Natural HR Administrators Guide

Administrators

Guide

Version 4.5

February 2014

Natural HR Administrators Guide

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Release notes

Date Version Details

20/02/2014 4.5 New version of time off

o The ability to attach an annual allowance to any time off type and

deduct from each type separately

o The ability to accrue time off over the year as opposed to the

whole allowance being available on the first day

o The ability to set an individual employees start of holiday year

based on the anniversary of their start date rather than having one

setting for the whole company or site.

o New user interface

Option to allow manager to view direct reports only or whole reporting

tree

Added option to prevent managers viewing salary and benefits information

Added email notification to manager if an employee requires return to

work completed after time off

Return to work notifications now appear in workflow

Approver email generated on add timeoff or timesheet via Self Service

Add section to administer adhoc carryover under Company menu

Added Security settings under Company menu

o Moved require PIN to security settings

o Added option to set logout duration

Added Recruitment settings under Company menu

o Allow setup of multiple email addresses to notify when a new

application is received via embedded jobs listing

o Added option to define message displayed with new application is

submitted via embedded jobs listing

o Added option to customise email sent to candidates when setting

up an interview

Added recruitment custom fields allowing up to 10 custom questions to be

added to the embedded jobs listing

Enhanced recruitment search to also allow search of employees as well as

candidates where the search now will search employee work experience,

skills, education and employee file comments


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When completing a candidate and moving to an employee, if the candidate

has a CV this is now moved as an employee document in their employee

file for future reference

Added second contact record in Next of kin to allow two records to be

stored

Set custom colours per time off type overriding calendar options and

hiding them from view once one custom colour is set

New standalone calendar page

Prevent timezone change when clocked in using Timetracking

Capture and track salary and hours per week changes via employee

benefits

Customise fields displayed in card view

Customise performance review questions to be open or closed questions

Training group option in display settings

Option to filter public calendar on department, site and/or manager

05/12/2013 4.1 Changed charting library which now supports easy printing and export to

PNG etc

Added buttons to employee add, employee quick add and employee

change allowing addition of new department, site, job role and job status

without having to leave the form or reload and lose any data

Added work email field to employee quick add

Added popup to Employee directory to show more detail on employee

including an image (if available) with configurable settings to control which

fields are displayed

Upon archiving an employee their company user account will now

automatically be set to disabled and upon deleting or making an employee

a leaver, their company user account will now be deleted

Added new approver status level

Added homepage combined workflow area and profile box

Added new modules in Company module including Time off in lieu,

Reporting permissions and Employee job history

Consolidation of relevant settings into display settings

Added Announcements feature

Added option to make PIN on login optional


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Added option to time off types to make time off bookable and viewable

Added option to allow employee to upload documents

Added new view for employee module - card view

Added enhanced CV search

New format for displaying timeoff balances

Allow employees to enter / change timeoff days/hours in Self Service

Added option to specify Timesheets selectable weeks

Added list of races and nationalities

Added optional configuration of calendar public holidays

30/06/2013 4.0 Localisation – timezones, languages and international date formats

New page for global time off settings in Company menu

Added optional different carryover rules and holiday years linked to

company site

Changed time off types setup to allow holiday deductions from any type

with legacy type Paid Time Off left in place

Added time off in lieu option for Time Off type with calculation based on

times entered on time sheets

Add time off in hours or days

When setting up Company users, option to email new account details to

user

Option to make Company Holidays mandatory and auto deducting from

employee holiday allowance

Where workers are entering timesheets beginning before and ending after

midnight option to stop validation error caused by end time being before

start time

HMRC notification option linked to Real Time Information (RTI) in

employee self-service update address with option to link to form for direct

entry by employee

In Edit Employee, the top menu items now work correctly allowing you to

move forwards and backwards within the section without needing to click

next (assuming mandatory fields have been filled in)

Google calendar integration with company calendar

Employee directory

Printable employee file


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06/02/2013 3.5 Added social stream

Added employee photos

Replaced organisational chart report

Included employee photo on employee file (if photo exists)

22/01/2013 3.2 Added page for archived candidates

Added custom fields to employees

Added ability to specify an individual employee working pattern

Created manual carryover process

Clarified requirements for email notifications

09/12/2012 3.1 Added optional timetracking for employees from homepage allowing clock

in and clock out

Added option in Company Settings to switch timetracking on and off

Additionally added setting in Company Settings to set day working week

begins on

Added new reports linked to timetracking

Moved to do list to top of main page and made more prominent to

emphasise the importance of these tasks

Added a reminder notice when the start of year value needs to be reset

Upgraded calendars to allow viewing by week and day in addition to

month view

Reintroduced ability to take half day time off

03/12/2012 3.0 Added department level security for company document categories

Added recruitment candidates stages

Added recruitment requisitions go live date

Added email recruitment candidate when setting up interview

Made job close date optional in recruitment requisitions

Added recruitment candidate notes

Added read only job roles library to recruitment module

Moved date of birth and marital status into monitoring questions on

recruitment application form

Added ability to customise external job listing pages and application form

including ability to choose which fields to display

Created recruitment costs report


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23/11/2012 2.52 Added information on license keys

Added new fixed time off type Carryover

Add information on Carryover settings in Company Settings

Added description for Holiday module

Added information on how time off days is worked out

09/11/2012 2.51 Added descriptions for new user group types – Finance and Recruitment

Added ability to enter finance email address(es) into Company Information

to allow email to be sent when employee updates bank details in

Employee Self Service

Created new report showing employee bank details for finance usage


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Contents Who is this guide intended for? ........................................................................................................................................................................ 13

How to use this guide ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 13

What do I need to run Natural HR? .............................................................................................................................................................. 14

Supported browsers ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Getting support ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Most commonly experienced problems ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

Timeoff balances .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Bulk employee upload ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 15

Forced password change ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 16

General overview ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Tables ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Forms ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Access levels ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 21

Important note on employee / user interaction ................................................................................................................................. 21

Requirements for email notifications ........................................................................................................................................................ 22

Auditing .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 23

Home screen .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 24

Notifications bar ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24

Profile box ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25

Licensing ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Left menu................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 26

Statistics .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Workflow ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 27

Quickstart ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 27

Calendar ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 28

Social Stream ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29

Chat box ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 29

Post listing ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30

Comments ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30

More posts ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30

Deleting ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30


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Company module .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 31

Announcements ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 33

Bulk employee upload ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 34

General notes ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 35

Notes on data formatting .......................................................................................................................................................................... 36

Company information ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 36

Company settings ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 37

Use real time time tracking ....................................................................................................................................................................... 37

Google calendar link ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 37

Finance notification email ........................................................................................................................................................................... 37

Timesheets midnight rollover .................................................................................................................................................................. 37

Require tax authority self service address update notification .............................................................................................. 37

Logout URL ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 38

Display settings ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 38

Default employee module view ............................................................................................................................................................. 38

Employee card fields ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 38

Calendar status ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 38

Calendar training display ............................................................................................................................................................................. 39

Directory fields ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 39

Pay/benefits hidden from managers ..................................................................................................................................................... 40

Managers view all reports .......................................................................................................................................................................... 40

Reviews visible to employees .................................................................................................................................................................. 41

Warnings visible to employees ............................................................................................................................................................... 41

Allow employees to enter timeoff days/hours ............................................................................................................................... 41

Timesheets selectable weeks ................................................................................................................................................................... 42

Races ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 42

Nationalities ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 42

Company Users .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 43

Custom employee fields .................................................................................................................................................................................. 44

Delete account ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 44

Process carryover ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 45

Recruitment settings .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 45


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Email notification ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 45

Message after online application ............................................................................................................................................................ 45

Interview confirmation email .................................................................................................................................................................... 46

Reporting permissions ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 46

Security settings .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 47

Require PIN on login .................................................................................................................................................................................... 48

Session timeout duration (seconds) ..................................................................................................................................................... 49

Sites ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 49

Site level timeoff settings ............................................................................................................................................................................ 49

Social settings ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 49

Social chat ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 49

Social recognition text ................................................................................................................................................................................. 50

New starter text ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 51

Job change text ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 51

New job requisition text ............................................................................................................................................................................ 51

Time off settings (global) ................................................................................................................................................................................. 53

Holiday year ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 53

Start of holiday year (only visible when Set date is chosen) .................................................................................................. 53

Carryover days (only visible when Set date is chosen) ............................................................................................................. 53

Expiry date for carryover days (only visible when Set date is chosen) ............................................................................. 53

Holiday allowance prorated ..................................................................................................................................................................... 54

Company Holidays Mandatory ............................................................................................................................................................... 54

Accrue time off in lieu ................................................................................................................................................................................. 54

Working days .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 55

Standard working day in hours ............................................................................................................................................................... 55

Work week begins on ................................................................................................................................................................................. 55

Time off types ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 56

Deducting types .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 56

Mixing time off types .................................................................................................................................................................................... 58

Migrating from one system to another and vice versa ............................................................................................................... 58

Transfer balances ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 58

Help section ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 60


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Tips and tricks for time off type settings ............................................................................................................................................ 61

Calculating time off balances .................................................................................................................................................................... 61

Note about Paid Time Off type (legacy) .......................................................................................................................................... 62

Documents .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 63

Category permissions ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 64

View and download documents ................................................................................................................................................................. 64

Employee documents ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 65

Employee upload of documents ................................................................................................................................................................. 65

Employees .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 66

Employee cards and table view ................................................................................................................................................................... 66

Mandatory fields ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 68

Archived employees .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 69

Employee actions ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 69

Employee benefits .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 70

Employee photos ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 72

Employee notes ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 73

Employee goals ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 74

Employee training ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 74

Reminders .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 74

Make leaver ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 74

Print employee file ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 75

Events .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 75

Holidays ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 75

Performance ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 76

Goal library ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 76

Reviews ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 76

Feedback .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 77

Giving feedback as an employee ............................................................................................................................................................ 79

Warnings .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 80

Reminders ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 81

Recruitment ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 82

Calendar ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 82


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Requisitions ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 82

Go live date ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 82

Close date .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 82

Displaying your requisitions on an external website ................................................................................................................... 83

Candidates............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 89

Candidate notes .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 89

Schedule interview ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 90

Make offer .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 90

Complete ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 90

Recruitment stages ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 91

Archived candidates ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 91

Locations .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 91

Costs .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 91

Interviews ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 91

Search ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 92

Advanced searching ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 93

Job offers .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 95

Reporting....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 96

Tabular reports ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 96

Grouping ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 97

Sorting .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 98

Filtering ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 98

Report display................................................................................................................................................................................................... 99

Summary ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 99

Export ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 99

Pagination............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 99

Organisational chart ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 100

Self service ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 103

Finance notification .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 104

Time off ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 104

Time off balance ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 105

Timesheets ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 106


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Goals ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 107

Reviews and warnings .................................................................................................................................................................................... 107

Recognise someone ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 107

Templates .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 108

Template fields ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 109

Sample template ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 110

Timesheets ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 111

Timeoff ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 112

Time off days calculation .............................................................................................................................................................................. 115

Return to work .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 116

Changing the calculated timeoff value / Taking half days ............................................................................................................ 117

Time tracking ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 118

Changing or deleting a time record........................................................................................................................................................ 120

Training........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 121

Course library ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 121

Training .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 121

Options ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 122

Display options .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 122

Calendar options .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 122

Localisation ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 123

Change password / Change PIN .............................................................................................................................................................. 124


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Who is this guide intended for?

This guide covers the main modules and settings associated with the core Natural HR application. It is not an

exhaustive guide as the application is constantly being developed and updated according to user needs so

please do bear that in mind especially if you are an experienced user.

If you are a first time user or someone who wishes to get the most from the features and functions available

within this application then this guide is the best way of doing so.

This guide is designed for administrators of Natural HR. It is not advised to make this guide available to other

users of the application as it contains information on the setup, configuration and security of the application

which should not be made generally available.

Depending on the structure of the organisation using Natural HR it may be acceptable to make the guide

available to HR users but this is at the discretion of the individual organisation.

How to use this guide

The guide is broken into sections covering each of the modules of Natural HR with an additional section

covering frequently asked questions.

Throughout the guide at important junctures we will call out certain things as being of note or a warning –

where we do this we will use the below formatting to make it easy to see and to ensure you realise the

importance of the message.

Note: This point is worthy of your attention.

Warning: This note is an important warning which if ignored could have consequences affecting your usage of

the application.


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What do I need to run Natural HR?

Natural HR is totally self-contained application which requires no hardware or additional software on your

systems to be able to be utilised.

The only two requirements to use the application are a web browser and an internet connection. Additionally

we strongly recommend you enable JavaScript in your browser. This is not an essential requirement but it does

enhance the experience and without enabling this you may not be able to get the most from all the features

and functions in the software.

The specifics of how to enable JavaScript is beyond the remit of this guide but below are links to articles on

the subject for some of the major browsers:

Internet Explorer – http://support.microsoft.com/gp/howtoscript

Firefox – http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Javascript#Enabling_and_disabling_JavaScript

Opera – http://www.enable-javascript.com/#opera

Chrome – http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=114662

Supported browsers

We test our software on all the main web browsers and on as many versions as possible - that said, some

browser manufacturers seem to release a new version a month so it is impossible to definitively maintain a list

of versions on which the software will and won't work.

Suffice to say, we use industry standard coding practices which should work on all current browser versions

though this is not always the case especially with Internet Explorer.

Getting support

We have a knowledgebase available online at http://support.naturalhr.com/home where we post articles and

tips and tricks for features frequently so if there is something you need help with not addressed in this guide

then you should check the knowledge base as many questions are quickly and simply answered by using those

guides.

http://support.naturalhr.com/home


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Most commonly experienced problems

There are two specific components which make up at least 75% of support tickets we receive. These are

covered in a lot more detail later in this guide but we thought it appropriate to provide some guidance for

anyone experiencing these issues.

Timeoff balances

We receive a lot of support requests from clients who cannot understand why their employees are showing

negative time off balances or extremely high numbers for time off balances. This is caused in the main due to

company set up not being completed fully before using the system.

To use timeoff balances correctly you need to have provided the following information. If you fail to provide

any of these the balance will not work properly:

Date on which your holiday year starts

Number of days holiday the employee is entitled to

Start date of the employee

Bulk employee upload

The other feature we receive most support requests for is Bulk employee upload. For this feature to work you

MUST provide a dataset of exactly the specification laid out in the notes.

The easiest way to ensure this happens is to use the sample file provided and populate it with your data. That

said, clients still experience issues as they do not follow the formatting convention stipulated. The most

common issues are:

Blank columns – all columns must be filled in

Removing the header row – the header row is required

Data containing commas – as it is a CSV file this will cause a column count error

National insurance number – this number must be unique to each employee within your company

Entering job titles, status, departments etc as text – these must be entered as system identifiers (i.e. the

number which the system references these as. Use the Click to view managers, job titles, job statuses and

departments feature to get these identifiers.

File formatting issues – make sure you check the file in something like Notepad prior to uploading in

case your spread sheet has added additional invisible data or additional columns

Pay attention to the error messages if your upload fails as this will help you to identify the problem and

correct it prior to uploading again. Uploading the same file over and over won’t fix the problem!

If you read the instructions, use the supplied template file and invest a little time into bulk upload it will save

you a lot of time but you need to follow the instructions exactly and not deviate or it will fail.


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Forced password change

As an added security precaution, all users are required to change their password every 90 days. This applies to

all users including admin users and applies from the day of signup or in the case of non admin users, the day

their user account was created.

When this 90 day period has expired and you login you will be automatically redirected to the Change

password screen where you will need to enter your current password again as a security precaution and then

your new password.

To the right of the New password box is a strength indicator which shows you how secure your password

choice is – please ensure your password allows the bar to move to green to ensure it is a secure password.

A “good” password:

You don’t use elsewhere

Should be at least 12 characters long

Should not be based on dictionary words

Should not be based on something known about you such as a memorable date or pet name which

can be easily guessed

Should not containing repetition – for example aaabbbccc

Should be made up of upper case letters, lower case numbers and symbols

Should not be so hard that you won’t be able to remember it without writing it down

o R-e4[Nph5ma1}(6V is a good password but you won’t remember it

Consider using a phrase instead and substituting letters for numbers or symbols – for example, I want

to be at the beach could become iw2b@theBeach.

If all else fails, consider adding some symbols and numbers to an easy to remember password – for

example, instead of using snoopy you could use snoopy@12345


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General overview

There are two core elements which make up the application - these are tables which list the data in a given

section and forms which allow you to enter or edit information.

Tables

Above is a sample screenshot of a list table. The table has a number of components to enhance the user

experience including a filter to control the number of entries listed on a table and a search button which

allows you to search within the data listed in that table.

Additionally, on most tables there are two core action areas. At the bottom left of the table there will usually

be an add button which allows you to add an item to the module you are working in.

For example, under Employees, there is an add button which allows you to add a new employee and takes

you to the form to add an employee.

Also, beside each item in the list table, there are action buttons which allow interaction with individual records.

On the majority of tables there are two options - edit and delete though some contain many more options.


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Clicking edit will take you to a form which allows you to review and update the pertinent information whilst

clicking delete will display a pop up where you will be asked to confirm you are sure you want to delete the

item as an added safeguard.

It is very important to understand the impact deletion of a given item can have on other items in the

application. In its simplest form, if you delete a department, for example, any employee assigned to that

department will no longer have a department assignment which is inconvenient but not a major issue.

However, if you delete an employee who was a manager, for example, any employee who was in their

reporting line will now have no manager so you will need to manually update each employee to the new

manager.

If you forget to do this, employee leave requests may not be actioned accordingly as the request will not be

able to be sent to their manager as they do not exist.


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Forms

The second core element is forms which allow you to enter or update information. Below is a sample of a

form showing a combination of open input fields and drop down fields. At the bottom right of each form is a

submit button which will then commit the data which has been entered.

On various forms, some of the data cannot be changed by user input and is displayed solely for information –

if this is the case the background of the form field will be coloured a light grey so you know it is not meant to

be editable.

There is basic validation built into most forms but this validation is simply to ensure required fields are filled in

but the validation does not check the type of data entered into a field. We are considering adding field

validation in the future which will check data types such as national insurance, dates, post codes, phone

numbers and so on. We have not implemented this currently as we have an international audience and by

implementing post validation this would stop international users from being able to use the application.

On some list form fields you will see icons to the right of the form field – these icons allow you to add data to

that list without needing to leave or reload the page which means you do not lose any data you have already

added.


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When you click the first icon (Plus/Add) it will load a popup which will allow you to add data to another

section of the application (add a new department or job role, for example) – once completed you then simply

click the second icon (Refresh) and it will refresh that form field allowing the choice just added to be used.

There is some additional validation which is a carried out mainly to prevent duplicate entries. Once submit has

been clicked the application will check for duplication and, if a record would create a duplicate, this will not be

committed and an error message will be displayed below the form name.

Conversely once all required data has been submitted and there has been no duplication a message is

displayed which lets you know that the action has been committed.


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Access levels

There are seven access levels built in to Natural HR. These are:

Main admin This is the account which is used to sign up for the system – this is the only

account which is not linked to an employee file and which cannot be assigned

to an employee or user.

Admin Can see all pages and sections and information on all employees etc. Note you

cannot carry out self-service via admin account as the admin account is not

linked to an employee file.

Approver Can perform all the functions of Employee but, additionally, can approve and view time off and timesheets etc for employees where they are specified as the

approver.

HR Cannot access Company menu but can see all other pages and sections and

information on all employees. Can carry out self-service on their own account.

Manager Can only see information on their employees i.e. those who have this person

assigned as their manager in their Employee information. For these employees,

manager can see and do everything and they can perform self-service for their

own account.

Employee Restricted view. Can only perform self-service activities for their own account

as well as provide feedback via 360 systems when a request is sent to them.

Finance Same core access level as Employee but with the additional ability to run

finance reports under Reporting module

Recruiter Same core access level as Employee but with the additional ability to operate in Recruitment module and run recruitment reports under Reporting module

To assist with security, menus are hidden and pages have inbuilt checking to ensure that users with

inappropriate permissions cannot access restricted areas even if they know the URL - if someone does try to

access a restricted page they will get a notification similar to the below and will not be able to do anything.

Important note on employee / user interaction

Throughout this guide, we will refer to interacting with employees. If you wish the system to actually interact

with the employee (such as send an email to them or allow them to respond in some way) they need to be

setup as a user with at least an employee user level.

For example, if you send a feedback request to an employee who is not set up as a user they will not be able

to do anything with it as they do not have access.

For this reason, we recommend setting up all employees as users to allow them to get the benefit of the

system though you may choose not to use any kind of self service and simply use Natural HR as a

management platform.


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Requirements for email notifications

To ensure your managers, HR and so on are able to receive email notifications of events such as time off

requests or timesheets, it is vital to ensure that the recipients have a WORK email address specified in their

employee file.

Even if you set up their user account using an email address this is not used for the notifications as some

companies do not use email addresses for usernames and, additionally, if an employee changes their email

address it makes more sense to update this directly in the employee file rather than having to manually update

it in a number of different places.

Additionally, please ensure the employee in question has a manager specified in their file and that the person

specified has a manger level role as these are the first checks carried out when sending notifications.

You also should ensure that you add the domain naturalhr.com and the email address

[email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] to you white list in your email

program or on your mail server to ensure emails get successfully delivered.

This is especially important for Gmail users (including those who use a Gmail relay behind their company email

address) – there is a knowledgebase article at

mailto:[email protected]




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Auditing

Every time a user carries out a significant action, this action is tracked in the audit database.

You can check the audit log at any time via Company and then Auditing. By viewing this module you can see

what all users in your company have done within the application.

The main actions we track are:

Login

Logout

Add

Delete

View (view a view option)

Edit

Run report

Auditing does not track page views and only tracks actual committed changes. For example, if someone clicked

edit on an employee file and looked at the information within the file but did not actually change anything it would not be tracked.


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Home screen

The home screen of Natural HR is broken into 7 main parts as shown below:

1. Notifications bar

2. Profile box

3. Main menu bar

4. Statistics

5. Quickstart (only displayed whilst the tasks are outstanding)

6. Calendar

7. Workflow

Notifications bar

The notifications bar located at the top right of the screen is used to display information about your account as

well as notifications of new messages. The five white icons on the left are for:

Suggestions Links to suggestions page where clients can suggest new features and others

can vote Licensing This links to the license page which shows your current license entitlement

Release notes Release notes showing features and functions added in each release

Help Online help guide available for quick access


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To the right of these icons is an area which shows your login name and company above a notification of when

you last logged in and the IP address you last logged in from. Please note: this is account specific (i.e. not

company specific) so if you see something here which you do not expect such as an unrecognised IP address

or a login at a time you are not able to recall then check the Audit log via Company and then Auditing initially

and, if you are still unsure, you should change your password and PIN number immediately and contact us so

we can assist.

The login time uses the timezone specified in Options/Localisation to show the last login time in your local

timezone – elsewhere in auditing, for example, the system uses server time but, as this notification is visible on

every page, we have made it more convenient by being in local time.

Finally, on the very right hand side is a logoff button – for security you should always logoff when you have

finished your session.

Be default, if you are inactive for 30 minutes, the system will automatically log you out to prevent someone

from accessing your account (if you have walked away from your computer, for example) and you will need to login again to continue. You can increase this value at a company level under Security Settings if you wish.

Profile box

Optionally, a user can turn on the display of a profile box on their screen which will show their image (if

available) as well as their name, role and timeoff remaining.

Additionally, there is a quick link button to request time off as this is one of the most common tasks

performed by non admin users.

A user can turn this on and off via Options/Localisation, however, a profile box cannot be displayed for the

main administrator user as the main admin account is not linked to an employee account so does not have a

photo, image, job role and so on.


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Licensing

By clicking the key icon in the Notifications bar you will be taken to the licensing screen.

On this screen you will see your current license key, license version, the number of employees you are

licensed for and the expiry date for your license.

Additionally, you can enter a new license key in the box below but you should only do so if instructed to by

Natural HR as entering an invalid license key may disable your access to the system.

If you are unable to use any features which you believe you are entitled to then this should be the first place

you check to ensure your license key is giving you the correct entitlement as premium features are dependent

on the existence of a valid and linked license key.

Left menu

The menu running down the left of the screen is the main menu through which you will access the functions of

Natural HR. To enter a menu item, simply click on its name. Some menus will have additional items

underneath them in which case they will concertina to show the additional menu items and, in this case, click

the sub menu item you require to proceed.

Statistics

At the top of the home page is a statistics section which shows you at a glance some summary information

about your company account on Natural HR. The five items shown are:

Employees Shows the total number of employees under your company in the system

Users Shows the total number of user accounts your company has on the system (i.e.

those who can login to the system regardless of their access level)

Company actions Shows the number of entries in the audit database for your company

Company logins Shows the number of logins which have been performed by your users taken

from the audit database

Documents stored Shows the number of documents (both employee and company documents)

stored on the system for your company


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Workflow

Additionally on the home page there is a workflow section which shows outstanding time off requests,

timesheets for approval and return to work actions listed in the order in which they were entered into the

system (i.e. the oldest request is listed first).

When there are items to be actioned they will appear in the list and you can click the item to view and

process accordingly.

The employees manager (if set) will also see this notification on their home screen and will be able to process

– the notifications all show on the admin screen mainly as a fallback in case the employee manager is not set

or the manager fails to action the request in a reasonable time.

Quickstart

When you first login to Natural HR there is a Quickstart area at the top of the screen in a red box which

contains a list of items to complete which we recommend you do before using the system.

Each of these items are required for you to get the full benefit of using Natural HR and, if you fail to complete

these prior to using the system, you will be frustrated when completing forms and so on as these items are

often mandatory items on forms.

The tasks requiring completion are:

Job roles

Job statuses

Departments

Sites

Manager job roles

Add employees

Set date for the start of your year (this reminder will recur every year to ensure you update the start

date annually)

Set employees as managers

If you do not set date for the start of your year, time off balances will not work properly. The system uses a

combination of the annual allowance per employee combined with their start date (if that is in the current

year), the current date, any time off already taken and the date on which the holiday year begins to work out remaining balances.

Failing to enter this date will result in employees being shown either very large numbers or minus numbers for their remaining balance.


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Calendar

The final item on the home page is a company calendar. As admin, you will be able to view all time off,

training, reviews, events and reminders for the company. The system also shows Public Holidays for United

Kingdom and United States.

On the calendar the current day is marked in green and you can move from month to month using the left

and right facing arrows at the top of the calendar.

Additionally, you can click on week and day and get a weekly and daily view of the calendar which is especially

useful if you have a lot of items on the calendar especially those which are linked to a time slot rather than an

all day event.

As per our earlier note on date formatting, the today indicator will always be based on server time which is

UK time as our servers are located in the UK.

By default, at a manager level, they can only see items pertaining to them and their employees and, likewise, an

employee can only see items pertaining to their own file however there is an option to allow other employees

to view all training and time off across the company for all employees. This is so an employee can see when

their colleagues have booked time off or training so they can plan accordingly.

To change this, you need to go to Company and then Company Settings and scroll to the bottom to the drop

down marked Calendar status and set it to either Private (default) or Public (allows all users to view all time off

and training).

You can also choose to allow non admin and non HR users to only show calendar items at a site, department

or manager level if the calendar is very busy.

By default each calendar item is colour coded to make it easy to distinguish them at a glance but you can

customize these colours to use your own choices if you so wish including customising individual time off type

colours.

To change main colours, go to Options and then Calendar options and use the colour picker to choose your

preferred colour for each of the calendar items – if you decide you want to go back to the default colours in

the future you can click reset on this page and the system will revert back to the defaults.

To change colours for each time off type you should edit the time off type in question – see Timeoff Types.

You can also import content from a Google Calendar – for more information see Company Settings.


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Social Stream

If you have enabled the Social Stream in Social Settings under the Company module, the Social Stream will

appear on the home screen. The social stream is visible to all users regardless of their access level.

Messages on the social stream can either be from users posting messages directly via the chat box or there are

a number of automated messages which can be posted on particular company events.

There are various settings for Social Stream which are covered in more detail later in this document including

details on the automated system messages which can be posted on the stream.

Chat box

The chat box is located at the very top of the screen and is how users are able to post messages on the Social

Stream. If you do not wish to allow users to post messages directly to the wall you can disable this from Social

Settings.

To enter a message all you need to do is to enter the message in the box and click on Post.


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Post listing

Once a message has been posted (either by a user or from a specified event) it is displayed on the stream in

date order with the most recent post at the top.

On each post there is a comment and like button to allow other users to comment on a post or to like the

post itself.

Please note, even if you have turned off the chat box users will still be able to post comments on automated

posts.

To like a post you simple need to click the like button under the post in question – on doing so, the like

button will then change to Unlike and under the post a message will appear telling you how many people like

the post.

It is not possible to Unlike a post which you have not already liked and unlike is ultimately just a way of

removing your like – additionally, it is not possible for a user to like a post more than once.

Comments

If a user wishes to comment on an existing post they can click the comment button under that post and a box

appears in which they can enter their comment. The comment will then be shown nested under the post in

question.

It is possible to like a comment as well as a post – the process works in the same way as liking a post.

More posts

To prevent a busy social stream overpowering the screen, the social stream shows a maximum of 10 posts on

the page. To view more posts you need to click on the more posts button at the bottom of the social stream

box which will then show 10 more posts and so on.

Deleting

If a user posts a message or comment which is inappropriate an administrator can then delete either the post

or the comment.

To delete a post you need to click the red x icon to the right of the post and to delete a comment, click the

word delete under the comment in question.

Please note, if you delete a post you will delete all comments associated with that post at the same time and

deleting a post or comment removes all likes associated with the item.


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Company module

Module is restricted to admin users only.

The Company module is used to administer the company account and all the settings and options which are

part of the company’s interaction with the application.

There are many components to the Company module, some of which are self-explanatory whilst others are

more complex and are covered in greater detail.

Announcements Used for addition of company wide announcement which are displayed on the

home screen. Auditing See Auditing

Backups This allows you to download main data sets from the system for their data

protection or portability should you decide to move provider. Please note,

downloads are in CSV format so should be able to be opened in most

spreadsheets.

Bulk employee upload This allows you to quickly upload multiple employees (akin to using Quick add,

NOT a full add) via the use of a CSV file rather than having to manually add

them via the web console.

There is a separate help file on the page and a sample CSV file which should be

used as there is extensive validation built into the tool and it will fail if your data

is not exactly correct.

Company information This module lists the main information on the company.

Company settings This module lists configuration settings which are applied at a company level

Company users This is where you set up user level access to the application. You must have an

employee fully created for the user and you can then choose their name from

the list, assign a login address, password and PIN as well as assign them to a

user group. You can also disable user access by choosing disabled under user

status. See Access levels

Custom employee fields It is possible to add up to five custom fields to the employee file which you can

use for whatever reason you need. More information on this can be found

below.

Delete account If you have decided that Natural HR is not for you and you want to leave

permanently then this is how you do it. This will delete ALL data from the

system relevant to your company and it is NOT reversible. As an added

precaution, you will be asked to enter your admin password to confirm. Once

completed, you will be logged out and all your data permanently removed.

Departments If you have different departments in your company and you want to assign

employees to them this is where you set up the various departments so they

appear in the departments drop downs.


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Display settings Settings which impact the look and feel of the application grouped together.

Employee job history Module which allows you to view and delete Employee job change entries. Induction steps Inductions steps are the steps employees go through when they start the

company to complete your induction process. By setting these up in advance,

you can create a template which is then applied to new starters when they

begin the induction process. Job roles This is where you set up the various job roles so they appear in the jobs drop

downs.

Job status This module is to allow you to set up different statuses for job roles such as full

time, part time, contractor, temporary and so on.

Leave reasons If you conduct a formal leaver process within your company this allows you to

enter predefined reasons for leaving so when you make an employee a leaver

you can choose the relevant reason from the drop down allowing you to

perform analytics on why employees leave.

Manage carryover values This allows you to check and modify carryover values generated by using the

process carryover procedure – we do not recommend using this module to

enter bulk carryover values, this should be done using the Process carryover

module Process carryover When you have completed your holiday year and wish to finalise carryover

balances you can use this process to do so. More information is provided

below. Recruitment settings Settings for recruitment module

Reporting permissions Allocate permissions to user groups other than just admin at a report level.

Review questions If you use standard questions as part of your review process you can enter

them here to avoid repetition and to ensure consistency across the review

process. There are a maximum of 10 questions which you can have in the

system at any time. The questions are totally open and you can enter whatever

you wish.

Social settings If you wish to use the social stream module you can enable it here and also set

the options to be able to control what is displayed.

Sites If you have different sites or offices in your company and you want to assign

employees to them this is where you set up the various sites so they appear in

the company sites drop downs.

Time off in lieu accrued View, edit and delete Time off in lieu entries which are created when

employees enter “overtime” via timesheets. This allows you to fix errors and so

on due to employees entering wrong hours, for example. Time off settings (global) Time off settings applied at a global level – can be over ridden at a site by site

level in Company Sites.

Time off types If you wish to track time off according to the reason given you can add

additional options in this section. There is already a legacy prepopulated option

for PAID TIME OFF and additional potential time off types could include unpaid

holiday, sickness, maternity, bereavement and so on.


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Announcements

There are times when you may wish to make a company wide announcement to all employees and users such

as social or recreational activities or important dates, for example.

Announcements allow you to control the addition and display of these notices which are then displayed on the

home page of all users of Natural HR.

Before using Announcements for the first time you need to add some categories. This is accessed via the

Announcements Module. As the name suggests, Categories allow you to group announcements together by a

common topic, theme or type to allow users to quickly distinguish between different announcements.

When you add a category you need to enter the category name (we recommend short and to the point

names) and then assign a colour from the list for easy recognition.

When adding an actual Announcement itself there are a number of key fields which are explained below:

Title This is the title of the announcement which will be shown in bold in the

announcements box

Content The body of the announcement

Category The category of the announcement (as entered above)

Status Set the announcement active or inactive

Link to company document If you wish to have a link in the announcement to a company document then

you can choose from your company documents here. Please note: Whilst you

can restrict an announcement to a department level, the company documents

shown in the list will include all documents including those which are only

accessible to specific departments so take care when attaching a document to

an announcement.

Department permissions If you only want to show an announcement to particular department then you

can do so by ticking the required departments in the list.

Expiry date If you want the announcement to be time limited and expire on a certain date

then enter the expiry date here.


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Bulk employee upload

As a new user of Natural HR, one of the most daunting things you have to do is to input all your employees

into the system before you can start to use it.

If you only have a few employees this is not too onerous but we have companies with in excess of 1000

employees which is then a time consuming and laborious task. To assist, we added the ability to bulk upload

employees from a CSV file. A CSV file is simply a way of storing tabular data in a basic text format which is

simplistically what a database is so it is ideally suited for the task.

This process cannot currently be used to modify existing employees. If you try to upload the same file again

the upload will fail as, like the core application, it checks the National Insurance Number (aka Social Security

number) and if it finds a duplicate it will throw an error. If you were to enter a different National Insurance

number for each entry this would bypass the check but it would mean you would have duplicate employees so

this is not recommended.

That said, the security implications of allowing users to upload a file directly to the server which also has the

ability to make changes to the database are vast hence why we have so much validation in place and,

therefore, why so many fail on their first attempt.

The information collected and inserted into the system is NOT the same as that which would be inserted if

you were to use the full Add Employee function but, instead, enters the same level of detail as that entered

when using Quick Add Employee. At this time it is not possible to add the same level of information as a full

employee addition but this is in planning for future releases.

We have made available a sample CSV file for you to download and we recommend you use this file as the

template for your CSV which you intend to upload (obviously, you should delete the sample data row which

we have included in the file but do not remove the header row).

Additionally as the CSV system requires you to enter the system identifiers for manager, job title, job status

and department we have made the facility available for you to easily display each of these via the Bulk upload

screen.


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Whilst the process of uploading data via a CSV file is a quick and easy process you should pay extra attention

to the data you are inputting into the file as there is obviously no validation possible whilst you enter the

information into the CSV file. As a result, we have implemented robust validation for the data when you try to

upload the file to ensure the data is correct and is as we need to receive it. If you try to upload a file which

does not meet the correct criteria as outlined below the upload will fail so please pay careful attention to the

general notes below as well as the field specific notes to ensure that the process is as quick and simple as

possible.

General notes

1. The file should be saved as COMMA separated CSV file with a CSV extension

2. The title row must be left in place and should not be changed

3. Make sure there are no additional rows in the document by viewing in a text editor before uploading

4. Ensure none of the data you enter includes a comma as this will cause an error

5. Ensure none of your data contains “ or ‘ or any other similar iteration as they will be escaped by the

application to ensure data integrity. If you do try this you will end up with \ in place of the prohibited

characters which is intentional on the part of the application

6. You must fill in ALL columns

7. There are 13 columns in total and you should not add any additional columns

8. Dates must be entered in the format dd/mm/yyyy

a. This is regardless of the date formatting chosen in Localisation

9. The value in the National Insurance field (aka Social Security number) must be unique

10. For Manager ID, Job title ID, Job status ID and Department ID you must enter a valid ID reference (i.e.

NOT the name)


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Notes on data formatting

Employee Works ID Works ID for employee within your company. Can be made up of letters and

or numbers

Employee surname Can be made up of letters and or numbers

Employee first name Can be made up of letters and or numbers

Gender Male, Female or Not are the only valid options with Not indicating not

specified

DOB Must be in the format dd/mm/yyyy

National Insurance Number Also known as Social Security number outside the UK, can be made up of

letters and or numbers but MUST be unique within your company

Manager ID The system record ID for the employee’s manager. Please ensure the number

referenced is for an existing employee who should hold a role which is

designated as being manager level

Employee status Only valid entries are Current or Archived

Job title ID The system record ID for the employee’s job title or role. Please ensure the

number referenced is for an existing role within the system

Job status ID The system record ID for the employee’s job status. Please ensure the number

referenced is for an existing status within the system

Start date Must be in the format dd/mm/yyyy

Holidays per year Must be a number, maximum of two digits

Department ID The system record ID for the employee’s department. Please ensure the

number referenced is for an existing department within the system

When entering items into the CSV file please remember to use the system identifiers and not the actual

names. For example, do not enter Sales for the department as it will fail. Instead use the list of departments

and get the ID for Sales and enter that instead.

Company information

When you signed up to Natural HR, you provided some information during the signup process including

company name, industry, employees etc.

However, as part of the sign up process we do not ask you to fill in your address details and phone numbers

etc so this is where you provide additional information on your company.


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Company settings

Use real time time tracking

If you want employees to use real time time tracking then you can turn this on by changing this to Yes. For

more information on timetracking, please see Timetracking.

Google calendar link

If you want to display events from your Google calendar on the main company calendar, then enter the

Google calendar XML URL into this box and the events will appear on the calendar.

Finance notification email

If you require finance or payroll to be notified when an employee updates their bank details through Employee

Self Service, you can enter an email address or a series of email addresses separated by commas into this field

and these email addresses will get sent an email when an employee changes any of the their bank details.

The email will NOT contain the actual data for security reasons and the recipient will be required to have a

Finance account and they will then need to login and run the bank details report to view the changes.

Timesheets midnight rollover

When using Timesheets there is a check built in which ensures that the times entered are valid in the context

of the end time being after the start time – for example, if someone says they stared work at 08.00 and

finished at 04.00 then the system will give an error as the finish time is before the start time.

However, if you have employees who work overnight where they start before midnight and finish after

midnight then this check means they cannot enter their working times. For example, if someone starts at 22.00

and finishes at 06.00 then the system will throw an error as it assumes that both times are in the same day.

To overcome this, if you set Timesheets midnight rollover to yes the check of finish time being after start time is

no longer performed so this error is removed.

Additionally, the calculation of hours worked is also revised to account for this setting.

Please note: Removing this check means that someone could enter a start time of 08:00 and a finish time of

07:30 meaning 17.30 and the system will accept this as a valid entry.

Require tax authority self service address update notification

In the UK, there is a system called Real Time Information which is a system whereby employers report PAYE

information to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in real time.

There is an obligation on the EMPLOYEE to notify HMRC of change of name, address, etc and even if the

employer submits the RTI with an updated address etc this is not sufficient.


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If you wish to use this feature then entering ANY value into this box will result in a tick box appearing in the

employee self service update address which the employee will be required to tick to confirm they have

notified HMRC of their new address.

If you enter a web address into this box this will then add a link under the tick box marked “Click here to visit

notification link (links to an external site)” which the employee can click which can be used either to link

directly to the form(s) needed or to an internal link telling the employee what they need to do.

Finally, if you have entered a value into Finance notification email an email will be sent to that email address

notifying them that the employee has updated their address details.

Logout URL

Default: Blank (www.naturalhr.com)

If you enter a web site address into this box, users will be redirected to that address when they logout. If left

blank, users get redirected to http://www.naturalhr.com.

Please note you should enter the address without the http://

Display settings

Default employee module view

Used to determine the default view for the Employee module with a choice of table or card view. More

information is available in the Employee module.

Employee card fields

If you are using the employee card under the Employee module to display information you can choose which

fields to display by ticking and unticking the various fields listed.

Employee name will be always shown and cannot be removed.

Calendar status

Default: Private

Used to determine whether time off and training items are viewable by all employees (Public) or are only

viewable by the employee and manager who they relate to (Private)

http://www.naturalhr.com/


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Calendar training display

Default: Individual entries

If you have training events where multiple employees are attending the same course on the same dates, by

default, each item will be listed as a separate entity on the calendar which can make the calendar messy as well

as greatly increasing the size.

By changing this value to Grouped by course, you can show one entry on the calendar for each training course

instead of multiple entries.

Directory fields

Controls which fields are displayed on the employee card viewable from the employee directory - you can

choose which fields to display in the Employee directory by ticking and un-ticking the relevant boxes:

Any fields which are ticked will be shown and those which are un-ticked will not - please note, employee

name is not an optional field and will always be shown.

In the example above, the employee start date and date of birth are not to be shown whilst all the remainder

are. This results in the following view in the employee directory:


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Pay/benefits hidden from managers

Default: No

If you do not wish manager level users to be able to view or change employee pay, benefits and other financial

information then you can change this to yes.

They will still be able to do everything else bar financial related tasks.

Managers view all reports

Default: Direct reports only

If you have managers of managers who have a hierarchy of reports under their control you may wish to allow

them to view and administer their whole organisation rather than just their direct reports.

To do this you should change this setting to Whole organisation – please note the individual managers can

then opt to turn this on and off in their profiles once you have enabled the option.

For example, by default, Daniel Parker can only view his direct reports i.e. those who have him set as their

manager.

If you (and the manager) enable this option he will then be able to see his direct reports and their reports and

so on – please note he can only ever view downwards in the tree and not upwards or sideways.


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Reviews visible to employees

Default: No

Used to determine whether employees can view their own performance reviews. If set to yes, employees will

have an additional menu item in Self service called My reviews

Warnings visible to employees

Default: No

Used to determine whether employees can view their own warnings. If set to yes, employees will have an

additional menu item in Self service called My warnings

Allow employees to enter timeoff days/hours

If you want to allow your employees to enter / change the days/hours values when entering time off via Self

Service you can do so by setting this to yes.

Using this, the employee can override the system calculated value in Self Service prior to submitting the

request. This is useful if you want allow your employee to enter half days for example.

If you enable this you should ensure your managers (or whoever is approving requests) pay extra attention to

the value in days as an employee could choose 01/12/2013 to 31/12/2013 and then change the number of

days from ~20 to 2 (accidentally or deliberately!) and, if approved, that value of 2 is what would be deducted

from their balance.

When the approver goes to validate a request, if the value in hours/days differs from the systems expected

value then they are notified but they can still approve the request regardless so vigilance is highly

recommended.


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Timesheets selectable weeks

When entering timesheets the employee has to choose the week which the timesheet applies to.

By default the system will show 52 weeks prior to the current week in the drop down and no future weeks.

If you want to change this to show a different number of weeks in the past or future then you can enter values

in the two boxes.

There is a maximum setting of 100 for either box so you could set the system to show 100 weeks prior and

100 future weeks in timesheets if you wished.

Races

Note: To show the list of races, you should click the plus tooltip icon next to Races.

This shows a list of available Race definitions in Natural HR – if you wish to make a Race available in the

Employee module then you can tick the relevant race to enable this.

Nationalities

Note: To show the list of nationalities, you should click the plus tooltip icon next to Nationalities.

This shows a list of available Nationality definitions in Natural HR – if you wish to make a Nationality available

in the Employee module then you can tick the relevant nationality to enable this.


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Company Users

If you want your employees to be able to use Natural HR (regardless of the access level), they need to be set

up as Company users.

When you add a company user, you need to choose an employee from the drop down to assign the

Company user account to. Once you have chosen an employee, you need to enter their login name, password

and PIN number as well as setting their account to the appropriate status – enabled or disabled.

We STRONGLY recommend using an email address for login name rather than a generic login – for example,

if you use a generic login name and the user forgets their password there is no way for them to reset their

password as when they are asked to enter their login name it is not an email address hence the message is never sent.

Finally, you need to add them to a user group which then determines their access rights within the application.

For more information on user groups, see Section Access Levels.

If you wish to send users a notification email to let them know that an account has been created you can tick

the box marked Send email to user on account creation. Please note, this will only work if you have a valid

work email address in the employee file.

The system will then generate two emails and send them to the work email address – the first email contains

the username and password whilst the second email contains the username and PIN number.

On the main Company users screen in the actions column there is also the option to change a user’s password

and or PIN.

If, when you try to add a company user, the employee you wish to add is not in the list this is due to one of

three reasons:

1. The employee in question is not in your employee list or has been deleted or archived

2. The employee in question already has a user account

3. The employee in question does not have a work email address defined – you need to enter a work

email address in the employee file and try again

If the user does not receive their confirmation email (or you want to send a new password and PIN to a user)

it is possible to resend the emails from the company users screen – simply click the green revolving arrow next

to their account and it will resend both emails (assuming a valid work email is specified for that user).

Please note, by doing this the users password and PIN will be reset and they will need to change their

password on next login – this is because the password and PIN are stored hashed in our system and we have

no way of reversing that hash to see what the values are to allow us to resend the original values so a reset is

always required in this scenario.


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Whilst it is possible to have more than one admin account, we do not recommend you do so. It is important

to realize that a user with an admin account can view everything including all employee information and could even delete the whole company account if they so choose.

Custom employee fields

It is possible to add up to five custom fields to each employee file which you can use to capture any additional

required information outside of the fields already provided within Natural HR.

By default, the fields are not set up and will not be visible in the employee file until you create them and give

them a name(s) through this setting.

To enable the fields, simply add a name for the field or fields required and click Update and they will then be

visible and usable in the Employee file.

Careful consideration should be given to the setup and use of custom fields especially if you decide to change

the name (or more specifically the purpose) of the field at a later stage. If you do this whilst the label will

change in the employee file the old data will remain in place and may not make any sense whatsoever.

For example, you choose to make field 1 a field called Model of car and you enter this data for all your

employees using this field. You then realize you need to use field 1 to record Number of children so you can change the label here and in the employee file it will now ask for Number of children but, for existing

employees who had data already populated in the field, they will have the answer to the previous question so

you will need to manually revisit every employee and update the answer for the new question.

Delete account

Whilst this is a fairly straight forward component we have called it out separately so we can emphasise that

once an account has been deleted, all information in the system relating to that account is removed and we

cannot recover the information.

With that in mind, we encourage you to use this feature with extreme caution as there is no way back once it

has been confirmed.

If you decide this is appropriate, all you need to do is to enter your admin password into the password box,

the reason(s) why you are leaving into the comments box (this is not required but would be appreciated so

we can understand what we need to do to improve) and then click Confirm.

Upon clicking confirm, the system will then remove all of your data from and will log you out.

Remember, delete account cannot be reversed!


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Process carryover

You must have set both a value for carryover days and a date for carryover expiry in Company settings

When you reach the end of your holiday year, if you allow employees to carryover Paid Time Off this process

should be run to populate the carryover values for each eligible employee so they can use that time under the

Time Off module.

When you first run the module, it will ask you to enter a start and end date – you should enter the first and

last day of the holiday year in which you want to process the carryover. You should pay careful attention to

the actual dates as, often due to weekends etc, they will not necessarily be one day less than a year apart.

Once you have entered the dates we STRONGLY recommend that you use Check balances to ensure

everything is as you expect before actually processing the carryover.

When you choose check balances, the system runs exactly the same process as the actual carryover

confirmation but without making any physical changes.

Once run, check balances will show a list of all employees who will be eligible to carryover Paid Time Off as

well as their original annual allowance, the days they have taken, how many days they have left and then the

actual carryover figure (which may be different mainly if their days left is greater than the maximum allowable

carryover).

Once you have checked this figures and are happy they are all accurate and correct you then need to re-enter

your dates and click Process carryover which will finalise the process and populate the carryover figures in the

system.

Recruitment settings

Using this module you can apply a degree of customisation to the recruitment process as well as add

notifications of new applications received via the jobs board.

Email notification

If you wish to be notified when a new application has been received via the online jobs board you can enter

email address (or list of email address separated by commas) in this box and they will get a message telling

them a new application has been received.

Message after online application

When a candidate applies using the jobs board they get a generic message displayed telling them their

application has been successfully sent – if you want to change that message you can do so here by entering

free text in this box.


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Interview confirmation email

When you invite a candidate to interview, Natural HR will send them a generic email confirming the details.

If you want to customise the content of this email you can do so by entering your customised message in this

box – when creating the message you need to simply type what you want in the email and, if you want the

email to include the date, time, location and / or job role then you can add these as well.

To do so you should substitute where you wish them to be placed with placeholders. For example,

We are pleased to confirm your interview for the role of [role] on [date] at [time] at our [location] offices.

Please ensure you bring your CV and a copy of your ID with you for the interview.

In this instance the words enclosed in [square brackets] will be replaced by the values pertinent to the role

they are being interviewed for.

Reporting permissions

By default in Natural HR, only admin users have access to the reporting module.

By assigning reporting permissions, you can also allow other users access to access selected reports.

To allocate permissions to a specific report to a user group simply tick the box where the report and the user

group meet in the table - in the below example we have given HR access to all reports except Employee Bank

Details but we have given Finance access to that report. Likewise, Manager level cannot see the Bank Details

nor Employee Costs Report nor any of the charts - it is entirely up to you how you allocate permissions.

Once you add any permissions for a user group, Reporting will then appear in their menu bar and, likewise,

once they click Reporting to enter the reporting module they will only see the relevant reports and report

groups based on their permissions as set below.

IMPORTANT: By default, HR now has NO access to reporting and you need to give them access - this is a

change from how the system worked previously and will mean you need to enter the module and give them

access if you want them to be able to view any reports.

When you give a manager access to any report, the report will only show them data for their employees (i.e.

those employees whom have the manager set as their manager in the employee file).

HR, Finance and Recruitment user groups are not filtered at all - if you give them access to a report it shows

them the information for all employees across the whole company.

Finally, there is no way to allow employees access to any reporting at this time.


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Review questions

You can define up to 10 questions which can be used as part of the performance review process.

The questions can either be open questions (resulting in just a text box) or closed questions where the

answer is either yes or no.


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The output of these options on the questions in the performance review results in:

The open questions allow free entry of text whereas the closed questions are a yes / no response.

Security settings

In this module you can change a number of security related settings applicable at a company level.

Require PIN on login

For additional security, you can require all users of Natural HR to enter three random digits from a six digit

PIN number each time they login.

This adds an additional step upon login but provides much greater security especially against weak passwords,

reused passwords and malware which captures keystrokes.

If you turn this on the system will generate a random 6 digit PIN for your admin account which will be

displayed on screen – please note this down immediately as you will be unable to login next time without this.

We STRONGLY recommend you do this due to the number of users which choose very weak passwords

and / or use the same passwords on multiple sites.

If your users use the same username and password on multiple sites and one of those sites gets hacked then your data in Natural HR is at risk regardless of how secure our system is and we will treat the login as a valid

login as it is exactly that - they are using the correct username and password.


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Session timeout duration (seconds)

This controls the length of time after your last action before which the system logs your account out as a

security precaution.

The default value is 30 minutes and you can change this to a maximum of 240 minutes (4 hours).

Once you change this value you will need to log out and back in again for the change to take effect.

Sites

If you have employees who are located at different sites be that customer sites or company sites and local sites

or in other countries you can setup Sites which allows you to run reports at a site level.

The various fields in sites are self-explanatory but there is one which warrants additional information.

Site level timeoff settings

If you wish to apply different time off settings based on employee locations you can override the default

Global time off settings by ticking the box marked Site level timeoff settings and then entering the site specific

entries in the boxes which appear.

Please ensure that you fill in all the fields even if only a few are different from the Global settings as the Global

settings are disregarded as soon as this option is chosen.

For an explanation of each of the settings, please see Time off settings (global).

Social settings

Social settings controls the display and functions of the Social Stream – more information on Social Stream can

be found on page 25.

If you want to be able to use the Social Stream feature, you need to enable it on this screen. To do so simple

click the status dropdown and set this to Enabled or, conversely, to disable Social Stream set status to

Disabled,

Whilst setting this value to enabled will enable the Social Stream box on the main page, you need to configure

the other options if you wish to get the most from the feature.

Social chat

Put simply, social chat allows users to post messages directly to the Social Stream via a chat box which is

displayed at the top of the Social Stream.

To enable this feature, simply set the drop down value to Enabled.


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Please note, regardless of whether you set Social chat to Enabled or Disabled users will still be able to

comment on posts on the Social Stream such as new starters or job changes (see below).

In addition to allowing users to post messages to the Social Stream there are four additional events which can

post messages to the Social Stream. These messages are automated and are created when the event in

question completes but the actual text which is displayed on the Social Stream can be customised by you via

these settings.

If you do not wish to use a particular feature then simply leave the box empty – entering anything in the boxes will enable the automated posting and the contents of the box will be shown on the Social Stream.

In all cases, you can enter box simple text as well as certain fields in the settings so the post is relevant and

informative. For each setting there are a number of fields which can be added which are detailed below –

please pay particular attention to the requirement to enclose the fields in double exclamation marks (!!).

Additionally, if you disable a feature either by choosing Disabled or by removing ALL the text from the

relevant box this does NOT remove any posts of this type from the Social Stream – the only exception to this

is if you disable the Social Stream completely which, whilst not deleting the messages, would mean users could no longer view or access the stream.

Social recognition text

This is used so your users can recognise other employees and their recognition is posted on the Social Stream.

Users create the recognition via Self Service where they simply pick an employee from the dropdown and

enter a citation. It is vital that you customise this setting so the message displayed is informative.

The fields you can use for this are:

!!rec_firstname!! – recipient’s first name

!!rec_surname!! – recipient’s surname

!!sender_firstname!! – sender’s first name

!!sender_surname!! – sender’s surname

!!citation!! – citation entered by the sender

An example message for this could be as below – please pay particular attention to the double exclamation

marks (!!) around the field values:

!!rec_firstname!! !!rec_surname!! has been recognised by !!sender_firstname!! !!sender_surname!! for !!citation!!

This message would then be displayed as:

Joe Bloggs has been recognised by Mike Thomas for helping to meet an important deadline


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If you fail to include the double exclamation marks this would then be displayed as:

rec_firstname rec_surname has been recognised by sender_firstname sender_surname for citation

New starter text

If you would like a notification of a new starter to be posted to the Social Stream then you should enter the

necessary text in this box.

Please note: this only works if the new starter is added via Add Employee or Quick Add Employee and not via

Bulk Upload.


!!firstname!! – new starters firstname

!!surname!! – new starters surname

Example message – again, pay particular attention to the double exclamation marks:

Please say hello to !!firstname!! !!surname!! who started with us today

Job change text

If you would like a notification of promotions or job changes to be posted to the Social Stream then you

should enter the necessary text in this box.


!!firstname!! – new starters firstname

!!surname!! – new starters surname

!!new_job_role!! – new job role name


Congratulations to !!firstname!! !!surname!! on their promotion to !!new_job_role!!

New job requisition text

If you would like a notification of new job requisitions posted via Recruitment to be posted to the Social Stream

then you should enter the necessary text in this box.


!!role!! – job role requisition is for

!!contact!! – contact person dealing with the role


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New job requisition added for !!role!! - please contact !!contact!! for further details

REMEMBER: If you do not wish to use a particular feature then simply leave the box empty – entering anything in the boxes will enable the automated posting and the exact contents of the box will be shown on the Social

Stream.


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Time off settings (global)

Global Time Off Settings are applied to all employees in all locations unless their Company Site has individual Time Off Settings applied in which case the Company Site time off settings are applied.

For more information on how to do this, please see Company Sites.

Holiday year

This is used to determine how an employee holiday year is defined. There are two options:

Set date (default) This allows you to enter a date which is used for the beginning of the holiday year where the same date applies to everyone.

Employee start date If an employee’s holiday year is set based on their start date as opposed to

a fixed date per employee then you should choose this option. Choosing this option will then hide the values for Start of holiday year, Carryover

days and Expiry date for carryover days

Start of holiday year (only visible when Set date is chosen)

This date is used to determine when the holiday year begins for employees and the date on which their new

balance becomes available.

Please note: This value is required for holiday allowances to work properly and should be set each year to the start date of the current year.

Carryover days (only visible when Set date is chosen)

If you allow employees to carryover unused holidays from one year to the next you should enter the

maximum number of days they can carryover in this box.

Expiry date for carryover days (only visible when Set date is chosen)

As with carryover, if you allow employees to carryover unused holidays from one year to the next you should

enter the date by which carryover has to have been taken.

Please note: These two values are required if you want to allow holiday carryover. The carryover date should

be set each year to the carryover date of the current year.


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Holiday allowance prorated

Be default, Natural HR gives an employee access to their whole holiday allowance from the first day of the

holiday year.

Using this option it is possible to restrict the available balance to the actual prorated allowance earned at the

time of booking the request.

For example, an employee is entitled to 22 days holiday per year. By default, one month into the holiday year

they will see an available balance of 22 days and could book the whole 22 days.

By enabling, prorated allowances on that same day one month in the employee would only see xx days

available as that is all they would have earned at that point.

The calculation used is as follows:

Number of days into year (days): 31

Number of days annual entitlement (entitlement): 22

(days/365) * entitlement

(31/365) * 22 = 1.87 days available to book

Company Holidays Mandatory

If you have entered holidays into the Holiday module these will simply show on the calendar as a notification.

If you want to make these holidays mandatory, then select Yes and any days entered into Holiday module will

be automatically deducted from the employees allowance without them needing to enter a specific time off

request for that day/days.

If you are applying this retrospectively please ensure that you enter the employee’s full holiday allowance in the

employee file including any holidays. If you have previously entered time off net of any mandatory holidays

then you either need to manually change each employees entitlement or you should not use this option.

Accrue time off in lieu

Please note: The usage of this feature is linked to Timesheets and there is a direct dependency between the

modules as well as a requirement to define a specific Time Off Type for Time off in Lieu.

When an employee works more than their contracted hours (as defined in their employee file) and enters

their total time in Timesheets this option gives you the choice to allow employees to book those additional

hours as Time Off in Lieu.


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To ensure this option is available to employees, you need to create a Time Off Type which has the Time Off

In Lieu set to Yes.

Once this is done, employees who work more than their allocated hours will have an additional time off type

from which they can deduct Time Off In Lieu and the message they receive about how much time off they are

entitled to will also tell them how much Time Off In Lieu they are entitled to.

Working days

This is used to determine which days are your normal working days. This is used as part of the time off process

to determine the duration of an absence given two dates. If you do not enter anything in this component, the

system will use a default of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Please note, if you enter individual employee working days then the employee values will have precedence

over the system values in every case.

Standard working day in hours

This is not currently used by the system.

Work week begins on

This is used in conjunction with Working days to determine the day on which your normal working week

begins and is used by timetracking.


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Time off types

When defining a time off type, you can choose a number of additional options:

Calendar colour Choose the colour used to display this time off type on the calendar –

please see Calendar Options at the end of this guide for information of

how to choose a colour Deduct from holiday allowance This determines whether this time off type will deduct time off from a

starting balance – there are two options available: Pool and Individual. See

below for more information on these.

Time off in lieu If you have set the option in Time off settings for Time off in Lieu to Yes and then select yes this time off type will be used to deduct from an

employee time off in lieu balance.

Paid Used to determine if the time off is paid – not currently utilised

Authorised Used to determine if the time off it authorised in advance – for example,

sickness typically is not pre authorised whereas maternity is and for

purposes of reporting it could be useful to differentiate between them.

This value is used as part of the Bradford Factor absence report to

differentiate between time off types which are approved and those which

are not.

Return to work If you require a return to work process to take place after an unauthorised

absence you can set this on a type by type basis which then forms the

framework for Return to Work reporting.

Bookable by employees This determines if this time off type is able to be chosen by employees when entering time off requests under Self Service – for example, you may

have a time off type of “Discretionary Leave” which admin etc can add but

the employee cannot request.

Viewable on calendar If you have set Calendar status to Public in Display Settings, this will

determine what level of information is shown. If you choose No this type

will not be shown on the calendar regardless of setting the calendar to

Public, if you choose Fully Visible this type will be shown with all information (ie. including the type) and, finally, if you choose Yes but no

reason shown then the entry will only be partially visible with the

employee name and start/end shown but the actual time off type will be

hidden from other users.

Deducting types

By default, Natural HR gives each employee a single annual starting balance of timeoff in a pool which is then

drawn down by a time off type which is set to deducting. This is the default option of “Yes from pool” –

hereafter referred to as Pool.

It is also possible to have multiple time off types each with their own individual balance set separately. This is

selected by choosing “Yes from individual balance” – hereafter referred to as Individual.


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For example, you could have a time off type for Holiday which gives the employee 10 days per year, Sickness

which gives 5 days per year and Personal days which gives 3 days per year.

On choosing Individual, each employee will then have each possible time off type listed under Employee

Benefits where you can allocate a balance against each type.

Please note: the timeoff meter (days or hours) is set at an employee level and applies across all time off types

so you cannot have Sickness in hours and Holiday in days, for example.

If you choose Pool then under Timeoff allowances you will see only one box into which you enter a single

value.


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Mixing time off types

You should ensure that you do not have time off types using both Pool and Individual within the organisation

as, if you do, the system will not function correctly as one will be expecting a pool balance and the other

individual balances and as you can only enter one or the other then timeoff will not work correctly.

Additionally, you should only have one time off type set to use Pool as Pool is designed to be used for a single

time off type drawing down from a single value – if you need to have multiple values then you should change

to Individual and allocate a starting balance to each type under each employee.

Migrating from one system to another and vice versa

If you deploy Pool or Individual and then decide you want to change to the other, it is worth considering the

potential time which may be required for this to work properly.

Once you change your deducting type on a given time off type this may result in your employees having no

timeoff starting balances and therefore being shown either an incorrect balance in time off or no balance at all.

Transfer balances

To aid with migrating from one deducting type to the other, we have added an option to transfer balances

when migrating.

This cannot be reversed once done and impacts ALL employees

To use transfer balances, when editing a time off type, there is a tick box next to the deducting box – if you

tick this box the transfer process will run.


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The transfer process works slightly different depending on which direction you are moving:

Pool to Individual When moving from Pool to Individual the process will:

1. Delete the Pool entries in the employee file for each employee;

2. Create a entry of the same name in Individual table; 3. Transfer the balance from the Annual holiday entitlement box to

the new Individual type.

After completing this process you can then proceed to add your additional

types manually.

Individual to Pool When moving from Individual to Pool the process will:

1. Transfer the balance from Individual to Pool entry and assign to

Annual holiday entitlement for each employee

2. Delete ALL entries in the Individual allowances table for all

employees

You should only do the transfer process once and it is vital to consider the order in which you carry out the process. When moving from Individual to Pool you should perform the transfer on the type under which you

want the balance transferred to Annual holiday entitlement. If you do it on the wrong one first then when you

come to the one which you want transferred there will be no balance to transfer

REMEMBER: This process will DELETE data and cannot be reversed. Use with caution.


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Help section

As a further aid when setting up the new deducting types (especially for those migrating from one system to

another) or for those who are experiencing unexpected issues like employees showing the wrong balance or

zero balance, for example, we have added a helper to the main time off types page. This helper checks your

current set up and your employees and will highlight areas of concern which may be causing issues.

It looks at the number of time off types of each type you have and will highlight if you have too many of one

type or if you are mixing types. If you see something highlighted in red then this needs to be addressed to

ensure smooth running of the system.

It also looks at your employees and highlights where your employee base is using mixed allowances, where an

employee has both allowances (i.e. Pool and Individual) or those employees who have no starting balance at

all.

Additionally, when you click show next to each item you will get a list of the items which make up that section

- if you click the name you will be taken to the edit or benefits page for that record to be able to make

changes.

In the sections where they reference employees there is also the ability to delete/reset timeoff balance values

on an employee by employee basis - in the case of POOL values, this will set the employee holiday value to 0

and, in the case of INDIVIDUAL, this will remove all entries for this employee from the individual allowances

table.

Unlike the transfer balances process, this is done on an employee by employee basis and simply removes

values rather than moving them.


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Tips and tricks for time off type settings

1. Plan carefully for any changes you make

2. Do not jump between the types - every time you change a type it has an impact on your set up behind

the scenes

3. Do not mix Individual and Pool time off types - this includes those using Legacy Paid Time Off type

4. Do not have more than one type using Pool - this includes those using Legacy Paid Time Off type

5. Ensure all employees have a value set for their holiday entitlement

6. For Pool, make sure employees have a value in their holiday entitlement under Benefits

7. For Individual, make sure employees have values against the individual types you want them to be able

to use

8. If you change from one type to the other you will need to manually check and re enter balances for all

employees

9. New process now includes carryover and time off in lieu figures in overall balances such as in the

profile box and in the self service time off section

Calculating time off balances

Natural HR calculates holiday balances using a combination of components:

Time off type

Date on which the holiday year starts within the company (either set date or anniversary)

Start date of employee if within current year

Holiday entitlement within employee file

Prorated holiday allowance setting

Current date

Days already taken

To facilitate this calculation it is critical that we can differentiate between time off which is paid holiday to be

removed from the annual balance and those which are not.

Additionally if you allow employees to carryover holiday from one year to the next and have set the carryover

days and carryover date in company settings then the Carryover time off type can be used and if employees

can accrue time off in lieu this can be specified here.


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Note about Paid Time Off type (legacy)

In earlier versions of Natural HR the ability to deduct from time off was hard coded to a time off type called

Paid Time Off. As we now offer the ability to deduct from any time off type the need for this specific type has

been removed but, for legacy reasons, clients will have time off already booked using this type.

As a result, Paid Time Off will remain in the system and will remain a reserved time off type (i.e. you cannot

create another time off type called Paid Time Off).

If you do not want or need to use the type then you can now delete it from view which will mean it is no

longer selectable by employees when booking time off, however, if employees have used this previously those

time off requests will still calculate correctly even with the paid Time Off type hidden.


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Documents

Module is available to all access levels

The documents section is used for uploading of company documents which you want to be viewable by all

users. These documents can commonly include policies, procedures, forms and so on.

Initially when first using Documents you have the option to upload or to add a category.

If you do not add a category and you upload a document, that document will be shown in the Uncategorised

documents section. Alternatively if you add a category you have the option when uploading to assign the

document to a category to make the management of documents more logical.

When you upload a document you should provide a meaningful name and description for the document as

well as an author name and version. The name to file has on your computer prior to uploading is disregarded.

As discussed earlier, if you have added categories you can also assign the document to a category by using the

category drop down.

Once you have completed all these fields you simply need to click on browse, find the file on your computer

and click Submit.

We only allow files of the following formats and we have a maximum size of 2MB per file:

jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp, txt, doc, rtf, docx, pdf, ppt, pptx, xlsx, zip

If you need to upload a different file type or larger sizes, please contact us and we will do our best to

accommodate your needs.


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Once uploaded the document will then either appear under Uncategorised documents or in the relevant

category. Categories are listed at the top of the screen and have a number in brackets beside them which

shows the number of documents contained in the category. Additionally, administrators will see a pencil and

cross icon beside each category allowing them to edit the category and delete the category respectively.

Whether a document is in a category or not, the table shows the relevant information on each document

including the name, description, author and version as well as the file format which is represented pictorially by

the icon in the second column.

Category permissions

When you create a category you will get an option to assign permissions to the category and thereby the

documents within that category. The permissions are linked to the employee department.

By default, everyone can access every category but by ticking any of the department boxes when setting up a

category you will then change the permission to only allow employees who are members of that department

to view the category and the documents within the category.

To remove all permissions and default back to being visible to all you simply need to untick all the department

names so no departments are ticked and the category will then return to being visible by everyone regardless

of their department.

View and download documents

To the right of each document, in the actions column, you can edit and delete the document as well as either

view or download it.

The difference between view and download depends on the type of file which you have uploaded. Regardless,

if you click the paperclip icon this will download the file to your computer, however, if you click the view icon

and it is possible to open that file type within the browser then it will do so (such as for an image or text file)

but there are a number of file types which will not open directly in the browser in which case these will be

downloaded instead.

This is not a bug but simply a limitation of files and the variance within files which can be opened in different

browsers. For example, by default, most browsers can open Excel spreadsheets so you would expect the view

option to work every time but, in practice, if the Excel spreadsheets contains macros or complex formula then

it will not always open directly and, in this case, will download.


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Employee documents

Using the Employee module, it is possible to upload private documents on an employee by employee basis.

These could include things like confirmation of benefits, contracts, warnings and so on.

If an employee has had a private document uploaded and the document has been set to Employee this

document will be visible to the employee at the bottom of the document screen. The employee will be able

to view and or download the document as per above but will not be able to edit or delete the document.

If the document is to be edited or deleted this is achieved by an administrator through Employee documents

under the Employee module.

Administration of Employee documents is covered in the Employee module section later in this document.

Employee upload of documents

Employee can also upload employee documents via the Documents module – this is useful for things like

uploading proofs of ID and other important documents.

When an employee uploads a document they can only add the name and a description – they cannot choose

a category etc.

Once the document has been uploaded their manager will receive an email notification so they can login and

process the document if required.

Additionally, all employee document uploaded by the employee will be set to Public by default – please note:

this simply means the employee can view their document and NOT that other users will be able to view the

document.


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Employees

Module is only available to admin, HR and manager users

The employee module is the centre of Natural HR and the one on which most of the rest of the system relies.

Through this module, you administer the employee file as well as all the associated features and functions

which are attributed to an individual employee.

The process for adding, editing and deleting an employee is exactly the same as for adding, editing and deleting

any record in Natural HR but there are a few things worth pointing out.

Firstly, we have added an option for Quick Add to employees for those who want to simply add the minimum

required for an employee and not complete the whole employee file. Of course, if you wish to take the full

route you can do this as well.

When adding an employee, due to the sheer scale of potential information, the entry of the file is broken into

a number of logical sections to make entering the data a more user friendly experience.

Employee cards and table view

There are two possible views of employees in the employee module - a table showing a list of all your

employees with actions next to each and a card view which shows information on one employee at a time

only with each of the options listed along the bottom.

You can change between the views as well as change the default view under Display Settings. To switch view

on a use case by use case basis you can either click Switch to cards on the table view or View employee table

on the card view or, in table view, you can view an employee’s card by clicking the card icon as shown below.


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As well as the self explanatory fields on the right of the card, the Employee card shows:

Image

Name

Job title

Department

Job status

Site

Manager

Current status (Shows In office or Returning date linked to Time off records and to Employee normal working days (if set) or Company normal working days - also indicated

by coloured dot next to the employee name with green indicating they are

currently in the office and red that they are not) Next time off If any

Timeoff taken and remaining

Bradford Factor score

You can customise the fields which are displayed on the employee card under Company/Display Settings.


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Mandatory fields in employee file

Personal details Status

Surname

First name

Gender

National insurance

Date of birth

Contact details None

Job details Job title

Job status

Start date

Probationary period

Benefit details Annual holiday entitlement (days)

Bank details None

Emergency contact None

Other information None

Custom fields (if enabled) None

Whilst the entry is split into logical sections which look like separate screens, it is actually a single process and

the information is not saved until you get to the last section and click Submit.


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Archived employees

Once an employee has left the organisation, it is often necessary to keep their details for a period of time. To

facilitate this, once an employee has been made a leaver their file is not deleted but reference to them are

removed from most of the sections of the application.

If you need to view details on an old employee, you can click on the blue View archived employees button on

the main employee screen and this will show you all your archived employees along with an option to view

their employee file.

Employee actions

Whilst most sections of Natural HR offer the ability to simply edit and delete a record, the Employee module

offers a wide and varied range of options which can be confusing initially.

Employee card Switch to card view for this employee

View View the employee file including job history, reviews, warnings etc

Edit Edit the employees address and contact details Delete Delete employee file without undergoing leaver process – employee is now set

to archived

Employee induction Link to either start or monitor employee induction process Employee benefits Administer employee salary, holiday entitlement and benefits

Job change Change employee department, job title, job status, job location and manager

Employee photos Upload or view an employee’s photo

Employee documents Document assigned to an individual employee Employee notes View or add notes on an employee

Employee goals View employee goals

Employee training View employee training Timesheets View employee timesheets

Reminders View employee reminders

Make leaver Make employee a leaver – employee is now set to archived


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Employee benefits

Using Employee benefits you can administer all benefits which are attributed to an employee including their

salary (which can be entered as hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or an annual figure) as well as enter their annual

holiday entitlement in days or hours.

An employee can EITHER have holiday allowances and time off entered in hours or in days – it is not possible

to have both so you must decide which is most appropriate.

If the employee holiday allowance is initially entered into the employee file in days you will see a screen like

the below where you can enter the number of days they are entitled to, their total hours per week and what

their normal working days are.

If the employee holiday allowance is initially entered into the employee file in hours you will see a different

layout like the below where you enter the hours they are entitled to per year and then, for each day of the

week, the total number of hours they work.

For example, in the example below the employee works for 11.25 hours per week (the total of Tuesday plus

Thursday in this case) which entitles them to 63 hours per year but as their start date was 26/06/2013 they are

entitled to a prorated allowance of 32.97 hours.


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Please note: in both cases the system will prorate their holiday allowance if they start mid way through a year

so please enter the normal, full annual allowance.

If you wish to change an employee from hours to days or vice versa you need to go into Employee Benefits,

change the value in holiday entitlement and the drop down to the desired setting and then update the file.

Only upon updating will the options associated with the new type appear so this is a two step process.

Additionally, there are 13 additional boxes covering the mainstream employee benefits in which you can enter

a cost. All costs should be entered as an annual cost and there is no currency attributed to any of these values

so please enter the value as a number with no currency symbol.

There is also an extra box which allows you to enter other benefits not listed and attribute a value to those

benefits.


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The 14 standard benefits included in the system are:

Pension Medical insurance

Dental insurance Life assurance

Health insurance Critical illness

Employee assistance Gym

Childcare Company car

Car allowance Fuel card

Mobile phone Commission

Employee photos

You can upload a photo for each employee using this module – this is meant for a headshot style photo and if

you need to upload anything else you should use Employee documents.

When uploaded the employee photo is then shown on both the Employees file and on the organisational

chart.

To upload a photo is a two step process – initially you upload the picture in the same way as uploading any

other document (only JPG, GIF, PNG and BMP images can be uploaded) by clicking choose image and then

choosing the file on your computer.

When you have chosen the file you should click use image which will then upload the image and move to step

two.

Please note: if you upload an image when there is already an image uploaded this will overwrite and replace

the old image.

Once uploaded, you then need to crop the image so it fits the correct aspect ratio for use on the

organisational chart and so on.

To crop the image simply left click anywhere in the main image on the left and drag the cursor – you will then

see a dotted line appear around the area you have chosen and a preview will appear on the right so you can

see what the finished image will look like.

You can make the box as big or as small as you like but the aspect ratio is fixed and cannot be adjusted.

Once happy with the selection click on “Crop and upload” to finalise the process and upload the cropped

image.


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Employee notes

Employee notes are a quick and simple way of recording basic notes and annotations about an employee

without having to physically edit their employee file.

The Employee notes system works in the same way as other modules except on the notes screen, in the

actions tab, there is a note icon which allows you to view the icon quickly and easily. When you click the icon

the note will pop-up onto the screen.

To close the note, simply click the X at the top right hand corner or click away from the window. You can

increase the size of note, as required, by dragging the bottom right corner of the note to make it the size

required.


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Employee goals

This is simply a view of the Employee goals section but limited to only show goals for the selected employee. If

you click add or edit goal, you will be taken to the main Employee goals section to complete the task.

As with Employee notes, when you click the view icon a popup will appear which shows the goal details as well

as the due date and the current progress against the goal as entered by the employee or manager.

For more information on Employee goals, please see Employee goals.

Employee training

As with Employee goals this is a view of the Employee training section limited to the current employee. The

popup shows the course description and date as well as the result of the course.

For more information on Employee training, please see Employee training.

Reminders

As with many of the other features, this is a view of the Reminders module but only showing reminders which

apply to the individual employee.

For more information on Reminders, please see Reminders.

Make leaver

When an employee leaves the organisation, you can either simply delete them from the Employee module or

you can use the leaver process. In both cases, the employee file is set to Archived and they no longer appear

in results in modules such as training, time off etc and are excluded from reports.


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The main difference between simple deletion and using the leaver process is that you can select a reason why

they left via the leaver process which then allows you to monitor and track why your employees leave and

where to go to.

The set-up of Leave reasons is done via Company and then Leave reasons.

Print employee file

If you want to print the employee file you simply need to click the green button at the top right of the screen.

When printing the employee file it is best to print in landscape rather than portrait due to the width of some

of the data fields.

Additionally, by default, most browsers do not enable the printing of background colours and images so to

ensure that the backgrounds of the headers etc print properly you will need to turn this feature on.

Finally browsers tend to print headers and footers which displays the page name, date, URL and so on on the

page and, as a result, this is printed as well.

Events

Events are used to add any company wide events or notices to the company Calendar which will be viewable

by all users within your company. This is commonly used for things such as all hands meetings and so on.

Holidays

Holidays are used to add any company wide holidays to the company Calendar which will be viewable by all

users within your company. Any date entered as a holiday will be used during the calculation of number of

days for Paid time off if the date of the holiday is requested in the time off request.

Please note: Whilst the company calendar shows Public holidays these are NOT used in time off calculations. If

you wish to give a Public holiday as a company holiday then you need to enter it into Holidays and it will then be used as part of the logic in the time off module.


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Performance

Module is only available to admin, HR and manager users except for FEEDBACK which is partly viewable by employees

The performance module consists of four core elements: goals, reviews, feedback and warnings.

Whilst we have included goals in this section, the actual process of adding and monitoring goals is administered

via the Employee module as this is something which is attributed to individual employees.

Goal library

The goal library gives you the ability to set up a library of goals in advance which can then be re-used as part of

goal setting for your employees. This is suited for goals which will be applied to more than one employee to

save having to re-enter the goal multiple times plus to ensure consistency across the multiple recipients.

If you have a goal which is specific to a single individual and is not going to be common across more than one

employee then it does not make sense to set this up as a library goal though you can if you so wish.

Reviews

Whether an annual, probationary or an ad hoc review you can administer and record performance reviews via

this module.

The reviews index screen shows a list of all the reviews which have been carried out along with the relative

scores for each of the five main assessment areas in Natural HR.

Additionally, within the review itself you can add issues which are things raised which need to be improved

upon by the employee as well as using the standard Review questions as defined in Company module.


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When you add a review, you are given the option of adding issues to the review. To add issues you simply

click the issues highlighted dropdown which then creates the relevant number of entries to be able to

document the issues in more detail.

Under the initial review summary, the Review questions are then shown which allows you to assess the

employee against the questions and enter comments if required.

At the bottom the Issues highlighted will have been created according to the number of issues you highlighted

initially. For each issue you enter the issue itself, why it is important, agreed actions which you have discussed

with the employee and, finally, a completion date.

If you want reviews to be visible to employees, you can set this option in Company settings whereby the

employee will be able to see exactly what you have entered including the comments.

If you prefer not to do this, you can set goals for the employee which align with the issues highlighted in the

review so the actual review itself does not have to be shared with the employee.

Schedule a review

If you want to schedule a review with an employee, you can use Schedule a review to generate an email to the

employee as well as to show the review on the company calendar.

You can schedule 1 month, 3 month, 6 month or annual reviews in this way.

Feedback

As part of the review process, companies often wish to seek feedback from other employees anonymously to

gain an insight into how they are working with others and how they are perceived.

As an administrator, you can use Feedback to initiate a feedback request to send to multiple employees

requesting they provide feedback on a given employee.

When setting up the feedback request you need to choose the name of the employee whom you wish to

seek feedback from the dropdown initially.

There is then a recipient’s box which allows you to enter multiple recipients so the feedback request can be

sent to as few or as many users as you wish. To add a recipient just type a few letters from their name and the

system will then show a list of all the employees who match the entered characters.

Once you have found the recipient you wish to send the request to, click on their name and they will be

added to the recipients list.

Only employees with an active use account will be displayed in the recipients list as they need an account to be able to login and leave the feedback.


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When you have added all the recipients you would like the request to go to you need to add an expiry date

to the request and finally a message to the recipients giving some guidance on what type of feedback you

would like and why it is important and so on.

Once you have entered the request, the main feedback index screen will show all your requests along with a

response rate for that request.

Once you have created a request you cannot edit the request in the usual way but you can add recipients by

clicking the user icon and you can extend the expiry date by clicking the calendar icon.


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Giving feedback as an employee

Whilst the employee process is outside the remit of the guide, employees can view the Performance module

under their login albeit a very limited view.

As an employee the only option visible under Performance is the Feedback option. When viewed, the

employee sees only the outstanding feedback requests which have been sent to them and they are only able

to respond to this request and provide feedback – they cannot view nor do anything else.

To provide feedback, the employee clicks the person icon beside the feedback request and is then presented

with a screen which shows the request entered during the creation of the request and then allows them to

enter their feedback which is sent back to the creator.


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Warnings

The final part of performance is the ability to record warnings for an employee.

When a warning is entered, the employee is chosen from the drop down and the warning type is selected.

There are five warning types:

Verbal

1st written

2nd written

3rd written

Final written

The warning also requires a start and end date plus the reason why the warning is necessary.


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Reminders

Module is only available to admin, HR and manager users.

Often companies will want to set reminders to important ad-hoc events, be that employees birthdays or the

expiry of important documentation like insurance or qualifications.

To accomplish this we have set up a reminder system which integrates with the company calendar and sends

an email reminder as defined during the set-up of the reminder.

Whilst reminders can be attached to a particular employee this does not have to be the case and generic

reminders can be set up with no affiliation to a particular employee.

When setting up a reminder, simply enter the reminder name, due date and the date you would like the

reminder to be sent.

You then need to specify who you would like the reminder to be sent to. The options are:

Administrators only Reminder will be emailed to members of the

administrators group only

HR only Reminder will be emailed to members of the HR

group only

Manager only Reminder will be emailed to the employees manager

as defined in the employee file

Administrators and HR only Reminder will be emailed to members of the

administrators and HR groups

Administrators and Manager only Reminder will be emailed to members of the

administrators group and the employees manager as

defined in the employee file

HR and Manager only Reminder will be emailed to members of the HR

group and the employees manager as defined in the

employee file

All Reminder will be emailed to members of the

administrators group, HR group and the employees

manager as defined in the employee file

Reminders are emailed at 8am UK time each day and will come from the email address

[email protected]. To ensure you receive these reminders you should consider adding naturalhr.com

and more specifically [email protected] to your white list for email.




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Recruitment

Module is only available to admin, HR and Recruiter users.

The recruitment module is made up for a number of components all of which link together but also link to

Natural HR itself.

To ensure optimum use of the recruitment module, you need to have set up jobs with detailed job

descriptions in Job roles as these roles are used as the basis for job requisitions in the recruitment module.

Calendar

The recruitment module uses its own calendar which is separate to the company calendar. The calendar is

used to display the end dates for all open requisitions as well as show all interviews which have been booked.

Requisitions

At the heart of Natural HR are requisitions. Requisitions are simply requests to hire someone to fulfil a task

within the company.

To enter a new requisition simply click Add and fill in the contents of the form. As mentioned earlier,

requisitions uses job roles already defined in Natural HR to save repetition and to ensure uniformity and, whilst

the additional information behind each job role is not displayed on this screen, the information such as

responsibilities, experience, qualifications and so on are used when displaying the actual job.

In the actions column you can click the padlock icon to set a requisition active or inactive. Additionally, clicking

the view icon will show you all those who have applied for that requisition.

Go live date

When entering a requisition you have the option to enter a go live date. This is different to the start date. The

go live date is the date on which the requisition will be displayed on an external site whereas the start date is

the date on which the successful candidate will start their new role.

If you leave the go live date blank then the requisition will go live immediately unless you override this by

setting it to Inactive but you must then remember to set it active again before it will be displayed and

candidates can apply for the requisition.

Close date

When entering a requisition you also have the option to enter a close date. The close date is the date on

which the requisition will stop being displayed on an external site.


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If you leave the close live date blank then the requisition will remain permanently visible and candidates will be

able to apply unless you override this by setting it to Inactive.

Displaying your requisitions on an external website

When you enter requisitions into Natural HR, it is possible to display these requisitions on an external website

and allow users to interact with the system and even apply for the jobs whilst automating the background

processes to save on repetition on your part.

To do this you need to have a jobs key. A jobs key is a 32 character string unique to your company which

allows the system to identify your requisitions and job applications – this string is totally unique to your

company and should not be used for any other purpose than for displaying requisitions externally.

When you first use requisitions, you will need to generate a jobs key – to do this you need to click the

Generate jobs key button at the bottom of the requisitions window.

Once you have generated the key this is displayed at the bottom of the requisitions window for your

reference.


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To display your requisitions on an external website, you need to use an iframe. An iframe (or inline frame) is a

way of placing another HTML document within a frame for the purposes of display.

Whilst a very simple process, if you know nothing about HTML or iframes it is best to ask your website

developer or hosting company to help you as this does require modifying HTML code.

It is beyond the scope of this guide to show how to actually implement the iframe code on a website but, the

key thing, is to ensure you take a backup of the page before attempting and modifications and that the

modifications you make are to the HTML or source of the page – simply pasting this code into a WYSIWYG

editor is unlikely to work.

The code needed to get this to work is:

<iframe width=”800” height=”1000” frameborder=”0” src="https://www.naturalhr.com/hr/recruitment/list.php?key=YOURKEY"></iframe>

Please be sure to use YOUR jobs key in place of YOURKEY. Also, the width and height can be changed to suit

your needs but we do not recommend setting the width to less than 800 or this may cause horizontal

scrolling.


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Finally, you should ensure you use https and not just http for the iframe source to secure the communication

between the applicant and our systems.

The system uses two main criteria when displays requisitions which can cause requisitions not to display. To

ensure requisitions display, please make sure the requisition is set to ACTIVE and that the closing date has not

passed.

Once the closing date has passed the requisition will no longer be displayed on the external feed and only

active jobs will be shown – setting a job to inactive will temporarily remove it from the feed.

Customising job listings and applications

For those who are not satisfied with the default fonts, sizes, colours and so on there is the ability to modify the

format of the job listings and application form.

This allows you to customise:

Page width

Page background

Column widths

Text font

Text colour

Text size

Text styling

Visible fields

Custom questions

To use the custom version of the listings and application form you need to modify the iframe url slightly to

reflect the new templates.

The code needed to get this customised version to work is:

<iframe width=”800” height=”1000” frameborder=”0” src="https://www.naturalhr.com/hr/recruitment/list-custom.php?key=YOURKEY"></iframe>

Note: the filename has been changed from list.php to list-custom.php.


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Additionally you then need to specify the styling you want to use for this customised layout which is done via

List page settings.

List page settings is broken into four areas:

Sizes This allows you to set the size of the overall page as well as the size

of the two main columns and add a background colour if you wish.

These sizes apply to all the pages which are used on the external

display though you can change the column sizes for the application

form independently if you wish.

Job list page The job list page is the first page displayed when someone views

your jobs and is the page which lists the summary of each of the jobs

you have available.

Job detail page When you click on a job on the Job list page you are taken to the

Job detail page which shows all the information on the specific role

selected.

Application form Used for candidates to apply for a role.

There are a number of key things which you can change through using this feature which are listed and

explained in more detail below:

Widths You can either enter widths as a percentage (e.g. 100%) or as a pixel

number (e.g. 800).

Fonts The drop down contains 8 font families which you can use for each

of the different text types within the list pages and application form.

We have opted to only include fonts which are considered “web

safe” and which offer the widest possible compatibility across

multiple browsers and operating systems.

By using font families, we can remediate against a client not having a

specific font on their machine as, in that instance, the code will

automatically move to the next font in that option.

Colours When pickling a colour you can either click the colour picker icon to

the right of each box and drag the circle to the new colour you wish

to use or, if you know the HTML, RGB or HSB code of the colour,

you can enter it manually to the right of the box.

Finally, you can enter an HTML code directly into the text box without using the colour picker – if you do this please enter the

code only and do not include the #.

Font sizes Font sizes are in pixels and you have total freedom over the sizes

you choose.

Font styling For each of the text types you can choose to make them bold and

or italicised.


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Visible fields In the standard listings, we have chosen which fields are displayed.

Using the customised version, you can pick which fields you do and do not wish to display on the various pages and forms.

To ensure a field is display, simply tick the box beside its name – if

the box is not ticked, the field will not be displayed.

If you use formatting when entering descriptions in the company job roles description boxes, the fonts, styles

etc chosen here will be over ridden and those attached to the descriptions will be used.

Job list page layout

Job detail page layout


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Application form layout

You can set up email notifications so you are notified when a new application is received as well as customising the success message displayed when a candidate sends an application under Company/Recruitment Settings.

Recruitment custom questions

Additionally under List page settings you can specify up to 10 open ended questions which will be presented

to candidates on the application form.

The questions will simply be displayed as open text boxes and any question which has a value included in List

page settings will be shown on the application form.


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Candidates

The second key part of the recruitment module is Candidates. Whether a candidate is added via the

application form shown on an external website or added manually by a member of your staff they are shown

on this page.

On the candidates page there is a column called CV which will show a view icon if the candidate has a CV

unloaded with their application – to view simply click the view icon and it will open the CV. If there is no CV

uploaded, the view icon will not be displayed.

Like requisitions it is possible to set a candidate to inactive via the main page which is again achieved through

clicking the padlock icon. The main candidate page only shows those candidates who are set to active (which is

the default when a new candidate is added). If you wish to view inactive candidates then click the blue button

at the bottom of the screen marked Archived candidates.

To return a candidate to active, simply click the padlock icon beside their name.

Unique to candidates are three additional processes all of which are in the actions column.

Candidate notes

Candidate notes are a quick and simple way of recording basic notes and annotations about a candidate.

The Candidate notes system works in the same way as other modules except on the notes screen, in the

actions tab, there is a note icon which allows you to view the icon quickly and easily. When you click the icon

the note will pop-up onto the screen.


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To close the note, simply click the X at the top right hand corner or click away from the window. You can

increase the size of note, as required, by dragging the bottom right corner of the note to make it the size

required.

Schedule interview

If you wish to schedule an interview with a candidate you need to click the calendar icon in the actions column

next to their record.

When you do so you are taken to a form where you choose the role they are interviewing for (or No specific

role if it is a generic interview) and enter the date, time and location for the interview. Please note the time

should be entered as a 24 hour time and should be in the form HHMM with no punctuation. For example,

1425 is a valid time but 14.25 and 14:25 are not.

Once you submit the form the interview will then be shown on the interview calendar at the appropriate time

and date.

Additionally, if you have entered an email address in the candidate file an email will be sent to the candidate to

inform them of the interview.

Make offer

If you are in a position to make an offer to a candidate click the blue pound icon in the actions column.

On doing so you are taken to a form where you can enter the relevant information on the offer you wish to

make. Once completed, the offer is then stored and you can move to job offers and send a letter of offer if

you have set up a letter of offer template (see Templates).

Complete

Once an offer had been accepted and you want to make the candidate an employee you need to click the

green tick icon in the action column.

The following form is prepopulated with as much information as is available in the candidate file – if required

information is missing you should fill in this information as needed.

At the very bottom of the form is a field called Close requisition – if you have not yet closed the requisition and

wish to do so on appointment of the employee set this to yes and the requisition will then be closed so it will

no longer be displayed on the requisition list nor shown on any external websites if you have chosen to use

this option.

When you complete a candidate and they become an employee, if they have a CV attached to their candidate

file this will be transferred across into Employee Documents for the employee for future reference.


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Recruitment stages

If you want to be able to track the progress of a candidate as they move through the recruitment process you

can use recruitment stages to allow you to do this.

Initially, you need to enter the recruitment stages via the Recruitment stages link in Recruitment where you can

simply assign a name to the stage which can then be attributed to candidates.

On the main candidates screen there is a column called Stage which shows the stage the candidate is at in the

recruitment process – this can be updated by editing the candidate file.

Archived candidates

Once a position has closed you may wish to keep candidate details for a period of time. To facilitate this, you

can set a candidate to inactive by clicking the padlock icon next to their name so their file is not deleted but

references to them are removed from most of the sections of the application.

If you need to view details on an archived candidate, you can click on the blue Archived candidates button on

the main candidates screen and this will show you all your inactive candidates along with an option to delete

them or make them active again.

Locations

Locations is a module to allow you to add advertising and marketing locations which you use for recruitment

such as newspapers, radio stations and so on.

Costs

Costs allows you to add recruitment costs so you can track the expenditure and recruitment cost of candidates

and roles.

When entering costs, if you associate the cost with a location and / or a vacancy you will then be able to

report on the actual cost of a specific requisition as well as the effectiveness of different types of advertising

and advertiser.

Interviews

This is simply a list of all interviews. It is possible to add an interview through this screen without directly

referring the candidate module in which case you will need to choose the candidate name from the dropdown

on the interview screen. Alternatively, you can schedule an interview from the candidate screen in which case

this information is auto populated for your convenience.

You can customise the text shown when a candidate is emailed interview confirmation under

Company/Recruitment settings.


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Search

Search is a feature which allows you to search uploaded CV’s.

You simply need to enter your search term or terms in the search box and click Search whereupon the

system will search all CV’s uploaded to your company account and return matches it finds to your keywords

or phrases.

You can also choose the order in which your items are returned with the options being date, Score and

Surname and, for each, in ascending or descending order.

The minimum search term length is 3 letters – if you enter anything with less than 3 letters the system will give

an error message.

When the system finds a matching CV it will then be displayed under the search button as below:

The search returns a number of pieces of information including:

Candidate name

Post applied for

Date the candidate file was entered into the system

Score

If you click the candidate name it will then open the file so you can view the whole document.


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Include employees

As well being able to search CV’s you can also search your own workforce and your employee files for

matching candidates by ticking the box to include employees.

This will allow you to search contents of the following fields:

Work experience

Education

Skills

Comments

Sorting results

There are a number of settings you can sue to control the order in which search results are returned. The

options are:

Date DESC This will return the results with the most RECENT first

Date ASC This will return the results with the most RECENT last

Score DESC This will return the results with the HIGHEST score shown first

Score ASC This will return the results with the LOWEST score shown first

Surname DESC This will return the results Z to A by surname

Surname ASC This will return the results A to Z by surname

Advanced searching

If you need an additional level of granularity in searching you can use advanced search logic to allow you to

further refine the CV’s which are returned.

There are three types of search logic which can be used:

Normal Enter the word or words you wish to search for – this is the default mode.

This will find CV's which contain ANY of the words you have entered with those

which contain the most getting a higher score. For example, if you entered Office

Manager, then both Office Supervisor AND Facilities Manager would score as equal

hits as they both have 50% of the words you entered.

Exact Enter the exact words or phrase you are looking for inside double quotes.

This will only find CV's which have that exact phrase. For example, if you entered "Office Manager", then Office Supervisor or Facilities Manager would NOT score but

Facilities and Office Manager would. Every result will show with score of 100% as it

only shows on exact matches.


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Excluding Enter the words you wish to search for with those which you want excluded with a

minus(-) in front of them.

This works in a similar way to Normal search as it predominantly looks at CV's which

meet as many of the positive words as possible. The main difference is this will score

down a CV which contains the negative word but it will NOT prevent that CV from

showing.

For example, if you search for Office Manager -Facilities then both Office and Site

Manager and Office and Facilities Manager will show but the former will score higher

than the latter as it does not contain the negative word.

At any time you can click the tooltip question mark icon next to the search phrase box to display these

descriptions on screen to help you refine your searches.


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Job offers

This module shows a list of all job offers. You can enter a job offer via this module but, if you do so, you will

need to manually enter the candidate name and post applied for. Alternatively, you can make an offer from the

candidate screen in which case this information is auto populated for your convenience.

On this screen you can also create a letter of offer to send to the candidate if you have set up a letter of offer

templates through Templates.

To create the letter click the document icon in the actions bar beside the offer and it will show a screen where

you need to choose the document template you wish to use and then confirm the offer you wish to make.

When you have chosen these two elements and you click generate, the system will then dynamically create

the document in the background and it will either automatically download to your computer or ask you what

you want to do with the file depending on your operating system, browser and the security settings on your

computer.

If you do not see any document templates listed in the module you need to go to Templates and create a

Letter of offer template. It is important to note you must assign the Letter of offer category to your letter of

offer for it to work with this module.


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Reporting

Module is only available to admin, HR and manager users as well as limited relevant reporting for Recruiter and Finance users

We have two core types of reports in Natural HR. These are tabular reports and graphical reports.

As the names suggest tabular reports are used to display information in a tabular format whilst graphical

reports display graphs and charts.

We currently have over 15 tabular reports and 8 graphical reports included with Natural HR though this will

increase over time based on client requirements.

Reports are broadly broken into sections based on Natural HR modules – Employee, Employee moves,

Timeoff, Training and Performance with an additional category of financial reporting.

To run a report, simply click the name of the report.

Tabular reports

Tabular reports are broken up into 7 main sections:

Grouping

Sorting

Filtering

Report display

Summary area

Export

Pagination


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Grouping

You can group results together by dragging columns into the grouping bar – for example, if you were to drag

the Job Status column into the grouping area in the above example the output would change so all the records

with a Job Status of Full Time would be grouped together and those with a Job Status of Temporary would be

grouped together and so on as can be seen in the example on the below left.

You can add more than one grouped column which will then group by both columns controlled by the order

of the grouping in the grouping area. In the example below right we have grouped by Job Statius and then

further grouped by Department so you can now see all the results for grouped by Job Status and then

grouped again by Department so you can see all those who are in Facilities department and who are

employed Part Time, for example.

Results grouped by one column

Results grouped by two columns


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Sorting

You can sort the reports on any visible column in either ascending or descending order. To sort simply click

the name of the column you wish to sort by. To change the direction of the sort simply click the column name

again which will then reverse the order.

Filtering

It is possible to filter the reports by using the filter area. You can filter on any column though the actual filters

depend on the column type. For text and number based columns, you can filter by:

(Don’t filter) – default entry

Equals

Does not equal

Less than

Greater than

Less than or equal to

Greater than or equal to

Contains

Does not contain

Begins with

Ends with

Is empty

Is not empty

To use the actual filter you need to enter the filter term into the text box above the drop down and then

choose the filter type from the drop down under the column you want to filter on.

To remove the filter, you can either change the remove the filter term from the text box or change the filter

type back to (Don’t Filter).

The main exception to the above is when the data shown is in a date format. If this is the case there is no

option for filter type but you are now presented with two blank boxes. Clicking on either box will show a

datepicker calendar and by entering a date into each box you can create a date range to filter upon with the

top date being the earlier filter term and the bottom the later term.

Due to the way the reporting engine is configured the filter dates are shown in the format yyyy-mm-dd but

when actually filtering they will respect the UK date format dd/mm/yyyy as shown in the report.

As before, you can filter by more than one column but please be aware that each filter is applied in the order

it is entered and each new filter will only apply against the current subset of results.


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Report display

The main section of the report is the actual report display itself.

Depending on the nature of the report sometimes the columns may be quite squeezed due to the amount of

data on the screen. In this instance you should move the mouse over the line between the column names

whereupon it will change to a double header arrow and when you click you can make the column bigger or

smaller.

Likewise, you can reorder the columns on the screen by clicking the column name and dragging it to where

you want it to appear.

In both cases, these changes are temporary and are lost as soon as the report is ran again.

Summary

For reports which contain numerical data, there is an addition of a summary area which shows totals, averages

and so on. When you group or filter the data the totals etc are applied at a grouped or filtered level so update

according to changes you make to the report topology.

Export

For tabular reports, you can export the reports to CSV file as well as PDF and there is an option to print the

rows. Again, this respects filtering and grouping.

Pagination

At the bottom of each report there is a pagination bar which shows the total record numbers and the current

page. You can also jump to any page by clicking the relevant numbers or go to the first or last page by clicking

the double less than or greater than symbols respectively.


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Organisational chart

The organisational chart can be used to get a hierarchical view of your company.

There are no options as such for the chart but there are things you can do within the chart which are

explained below.

The organizational chart requires the company hierarchy to be correctly set up to work properly. If you

experience issues it is most likely due to there being issues within the company structure such as two

employees who are managers, have reports and whom have no manager specified for themselves as this

dictates who is top of the structure and there can only be one per chart.

The chart is a dynamic chart and is optimised to allow you to view large company structure on one screen

without excessive scrolling.

As can be seen below, each employee has a box in the chart and the chart dynamically changes depending on

who you are currently viewing.

In the below example, the green box indicates the current selection and, as a result, their direct reports have

been expanded. To change to another person simply click the box for their entry.


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As there are often many employees reporting to a manager, these entries are condensed until the manager is

clicked on to take up less space on the screen. Once clicked on, the direct reports for the chosen manager is

then expanded whilst most often the manager’s peers and upward structure still remains visible.

Finally, it is possible to choose an employee record itself which causes the record to enlarge whilst peer

records are reduced.


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Regardless of which role or level, the actual employee card contains 4 pieces of information:

1. Employee name

2. Picture (if one is uploaded)

3. Department

4. Job title

Additionally, if you click “View file>>>” at the bottom right of the card you will be taken to the employees file

from the employee module which then gives you all the information in the system on that particular employee

including their picture (if one is uploaded).


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Self service

Module is available to all users but should not be used by admin users to administer their own accounts.

Self service is predominantly an end user module designed to allow employees to interact with Natural HR as

appropriate. An employee user guide will follow but, for the purposes of understanding and administering the

system, we have provided an overview of this module for admin users to assist with empowering employees

and helping them with any issues.

Whilst the module is accessible by an admin user it should not be used to administer the admin employee

account as the admin employee account is not tied to an employee record so the data will not be correctly

recorded.

There are a number of components to the self service module:

Information update Update address, bank and emergency contact details

Time off Allows the employee to enter their own time off requests which

are routed to their manager for approval as well as view previous

time off activity

Timesheets Allows the employee to enter their own time sheet which is,

again, routed to their manager for approval

Goals This shows the current goals set for the employee and allows

them to update their progress

Training This shows training courses the employee has attended or is due

to attend

Reviews (can be switched off under

Display Settings)

This lets the employee view their reviews as entered by their

manager after performance reviews

Warnings (can be switched off under

Display Settings)

This lets the employee view warnings as entered by their manager

Recognise someone (can be switched off

under Social Settings)

This lets users recognise other users and the citation be posted

on the Social Stream


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Finance notification

When an employee updates their bank details, it may be useful to be able to notify a payroll or finance staff

member of this change so they can ensure other systems are updated as required. To do this you should enter

an email address into the finance notification email box under Company Settings and upon a change in bank

details an email will be sent to this address notifying the recipient they need to login and process the changes,.

The email will not contain the actual bank details for security reasons and the recipient will require an account

with Finance user access level to be able to do this.

Time off

When an employee requests time off the request is automatically set to pending whilst it is in the approval

queue for their manager and an email is sent to the manager notifying them of the request.

During this time, the employee can edit or delete the request as they so wish. Once a request has been

approved, the employee cannot change or delete the request themselves.

Employees will only be able to choose time off type Carryover if the Carryover and Carryover date values have

been set in Company settings.

When entering time off, the system will not allow you to enter a Paid Time Off request which spans a year

end date nor a Carryover request which ends past the Carryover date.

For example, an employee wishes to request Paid time off from 24/12/2012 until 03/01/2013 and the

company start of holiday year value is 01/01/2013. In this instance the request would not be accepted as the

end date is in another holiday year.

To overcome this, two requests should be made with one being from 24/12/2012 until 31/12/2012 and the

second being from 01/01/2013 until 03/01/2013 as then neither request spans a holiday year.


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Time off balance

At the top of the time off table, there is a box which shows the current time off balance for the employee.

The data shown in the time off balance are calculated automatically based on approved time off in the current

year.

Additionally this is also displayed when the employee enters a time off request when the type is a deducting

type.

The below is an example of what is displayed for the balance:

To view more information click the down facing arrow on the right:

In the above example, the employee has actually taken 8.5 days off and has a further 16.5 days remaining.

However they have an additional 4 days which they have booked but not yet taken so their true balance is

actually 12.5 days.

The available time off shown includes any time off available as Carryover or Time off in lieu as well as holiday

entitlement.


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Timesheets

When an employee enters a timesheet its approval status is also set to pending whilst it is checked and

approved by their manager and an email is sent to the manager notifying them of the request.

When the employee beings to enter their timesheet they need to choose the week which the timesheet

refers to from the drop down. The drop down shows the previous 52 weeks in the list by default but this can

be changed under Display Settings.

They can then optionally enter a reference which is used if the employee is working on customer sites or

projects and you need to track time on a project basis.

Each individual day has three columns in which the employee needs to enter information. Column 1 is the

time they started work and column two is the time they finished work and these columns should be entered in

24 hour format with no formatting or punctuation included. For example, 2300 is valid but 23.00 and 23:00

are not.

The final columns for the employee to enter are the breaks they have had – this column should be entered as

minutes so for 1 ½ hours break they should enter 90.

Once they have entered this for all days they can then click the blue calculate total button at the bottom

which will work out their hours per day and a total for the week.

Please note, this does not save nor submit the timesheet but simply allows the employee to check the data

before submitting for approval.

At the very bottom of the screen is a tick box which is an employee declaration to show that they agree that

the information entered is valid and accurate.

The screen for entering a timesheet is shown below:


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Goals

The goals module lists all the goals currently assigned to the employee. Beside each goal the employee can

click the view icon which will show a popup with the goal description, their progress and completion date.

Additionally, the employee can click edit and update their progress and enter comments – they cannot modify

the actual goal itself.

Reviews and warnings

This module shows the reviews and warnings which are applicable to the employee.

By default, these views are disabled – if you want to enable the views you need to go to Company settings and

choose Yes to Reviews visible to employees and / or Yes to Warnings visible to employees.

Recognise someone

This module lists all the recognition the user has given and received as well as allows them to recognise

another employee and the citation is displayed on the Social Stream.

The settings for this feature are controlled via Social Settings under Company.


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Templates


Often it is necessary to send the same letter or document to many people over and over again. A good

example of this would be letters of offer or employment contracts where the bulk of the information is

standard but there are a small number of details which ware unique to the recipient.

Templates is a way of allowing you to set up a template for these documents with placeholders used in palce

of the fields which are unique to the individual recipient which you then merge with data in the system to

automatically generate a completed document.

For templates to work, you need to create the template in the first place. The only valid file types for this are

Text (TXT) and Rich Text (RTF) - no other document types can be used.

To use simply type the letter as normal in your word processor and where you want to include a placeholder

you enter one of the below placeholders enclosed in square brackets. For example, if you wanted to insert a

candidate’s name you would write [c_fname] [c_sname]

Please note: the document you upload must be a totally clean document. Many word processors (including

Microsoft Word) add additional date and information to documents which are not visible to the eye. If you upload a document with this extra data included it will be output during the document creation so please

check the template using Notepad, for example, prior to uploading and remove any unwanted additional data.

This functionality is initially available for the recruitment module and can be used to create letters of offer for

example. When uploading the template it is important to select the correct category to ensure the template is

then available during the correct process.

There are four categories defined:

1. Employee

2. Recruitment

3. Letter of offer

4. Contract of employment


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Template fields

The usable fields for the recruitment module are mostly self-explanatory and are listed below:

[company]

[today]

[c_post_reference]

[c_date_received]

[c_title]

[c_surname]

[c_firstname]

[c_othernames]

[c_address]

[c_address2]

[c_town]

[c_county]

[c_postcode]

[c_country]

[c_job_title]

[c_dept]

[c_rfname] (Recruiter first name)

[c_rsname] (Recruiter surname)

[c_job_status]

[c_site]

[c_mfname] (Manager first name)

[c_msname] (Manager surname)

[c_salary]

[c_salary_freq]

[c_holidays]

[c_hours]

[c_start_date]

[c_probationary_date]

To assist, we have included a sample template on the next page which you can use if you need help setting

the template up.


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Sample template

[c_title] [c_firstname] [c_surname]

[c_address]

[c_address2]

[c_town]

[c_county]

[c_postcode]

[c_country]

[today]

Dear [c_firstname],

Job offer

We are delighted you have accepted the offer of the position of [c_job_title] at [company], commencing [c_start_date].

1. You will work within the [c_dept] departmenr and your line manager will be [c_mfname] [c_msname] .

2. Your starting salary is £[c_salary] [c_salary_freq].

3. To help you to develop your performance, informal reviews will take place every quarter, with a formal annual

appraisal that will take place in April each year.

4. This offer is subject to references. Please supply the names and full contact details of two referees.

5. You will need to bring in your passport or other documentation that proves you are entitled to work in the

United Kingdom.

6. Your holiday entitlement is [c_holidays] days per annum, plus bank holidays.

7. Hours of work are [c_hours] hours per week including lunch breaks. Hours of work may vary, but standard

hours are from 9.00am to 5.30pm. It may be necessary on occasions to work outside these hours.

8. Your probation period will end on [c_probationary_date]. During this period we will assess your progress. Any

serious issues – on either side – should be raised as they occur.

I attach a job description, which outlines your basic role. I’d be grateful if you would accept this offer by signing the

enclosed copy, completing the enclosed New Employee Information form and posting them back to us. We will then

draw up a contract of employment for both parties to sign. Let me know if you have any further questions at this point.

We look forward to welcoming you to the team.

Yours sincerely,

[c_rfname] [c_rsname]

Signed…………………………………. Date……………………………

[c_firstname] [c_surname]


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Timesheets


The timesheet module is used predominantly for monitoring and approval of employee entered timesheets.

The main point of note in this module is the approval process.

When an employee has entered a timesheet themselves it is queued in an approval queue to be checked and

approved by a manager.

In the timesheets table there is a column which shows the approval status of each timesheet. For those which

are pending approval, there is an additional icon in the actions column which is the approval icon.

When clicked, the timesheet is then displayed with all the totals calculated and the manager can either

approve or send back to the employee. In both cases, an email notification is sent to the employee to update

them of the status change.

It is possible for an authorised user to enter timesheets on behalf of an employee whereby the approval

process is bypassed. If entering a timesheet on behalf of an employee, there is a drop down box listing all

current employees from which you should choose the employee name. As per the employee process, you

then need to choose the week which the timesheet refers to from the drop down. The drop down shows the

previous 52 weeks in the list.

You can then optionally enter a reference which is used if the employee is working on customer sites or

projects and you need to track time on a project basis.

Each individual day has three columns in which the employee needs to enter information. Column 1 is the

time they started work and column two is the time they finished work and these columns should be entered in

24 hour format with no formatting or punctuation included. For example, 2300 is valid but 23.00 and 23:00

are not.

The final column to enter is the breaks the employee has had each day – this column should be entered as

minutes so for 1 ½ hours break they should enter 90.

Once you have entered this for all days you can then click the blue calculate total button at the bottom which

will work out the hours per day and a total for the week.

Please note, this does not save nor submit the timesheet but simply allows you to check the data before

submitting.

A screenshot of the screen for entering a timesheet can be self in Self Service / Timesheets section.


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Timeoff


The timeoff module is used to track and record timeoff across the organisation. As per the self service module,

when an employee enters a time off request this request is queued for approval by their manager and the

approval process happens through the timeoff module.

As with timesheets, there is a column which indicates the status of each timeoff request and those which are

shown as pending will have an additional green tick icon in the actions column.

Ticking this green tick takes you to the approval screen where you can either approve or decline the time off.

To assist with the approval process, at the top of the screen under the employee name there is a display

which shows the timeoff the employee has currently left so the manager can quickly and easily check if this

timeoff would take them over their allowed balance.

The first group of figures shown are the figures showing the actual days taken and remaining and do not include the current request. The current request is reflected in the second figure which then shows the

balance where this request to be approved.

Prior to approving or declining the manager can enter comments which are then made visible to the employee

when they login to view their timeoff request. When the manager changes the approval status, an email is sent

to the employee notifying them of the change in status of their request.

Additionally on the timeoff screen there is a column to show any comments made by both the employee and

the manager. Employee comments are indicated by the white page icon in the comments column and manager

comments by the blue page icon.

Employees will only be able to choose time off type Carryover if the Carryover and Carryover date values have

been set in Company settings.


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Booking time off

In this view you can see all the time off available to the employee chosen. Additionally, they have one type to

which a balance is assigned so it shows a balance bar showing they have taken 12.5 days out of a possible 25.

You can then click the down facing arrow next to any time off type to display more information (in the case of

deducting types) and also book time off. In this instance, the employee has actually taken 8.5 days so has a

balance of 16.5 days available but they have also booked a further 4 days hence their true balance is 12.5 days.

The reason for this distinction is that the employee could cancel or modify those booked days before they are

taken so two balances are shown.


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At this point, if you want to actually book time off you can click the Book time off button where you are

presented with start date, end date, duration and comments options.

The minimum required to enter the time off is to enter a start and end date. Additionally you can enter

comments and also either calculate the duration by clicking the Calculate Duration button or manually enter

the duration into the box. There is validation built in so, for example, if the start date is after the end date this

will throw an error.


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When entering time off, the system will not allow you to enter a time off request which spans a year end date

nor a Carryover request which ends past the Carryover date.

For example, an employee wishes to request Paid time off from 24/12/2012 until 03/01/2013 and the

company start of holiday year value is 01/01/2013. In this instance the request would not be accepted as the

end date is in another holiday year.

To overcome this, two requests should be made with one being from 24/12/2012 until 31/12/2012 and the

second being from 01/01/2013 until 03/01/2013 as then neither request spans a holiday year.

Time off days calculation

When a time off request is entered the system automatically will calculate the number of days using a number

of pieces of information:

Start date of time off request

End date of time off request

Employee working days OR company working days

Company holidays

By using these four items in combination the system is able to calculate the number of days of a given request

and it is calculated as follows:

End date – start date = total days

For each date, is day normal working day? No, deduct one day from the total days

For each date, is day company holiday? Yes, deduct one day from total days

For example, a timeoff request is made for 28/11/2012 until 05/12/2012. Normal working days are Monday,

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and there is a company holiday on 03/12/2012.

05/12/2012 - 28/11/2012 is 7 days

29/11/2012 is a Thursday which is not a normal working day so the total is now 6 days

30/11/2012 is a Friday and is a normal working day so is ignored

01/12/2012 is a Saturday which is not a normal working day so the total is now 5 days

02/12/2012 is a Sunday which is not a normal working day so the total is now 4 days

03/12/2012 is a Monday which is a normal working day but is a company holiday so the total is now 3 days

Therefore, in the above example the total days for the time off request will be listed as 3 days.


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Return to work

If you have set time off types to require return to work this will be indicated in the timeoff module screen. Any

timeoff request which requires a return to work which has not yet been done will be highlighted in red as per

the screenshot below.

Additionally, in the actions column for timeoff types which require a return to work there is an additional icon

which indicates the return to work document.

If the return to work has been completed this icon will be black, there will be no red bar and clicking the icon

will allow you to view the form.

If the return to work has not been completed the icon will be red and clicking the icon will take you to the

form where you can complete the information.

The return to work form will display the pertinent information regarding the absence and has three comments

fields for you to capture the employees explanation of the reason for absence as well as note any issues or

medical concerns and capture any additional notes.

The return to work form is not viewable by the employee so the information entered in these boxes remains

confidential.

As well as the indication in the timeoff module, the employee manager will get an email informing them they

need to complete the return to work on the day the employee is due back as well as a notification in their

workflow of any outstanding return to work actions which need completing.


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Changing the calculated timeoff value / Taking half days

When you enter a time off request, the system will automatically calculate the number of days / hours based

on the above parameters.

In the event that an employee needs to take less or more time than the time the system indicates (a half day,

for example) it is possible to override the days / hours calculated by the system if this is enabled by an

administrator in Display Settings (Allow employees to enter timeoff days/hours).

If this option is disabled then the user will see the duration box is greyed out and cannot be changed.

Once enabled, the user can change the days / hours value manually.

If you allow users to manually change the value in the duration box, extra care should be taken by approvers

to ensure that the correct values are entered.

For example, if an employee intends to change number of days from 1 to 1.5 but accidentally enters 15 then

this is the value the system will use.

When the approving manager is approving the request, there will be a red bar at the top of their screen telling

them that the entered value does not match the system calculated value as an extra protection mechanism but

it still requires the manager to notice this and take action.


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Time tracking

Module is only available to admin, HR and manager users though the feature is available to all user types

This module was developed for users who would like their employees to clock in and clock out online via

Natural HR.

Initially to use this feature you need to activate it in Company Settings by setting Use real time time tracking to

Yes.

Additionally to ensure you get the best from the module you need to ensure you have the following settings

completed prior to using the module:

Employee hours per week (changed via Employee benefits in Employee module)

Start of company year (changed via Company Settings)

Working days (changed via Company Settings)

Work week begins on (changed via Company Settings)

If time tracking shows weekly hours as 0hrs 0mins then you need to ensure you set a value for Hours per week or Normal Daily Working hours under Employee Benefits.

Once these are set and the module active, employees will see the below when they login at the top of their

main screen above the calendar:


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When they want to clock on they simply need to click the green clock icon to the left of the window and it

will then change to red and the notification bar will tell them they have been clocked in and the time the clock

in was registered at:

Conversely, to clock out simply the red clock icon and the icon will then change to green and the clock out

time will displayed in the notifications bar:

Note: The time recording module is viewable and usable by the main admin user but, as with other features,

as this account is not linked to an employee record using it under this account will give unpredictable results such as contractual hours set to 0 and so on so this should be avoided.

From the above, the contractual hours is taken directly from the employee file – the only time this will change

is if there are company holidays entered via Holidays in which case the numbers will be prorated to take into

account the reduction in required hours.

For example, if the company works a five day week and one of these days is a company holiday the pro rated

hours for that week would then be 30 hours as there would be a 20% reduction due to the holiday.

On these company holidays, the time icon will change to grey to indicate to the employee that it is a holiday.

If a user forgets to clock out any day, when they come in the following day they will be presented with a

screen like the below to inform them they forgot to clock out – in this instance, they will need to contact their

manager or HR to get the record modified to prevent employees manipulating the system.


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Additionally there is a time tracking compliance report available in Reporting which allow you to see all time

records where the employee did not clock out as well as an overall time tracking report which shows all the

time records across the company which you can then group and filter accordingly to view the necessary

information for a given employee, department etc.

Changing or deleting a time record

In the event that it becomes necessary to change or delete a time record there is a module called Time

Tracking which is not available to employees where you can do this. This module behaves in the same way as

the other modules where you have a list of all the time records and the ability to edit or delete any given

record.


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Training


There are two components to the training module – a course library and the ability to enter and track actual

training.

Course library

To make it quicker and easier to allocate training to multiple employees you can set up a catalogue of training

courses via Course library.

The course library should be used to record courses which are going to be used again and again to save having

to enter the information each and every time.

When entering a library course, you should be aware that the information on the library screen can be

changed when booking an actual training event and this information is simply a framework. The mandatory

field at the bottom of course library is used to indicate whether the course entered is a mandatory course

which assists with compliance reporting as you can then view members of staff who have not yet completed

their mandatory training.

Training

When entering training, you have an option to use a library course from the course library. If you choose this

option the majority of the fields will be filled in for you using the information taken from the library. You can,

however, change any of this information if there is something bespoke about the particular course you are

entering.

The other main component required for entering training is names of those who will be attending. There is a

recipient’s box which allows you to enter multiple recipients so the course can be attributed to as few or as

many employees as you wish. To add an employee just type a few letters from their name and the system will

then show a list of all the employees who match the entered characters.

Once you have found the employee you wish to add, click on their name and they will be added to the list.

When you have added all the trainees you would like you need to add a training date to the event.

If entering the information retrospectively, you should NOT enter the result in this form if you are entering

more than one employee in the recipients list unless they all have the same result as the result will be applied

to all employees in the list.

Once an employee has completed a training course you can edit the course to update their result and this can

be set to completed, passed or failed.


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Options

Display options

A lot of the information in Natural HR is displayed in tables. The default number of items to show per page is

10 but sometimes you may want to view more (or less) per page.

Under display options you can change the default number of rows displayed per page in table views.

Please note: this is an application wide view so all data tables will pick up this default. Default rows per table

does not apply to tabular reports under reporting.

Calendar options

On the company calendar we have colour coded each of the different event types with a different colour per

event. If you want to change these colours to colours of your choosing you can do so.

For each event type there is the ability to pick a new colour. To do so, click the colour picker icon to the right

of each box and drag the circle to the new colour you wish to use. Alternatively if you know the HTML, RGB

or HSB code of the colour you can enter it manually to the right of the box.

Once you are happy with the colour choice, click the multi coloured circle in the bottom right of the colour

picker window and then click Update once you have made the changes you want.

If in the future you wish to change back to the default colours, simply click Reset on this screen.

If you have customized any of the time off types to have bespoke colours the option for Timeoff colour will be removed as the options under Time off types will override this setting.


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Localisation

As the audience for Natural HR has spread to over 150 countries we have added support for localisation.

Specifically we have added support for:

Time zones Currently we only support time zones in timetracking and on calendars – auditing and

so on will still display the server time which is UK time

Date format UK Dates dd/mm/yy

US Dates mm/dd/yy

ISO Dates yy/mm/dd

Language We have the ability to support any left to right (LTR) language but this depends on

availability of translated language files. At the moment we only support UK English and

US English but we are happy to add support for additional languages if native speakers

are willing to help translate the files.

Please note: we are not currently able to support any right to left (RTL) languages.

Calendar Public

Holidays

By default, we allow companies to display public holidays for UK, US, South Africa and

Singapore. We can expand this to additional countries if users can supply us with the

data.

Display profile box Please note: Profile box will not display if you are logged in using the main admin

account.

Users can turn on and off the display of a Profile box on their screen.

Public calendar

display

If you set Calendar status to PUBLIC under Company Display Settings this will allow

individual employees to choose what timeoff and training items to display on their

calendar. They can choose from Site, Department and Manager and these can be

combined. For example, if you only wanted to view timeoff and training for those in the same

department as you and on the same site then you could tick Limit to my site and Limit

to my department.

NOTE: If your employees cannot see this option then you need to ensure your

Calendar status is set to PUBLIC in Display Settings.

Organisational depth If enabled at a company level, this will allow manager level users to choose whether they view their direct reports only or their whole organisation – i.e. direct reports and

their reports and their reports and so on.

NOTE: If your managers cannot see this option then you need to ensure Manager

view all reports is set to Whole organisation in Display Settings.


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Change password / Change PIN

If you wish to change your password and or PIN you can do so using these modules.

As an added security feature, to be able to change your password and or PIN you will need to correctly enter

your current password. This stops someone changing your password or PIN if you have inadvertently left your

computer unattended.

To the right of the New password box is a strength indicator which shows you how secure your password

choice is – please ensure your password allows the bar to move to green to ensure it is a secure password.

For guidance on what makes a “good” password, please see section Forced password change.

Natural HR Administrators Guide

Documents

Transcript of Natural HR Administrators Guide