Dayforce delays Preceda switch-off as customers linger

Dayforce will not be able to shut down its cloud-based Preceda payroll platform as soon as it hoped, with some customers needing more time to migrate to its replacement.

The vendor had set the 34-year-old Australian-developed payroll system’s end-of-life date for March this year ahead of an April timeframe for it to cease operating.

However, iTnews has confirmed that some customers are still migrating from Preceda to Dayforce and the company confirmed via a spokesperson that it won’t pull the plug on the legacy platform until they’ve completed their migrations.

Vice president global product ambassador James Saxton later told iTnews via a formal statement that while the platform had been retired, some customers were yet to complete the switch.

“Dayforce completed the planned retirement of the Preceda platform earlier this year and continues to support customers as they transition to Dayforce in line with their own business and payroll transformation timelines,” Saxton said.

Saxton added that “most customers have successfully moved to Dayforce” but declined to reveal how many had been caught short as the end-of-life date approached earlier this year.

He also declined to reveal how much extra time the customers would need to move away from Preceda.

However, information that iTnews gathered at the company’s Dayforce Summit event in Sydney yesterday indicates that the apparent grace period might need to be extensive.

iTnews spoke to a major Australian customer that faced losing its payroll system had Dayforce strictly enforced its end-of-life date.

Fitness and sports venue operator Belgravia Leisure told iTnews that it had only just started its Dayforce implementation.

Belgravia’s group general manager of people and culture Mark Maybury said the implementation was expected to take 18 months and not expected to be live before May 2027.

Maybury said that, having grown to 450 venues and 10,000 staff from 100 venues and 2000 staff a decade ago, the move from Preceda to Dayforce was logical.

He said that the new platform was expected to scale with the company for the next 10 to 15 years and that the decision was partly driven by having an existing relationship with Dayforce.

However, he conceded that Preceda’s approaching end-of-life was Belgravia’s most pressing concern rather than any outstanding pain point.

“The immediate need was a sun-setting legacy system, so we had to transition out of our payroll environment. The question was, ‘Do we just do a like for like replacement and stay focused on a payroll opportunity?’ or ‘Would we will we take a step back and have a think about the longer-term need?’,” Maybury said.

Preceda was developed in the 1990s and was among the early success stories to emerge during the switch to cloud computing.

Since then, it has passed through the hands of several owners, finally landing in those of Dayforce under its former guise, Ceridian.

Ceridian took control of Preceda in 2021 when it acquired Asia-Pacific payroll and human resources software provider Ascender HCM.

The company has since established a migration assistance program called My Pathway that connects Preceda customers with advisors and system integrators in a bid remove any friction that might prevent them from moving to Dayforce.

In a blog post about Preceda’s approaching sunset date, Dayforce’s Asia-Pacific and Japan pathways program senior director Brad Stockman acknowledged the gravity of the migration decision for customers.

“When change arises – like the end-of-life for a trusted platform – it’s natural to feel apprehension.

“Questions arise: Who will support us? Will they understand our needs? How disruptive will this transition be? These are valid concerns, especially when dealing with a function as critical as payroll,” he wrote.