blog.

A performance evaluation is a stressful time for a manager. With the OrangeHRM performance module we make performance evaluation a walk through the park. While ensuring accurate reviews this new module will save a great deal of money and time.

Although this module was not introduced to OrangeHRM earlier many organizations around the world like DUKE NUS - Singapore, The ORS Group - Australia and CIM Technologies - USA use performance modules designed by OrangeHRM to suit each of these companies requirements.

This module will be released with the next stable version OrangeHRM 2.6. Development teams at OrangeHRM are working hard to release 2.6 by the end of March 2010.

A beta version will be released during the first week of March 2010.

OrangeHRM 2.5-alpha.8 development release is now available. The punch in/out feature which was combined with timesheets, is now separately available as “Attendance Tracking” with a new attendance report. Take a peek at this new behavior.

Download OrangeHRM 2.5-alpha.8 from here.

OrangeHRM 2.5-alpha.5 development release is now available with more user interface bug fixes in Admin and Leave modules.

Click here to download OrangeHRM 2.5-alpha.5

Of all requests for new features in OrangeHRM, 46.4% have been for an Employee Performance Review module. Now we have started the requirements phase of this long awaited module. You can also help us define this module by telling us what you would like to see in OrangeHRM Performance Review module by spending a few minutes to take the following survey.

Click here to take survey.

In an attempt to improve the usability of OrangeHRM, we have made it possible to expand and collapse the job description in a vacancy. This improvement is available in OrangeHRM-2.5-alpha.3 development release.

The full list of changes in OrangeHRM-2.5-alpha.3:

New Features
(1) Expand/Collapse feature in job descriptions at jobs.php (1941287 - On the job vacancies web page job desc. expand and collapse)
(2) Replacing capability in attached resumes.

Bug Fixes
(1) 2047767 - Code is not able to detect Innodb support

Download OrangeHRM-2.5-alpha.3 from here.

OrangeHRM 2.5-alpha.2 development release is now available to download from SourceForge.

The following enhancements are there in this release:
(1) Ability to upload a resume with a job application
(2) IE7 Compatibility related bug fixes
(3) Other UI fixes to conform to new UI look

Download OrangeHRM 2.5-alpha.2 from here.