Immigration management software is the system through which a large employer files, tracks and renews the visas and work permits of its staff who work in another country. It is also called immigration case management. It also runs global mobility, the company's programme for moving staff between countries. Each visa application is handled as a case, with its own documents, deadlines and status.
Who uses it? Mostly large companies that move many people across borders. The busiest users include Indian IT services companies and American technology companies, whose engineers often go from India to the United States. Usually, a law firm prepares the legal documents, and the software keeps the cases, the documents and the deadlines in one place.
The software does four jobs. First, it collects documents. It sends the employee a questionnaire and a list of documents, such as their passport, degree certificates and recent payslips. It reads job and salary details directly from the HRIS. Second, it tracks each case through its stages: documents collected, petition filed, approved, visa stamped, travelled. Third, it watches deadlines. Every work visa has an end date, and some have conditions, such as working only at one client's office. The software warns HR months before a visa ends, so that a renewal can be filed in time. Fourth, it produces reports for the government and for the company's compliance team.
Take, for example, an IT services company headquartered in Mysuru that sends about 250 engineers a year to client projects in the United States. Each move is a case. An engineer moving to the company's own office in the US often goes on an L-1 visa, which is for staff transferred within the same company. For one engineer, the case opens in June. The software collects 14 documents from her in two weeks. The law firm files the petition in July. The software shows the case as approved in September, books her visa interview and records her travel date. It then sets an alert for 180 days before the visa expires.
This software is different from an online visa application service. That service helps one traveller apply for a tourist or student visa. Immigration management software handles thousands of work permits for one employer, and must keep a record that the company followed the law.
New hires who need a visa can be flagged as early as the offer stage, in the applicant tracking system. When a company has no entity in the destination country, it may employ the person through an employer of record instead.