On Thursday, February 3, Skuid announced the acquisition of InFlight. Please read the following FAQs and responses below related to the acquisition:
Who is InFlight?
InFlight helps enterprise companies modernize their business applications and improve the digital employee experience. InFlight has offices in Ontario, Canada and Easthampton, Massachusetts.
Why did Skuid buy InFlight?
Skuid, combined with InFlight, will offer the most complete solution for enterprises seeking to optimize people operations and talent management with re-imagined digital experiences for their existing applications and systems. This acquisition extends the already impressive HR vertical of Skuid, adding much deeper integrations with popular human capital management (HCM) tools like PeopleSoft, Workday, and SAP SuccessFactors, to name a few. With the addition of InFlight, enterprise companies can now leverage the unique human-centered design approach of Skuid with more data integrations in the HCM and applicant tracking solution (ATS) areas.
How will the acquisition benefit Skuid customers?
With InFlight tools, Skuid can offer back-end data integration for critical systems of record that either lack an API or offer just a client-side API. InFlight tools provide an innovative way to connect to older systems, while fully protecting data security. The combined solution will reduce complexity by handling transactional data connections and front-end experience design without code, giving customers complete control of their web user experiences. Customers can do more with their technology investments and more deeply extend the digital experience across revenue operations, customer operations, and people operations. This includes portals for recruiting and retention, onboarding, time management, risk management, and many others.
How will this acquisition impact Skuid partners?
For existing Skuid partners, the addition of InFlight technologies provides an additional opportunity. With InFlight tools, Skuid can offer back-end data integration for older systems that lack a well-documented server-side API framework. Connecting Skuid to systems that have no documented API will deliver a valuable new feature set for partners.
What are some additional technologies that will benefit both Skuid and InFlight customers?
NLX Script Library. The InFlight Next Level Transformation (NLX) script library captures data from older HCM systems on-the-fly to make it available through a REST-like “synthetic API.” This technology makes it possible for Skuid to connect to data from older systems that lack a well documented server-side API. Skuid will leverage the entire library of InFlight synthetic APIs to make it simple and easy to connect to data from older systems and create modern, people-operations application experiences, without interfering with the system of record.
UI Templates. InFlight user interface templates modernize how organizations work, without spending too much time and money on HCM upgrades, add-ons, or migrations. InFlight templates provide total control over how users engage with HCM systems by providing a continuous and consistent user experience, surfacing information in the flow of work, creating personalized dashboards and content, and quickly deploying mobile-optimized micro apps. InFlight templates deliver a much better user experience for dozens of HCM applications, including recruiting, applicant tracking, employee onboarding, payroll, benefits, and much more. Currently built with code, these templates will be converted into Skuid “accelerators,” making it much easier for customers to deploy and customize fully branded people-operations experiences without writing code.
Content Management System. The InFlight CMS service makes it possible to build out richer portal content and features while offering delegation and approvals of content authoring, so many people can contribute and edit site content based on their permissions. This capability will be integrated with Skuid services to provide advanced content management to Skuid and InFlight customers.
How does the acquisition further differentiate Skuid from competitors?
With InFlight technology, Skuid can safely and securely reach into older systems that are typically off-limits. Like Skuid, InFlight focuses on building well-designed transactional systems with live data, a key differentiator when compared to expensive extract, transform, and load (ETL) transformations. Compared to Skuid, ETL is an inefficient way to build transactional digital experiences with real-time data.
What business challenge does this acquisition address?
Employee experience is falling short for most enterprises. According to a recent Gartner survey, only 13% of employees are fully satisfied with their experience—the daily interactions with people, processes and technology necessary to do their jobs. As workforces become increasingly digital and business priorities rapidly evolve, the right HCM technology is no longer nice to have—it’s imperative. HCM includes systems like human resource software (HRS), human resources information systems (HRIS), ATS, and others. Enterprises need tools that better support their people and help them recruit and retain top talent.
Who is the target customer for the combined new solution?
The target customer is any enterprise that needs to upgrade employee and applicant satisfaction with their HR-related systems, such as timesheets, payroll, benefits management, applicant tracking, and onboarding.
What is the integration plan?
Our goal is to rapidly unify the user experience across our portfolio and ensure the end result meets our standards. We’ll also be spending time integrating the two companies—our processes, support models, marketing efforts, and teams.
How will Skuid sell the InFlight product?
InFlight will be sold as both a standalone product and an integrated add-on within the Skuid platform. Skuid will convert the InFlight Core and NLX scripts into a Skuid synthetic API data source type (DST) which can be sold to all combined Skuid-InFlight customers to connect to the Skuid UX platform. In addition, InFlight UI templates will convert to Skuid to ease customization and iteration. All customizations can be easily handled in Skuid instead of using code, delivering dramatically enhanced agility.
Last updated February 3, 2022
