8th December 2017

 

• Advanced settings areas to hide optional fields Removed some fields and columns that were superfluous
• Copy down feature to Annual Increments page
• Fixed and centered the width of all Calendars to present the data more clearly
• Added option to set Time Recording Method to be used when adding or importing new employees e.g. None, Time Sheet or Punch In/Out
• Release Notes added to provide better information of our day to day work
• Added ground work to add Help snippets to all areas
• Individual Welcome emails will be sent immediately (no longer a two step process)
• Added 'Add Next leave year' button to employee leave year list
• Wider spacing on all rows to aid viewing
• Better date prediction for Sickness Fields
• New HELP button (bottom left) replaces the help in the left menu
• Links to Request Leave and Report Sick on the top menu of the Dashboard have removed as they were duplicated links found elsewhere
• The header and footer areas of the website have been unified across the site
• New icons
• New absence rule added to control usage of earned vs used leave throughout the leave year
• (Accrued Leave entitlement or to promote more evenly distributed)
• New leave setting to automatically approve leave of a day or less when it hasn't failed an absence rule (Admin > System Functionality > Leave)
• Improvements on the login screen
• Various bug fixes

 

Companycontrols.net and EW Assist both include a fire report that pulls together the work pattern, punch information, whereabouts and leave and sickness information to provide a comprehensive list of all your staff and their location information.  This can be useful at any time but in particular when you need to know who is in your place of work in an emergency.

Any visitors are also included on the report.

This report is available to view by any user of the software and is on hand at a moments notice. 

Our Training management software (part of CompanyControls.net and EW Assist) now offers the ability to have multiple training modules within a training course that can be individually completed over time before completing the master training course.  This would be useful for long term training or training that has a number of elements connected to it.  Examples of training that would benefit from this type of approach would be induction training, on the job experience training or College courses.

Not only does this offer a better view of outstanding training but it also shortens the list of training for the employee so as not to have long and confusing lists of individual elements but a clear view of training achieved.

Take a look for free here

The super filter on the People page now offers a filter to show staff coming near their start date anniversary and their birthdays as well as the end of their probabtion periods.

Visitor logging is now available by going to Directory > Visitors.  Your staff can prebook their visitors and give reception a better idea of who to expect or book as they walk through the door.  It also gives you a clear view of who is still in the building for fire regulations.

WORKING YEAR CALENDAR 

When a new leave year approaches you will want to make sure a working year calendar exists to cover the period of time.  You can do this by going to Admin > Settings > Calendars > Your Calendars and click on the name of each working year calendar (NOTE: there may be more than one but you only need to consider calendars that have users using them (shown by the 3rd column of 'Num Users')).  Once the calendar is open you should check to see that the next leave year is covered by the Calendar Set Periods (i.e. the years).  If you need to add another year you should increase the 'Num Periods' by 1 (e.g. from 4 to 5) and submit.  This will add the next year to the Calendar Set Periods.  You should check that the Public Holidays, if any are added, are correct and you can remove and add more if needed.

Not having a working year calendar for a year will STOP ANY LEAVE BEING BOOKED THAT FALLS IN THAT YEAR. 

MANDATORY HOLIDAY CALENDAR

This is a similar task to the above but instead of bank holidays and non working days it holds leave days that are forced booked for anyone who uses that Mandatory Calendar.  It is good practice to have a year in the Mandatory calendar added for each year in the working year calendar, even if there are no mandatory dates in the calendar.

LEAVE CYCLES

When a working year calendar is available, then just by booking a leave request will automatically add the leave year if it doesn't already exist.  If you would prefer to add all the leave years for all staff you can do so by going to Admin > System Functionality > Leave > Leave Cycles > Next Year.

MISC

A few jobs to consider:

Any leave rules that work across dates such as management meetings (Admin > System Functionality > Leave > Absence Rules)

Cancel any draft leave thats not needed (Admin > System Functionality > Leave > Current Draft Requests)

Approve or reject any leave that is waiting for approval that's in the past

Add any manual adjustments to individuals leave years for things like extra days for length of service

In the event that a user forgets their password they can request a new temporary one by using the 'I have forgotten my password' link on the login page.  This can also be done by someone else on their behalf.

Its good practice to unlock their account in case they have tried a wrong password 3 times and their account has been locked.

Alternatively as a client admin you can go to People > Edit next to the employee name and click 'Resend Welcome Email'.  This will unlock their acount and send them a new temporary password in one.

Files of scanned or saved documents can be uploaded to support various records such as sick notes, training records, drivers' licences or contracts through your software.  On all pages we have added a few examples of the types of documents you may want to upload but you can add to these.

Firstly you should find the page where the new document would best fit e.g. apprentice aggreements on the employee's personal documents page or industry membership cards on the Work Documents page.  Then go to Admin > Files and click 'Add New' next to Bulk File headers:

The File Class corresponds to the best fit page and the File Name is the new type of document such as Medical Review Report, Accident Risk Assessment or training location map/directions.  

Click Add and the new document type will be available to upload files to.

You can put commonly used links to pages and reports on your desktop for easy access.  Some examples are:

• EW Assist front door - https://ewassist.co.uk/cc
• A particular page e.g. People page - navigate to the required page and copy the URL in the address bar
• A report e.g. Leave cycles - open the report and copy the URL in the address bar

To add a link on your desktop, right click on your desktop and select New > Shortcut.  In 'Type the location of the item:' paste or type the URL of the webpage or report you wish to add and click Next.  In 'Type the Name for this shortcut:' type a name that describes its destination e.g. Leave report, John Smith, open injuries etc and click Finish.

A new icon will have been added to your desktop.  Double clicking that icon will open your browser and navigate to the URL.  So long as you are logged in it will go directly to the page or report, otherwise EW Assist will ask you to login first and then proceed to the page or report.

You need to have Client Admin access to your site.

Expenses is already turned on in Admin > System Functionality > Set Functionality Required.  It is here that you can remove it before the expiry date of your free trial if you wish.

The expense module has a number of different users that offer different levels of access:

Employees: All employees can raise expense claims

Managers: All Group Managers can approve the claims for their Group Members or return them to the employee with queries 

Employees with Functionality Roles 

Expense Claim Approver: This role allows the employee with it to approve claims for all employees across the business as if they were their Manager or return them to the employee with queries

Expense Claim Processor: This role is designed for the person(s) in Accounts/Payroll who will be collating and clearing the claims for payment or return them to the employee with queries

Expense Admin: This role has access to all previously described areas with the addition of the Admin area which allows for fine control of the expense process

 

You MUST add 'Expense Admin' Functionality role to atleast one of your employees for that person to be able to see the full Expense menu.  To do this a Client Admin should go to People > Employee name > Person (dropdown) > Functionality Role and add 'Expense Admin'.

 

The Expense menu for all users is found by going to Actions > Expenses.  From here monthly claims can be added and Open ones can be accessed.  Claims are Open until they are scheduled for payment by Accounts at which point they automatically move to the employees Paid area.  Open claims can be added to by the employee until they are digitally signed off by the employee after which only receipts and invoices can be added to support the claim (i.e. no new expenditure can be added).  However subsequent claims for the same month can be raised for anything that is forgotten or for a contentious item that might be returned with queries.  The Approval page is visible to all employees but, unless the user is a Group Manager or an Expense Claim Approver, no claims will be shown.  Process is the menu normally reserved for Accounts to check and clear claims for payment, gather claims into batch payments (i.e. for October 2014) and other Account and Payroll tasks.  Finally the Admin menu provides key settings to control the expense process such as financial periods, allowed currencies, exchange rates, mileage rates and custom pick lists.