After a busy period of development we have made live the changes which are primarily there to make the software easier to use.  An exciting new addition is the new document/file management system which lays across the whole site and supports other areas.

New Modules

Document/file management system Read More

General

Newly added employees can now be added with their work pattern, working year calendar and mandatory leave calendar.

Edit links have been added to People, Groups and Areas making it quicker to reach the edit page

A Notes area is now available to add your own messages and reminders about each employee in People > Person

A development plans page is now available in the footer of the site which gives details of currently available modules and future ones

Better controls have been added to help the system decide where best to go from one page to another

The People page has moved the licence information to one side and included the employees first name

The layout of some fields have been adjusted to provide a better user experience

The Calendars now include a list of the employees who are using them and allow for an employee to be moved from one to another, in a similar way to the work patterns

Welcome emails can now be sent to all site roles including Client Admins from the Resend welcome email link in their People > Person > Edit page

Messages can now be presented from the development team via the login page

Navigation though the site has been improved

'Specific to' has been removed from the work pattern > Add page

Sickness

The sickness interview now starts in a state where it can be closed immediately on completion rather than having to start the interview first

Expected return to work dates highlight red in the dashboard when they fall in the past.  This date should be either updated or the actual return to work date should be added (if the employee has returned)

Leave

Added a totaliser form to the leave year page for an employee which allows you to specify exactly how much you want the total entitlement to be and the software works out what the adjustment should be.  This will be particularly useful when rounding up or down for a new starter.

Mandatory leave that is zero days due to the employee not working on that day is now not shown in their leave list

Added a button to trigger the recalculation of mandatory leave when a new date has been added to an existing year

Hours and days are better represented across the system

The Leave Year page includes the average working day information to help with certain adjustments

Leave Years are created in one step - no need to refresh the page

The urgent warning when recreating a leave year has been removed

ToDos

Tasks have been styled to allow better presentation of the information

Training

Criminal Records Bureau checks (CRB) have been replaced with the new Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) although CRBs can still be recorded for the sake of historical records

Records for the Training Courses Attended (TCA) are styled to allow better presentation of the information

HR Lite/Equality and Diversity

Sex and date of birth can now be completed by the employee themselves at My Details > Work

Document management system

We have added a smart and reliable system that allows for files and documents to be uploaded against their relevant records or for an individual.

Files such as xls, pdf and doc and others can be uploaded to all staff (such as a Company Handbook), for a specific employee (such as a Contract of Employment) or to support other information (such as an employees passport or the certificate for a training course).  All files can log their downloads to show who has read them and when, with a report to show this information at Admin > Files > Download Access logs. All files will keep track of their versions and clearly present the latest version and the software will keep historical files for compliance purposes.  No documents will be deleted - only replaced with the newer version.

...TO ALL STAFF

Client Admins can upload files (Admin > Files > Files (dropdown) > Add...) under the existing categories (such as Company Handbook) that will then be available to staff at My Details > Files > Company.  An email should be sent if the file is to be viewed rather than being uploaded for availability purposes only.  The access logs will let you know who has seen the file.

...FOR A SPECIFIC EMPLOYEE

Personal documents such as Contract of employment or Letter of engagement can be transferred by Client Admins, Group Managers and the employee themselves. 

Client Admin:

Go to People > employee name > Files

Group Managers

Go to My Details > Groups > Employee name > Files

Employees

Go to My Details > Files > Personal Company. 

**These areas are protected and must be unlocked to access them.**

...TO SUPPORT OTHER INFORMATION

Furthermore supporting documents can be added to specific records with in the software.  For instance uploading a scanned copy of an employees passport or insurance documents on the Work Documents page for a member of staff.  While we have added some of the types of documents you might consider adding others against a particlar record, and you can do so by going to Admin > Files -> 'Bulk File Headers - Add New'.  For instance you could select Salary and add a salary review document or add a new personal document such as the employees dimensions for their company uniforms.

In addition to the above, templates can also be added to support a process that requires written letters or information that can't be collected from the system alone.  These can be added on the Admin > Files > Add... page or from the modules that they belong and the first example of this will be the disciplinary and grievance module that is soon to be made available.

All files are stored on our secure file server and within your own client folder for added security and clear seperation of data.  The system automatically creates a folder heirachy depending on the class of files being uploaded, e.g. Sick notes, training certificates etc.  All files are backed up on a daily basis.

The document management system comes ready to use with 10MB of storage which is enough to test with or to add your high level documents such as your Company Handbooks.  If you want to upload documents to specific staff or to support other information you will want to increase your storage.  See below for pricing:

All prices are charged annually and subject to VAT at 20%

System documents such as upload templates are also available to support the system but these do not count against your allocated storage.

For further information please contact Lee Porter on 02891823001

Our appraisal module allows you to transfer your current appraisals (annual, 360, and other evaluation forms) to our software.  To do that you are going to need these guides:

EW Assist Guide - Appraisals - Components.pdf (477.97 kb)

EW Assist Guide - Appraisals for Admins.pdf (769.46 kb)

EW Assist Guide - Appraisals for Users.pdf (654.29 kb)

You can now efficiently record punch clock information to deliver complete time and attendance information to Management.

Information such as Attendance, lateness, late within grace period, overtime, undertime, flexitime management, AWOL, Absent (Sick), Annual Leave, working earlies and working lates can all be captured and reported.

A hardware punch/swipe unit compliments the in/out module by providing a remote, computer-less way of tracking time and attendance.  This allows for more accurate time keeping and makes it possible for non office based staff to punch in and out effortlessly.  The new wireless hardware can use a number of registration methods such as swipe cards, RFID Tags and biometric scanners.

A series of reports make use of the punch data to highlight lateness, standard hours worked, overtime and flexitime.

Future planned software upgrades for this hardware will allow other tasks to be completed on the touch screen such as booking leave etc.

The performance management module allows you to create any of the following performanace forms and issue them to your staff to complete:

• New starter
• Leaver
• 360 appraisal
• Performance appraisal
• Performance appraisal with goals
• Performance evaluation
• Performance improvement
• Goal setting
• Career enhancement 

Intelligent tasks can be started on the creation of any of the above forms.  Similarly goals can be created from within some forms.  Followup forms allow for these tasks and goals to be checked for completion.

Our Training Module allows you to do a number of different tasks relating to the recording and managing of your staffs Skills, Training and Accreditations (STA).

At the very basic level, you can simply register a list of skills and then link them to your employees to assist you in managing your companies’ needs for a locating a specific skill set.

You can then widen the STA’s to include physical Training courses and Accreditations both internal and externally delivered.

Your staff can record their Continued Professional Development (CPD) attendance to events and training sessions and record the number of hours gained throughout the year.

Users may "request" training against existing STA’s or capture the training needs highlighted from Injuries/Incidents/Performance Reviews/etc.  This allows the tracking of STA requirements, for instance is there enough need to get a course booked.  Then the request can be updated with what is happening such as postponed, being arranged or scheduled.

One of the STA types is the Criminal Records Bureau Check (CRB).  This allows you to record who has it, when it was granted and when it expires.

All STA’s can have a valid duration which, when an STA is given a "Valid To" date, you can determine if it is still current. When it expires (or is due to expire), you simply start another STA record for the employee, and when it is approved/validated/granted set another "valid to" date.  You now have an audit trail of who was current with what training at any specific point in time. You can also see who is due to expire in the next 8 weeks or who has expired and may need training to be rearranged.

This validity period is particularly useful for permit which is a another type of STA.  Any STA, but most likely a Permit can be flagged as a Work Document, where the STA is of significant importance, or where the employee can not carry out their job with out it.  In these cases when the STA starts to expire it is much more prominent to draw attention with the inclusion of emails and dedicated pages.

STAs can know which STA follows when the first expires in order to keep on a development plan or to meet refresher requirements.

Some STA's may be flagged as mandatory for every company employee such as new starter induction training, Health & Safety, new products etc.  You can clearly see who has had it and who doesn’t and start their request for that training.

In addition, you can define specific job titles to have one or more training requirements.  These can also be marked as mandatory or not. You can then see the skills gap based on your employee’s own skill set and the job training/skill requirements.

Sometimes an STA may be comprised of a number of course modules or individual elements such as theory and practical.

There is planned functionality coming that assists with the arrangement and booking of courses and linking the attendees from their requests.  This will be useful if you want to keep track of the schedule and running of course events.

The attendee functionality can be widened to include your training to your own clients (they will need to exist in the contacts module).  Their exam scores and feedback can be kept as part of their training record.

The amount of information you need to include on the STAs is up to you.  This gives you the flexibility of storing a skill that might only include a title of 'MS PowerPoint Expert' alongside an Accreditation which might include things like expiry dates, qualifications gained, follow on courses and the training provider details.

Please let us know if you feel that there is anything we have missed and if it is a good idea, we will always see if we can add it.

How to get started with Training?