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How to use
Human Resources Management
Checked against the product on 27 August 2026
Human Resources Management
HRM holds your people: who they are, the jobs they have held, their leave, their time, their pay and their development.
The idea that makes this an HR system rather than a spreadsheet: every job fact carries a date and nothing is ever overwritten, so the record can answer what was true on any past day.
Reviews, One to Ones, Feedback, Surveys, Courses, Certifications, Skills
Workplace
Announcements, Policies, HR Cases
Employee Portal
Requests Inbox, Portal Setup
Insight
Reports, Saved reports, HR AI Assistant
Setup and Tools
HR Settings, My Tools
The two populations, and the sentence support needs most
An employee is not a login.
Adding somebody to Employees does not give them access to the platform. Most employees never hold a seat, and the two are counted separately.
Headcount is people, not seats. This figure is unrelated to how many platform users your plan allows.
That single distinction answers a large share of billing and access questions.
The dashboard
One page answering "how many people do we have, who moved, and what is outstanding". It writes nothing.
The date window covers two tiles only
The bar under the heading sets the dates that Joiners and Leavers cover, and only those two.
This month runs to today, not to month end, because counting joiners for days that have not happened yet would be a forecast.
Headcount is always as at today, whatever window you pick.
The two answer different questions and must never be added together.
Reading the tiles
Active is the people employed right now.
On record counts everyone HRM holds, including those who have already left, because a leaver still existed last quarter and deleting them would make every trend wrong.
No job record is people on the books with no employment record at all. They are unrecorded rather than inactive, and worth clearing.
Joiners and leavers are counted from the dated employment records, so a hire entered today with a start date next month is not a joiner yet. It becomes one on its date, without anybody touching it again.
Department and location are independent
They are two dimensions, not a drill down. A person in Engineering sitting in Karachi appears once in each card. A row whose count is unknown is listed with no bar rather than treated as zero.
Before you quote a number
"Not recorded" is not zero. It means the figure was never computed. A zero on this page is a real, measured zero.
Future dated changes are not counted yet. A promotion or hire dated ahead sits scheduled on the profile and lands on its effective date.
A breakdown row with no name means people with that field not set, for example staff with no department recorded. It is a real group.
The thing people get wrong: reading a missing breakdown as an empty company. "Not recorded" means the split was not returned at all. "Nothing set up yet" means the dimension exists and nobody is assigned to it. Different problems, different fixes.
Employees
The list
The cards across the top count everyone you can see, not the page in front of you, and they follow your filters. Departments, Locations and Legal entities count the ones people are actually in, so a department nobody is in does not appear. While they load you get placeholders rather than zeroes, because a 0 you cannot tell from a real answer is worse than no answer.
Search matches name, employee number and work email. Department and location filters are independent, so combining them asks a real question: who in Engineering sits in Karachi.
Columns turns any of eleven facts on or off. A fact nobody has recorded is left out rather than printed as an empty placeholder. It changes only what is on screen, and never affects your export.
Export
The export covers every person matching your current filters, not the page you are on, and the button says which.
The file legitimately carries fewer columns for some people. Fields you are not permitted to see are never sent to your browser, so they cannot be in your file. A colleague with more access gets a wider sheet, and neither file is wrong.
Adding somebody
The drawer takes their identity and contact facts and the first job record, dated the day they start. Leave the employee number blank and it is generated from the prefix in HR settings.
Why job facts behave the way they do
Job title, department, designation, location, legal entity, manager and status are not fields on the person. They are dated records, and what you see is the latest one whose date is not in the future.
Recording a change never overwrites anything. The previous values stay in the job history with their own dates, which is what makes "what was their title in March" answerable at all.
A correction is a new record, not an edit. Date it the day the old value actually became wrong.
The change drawer arrives pre filled and the whole row is stored, so a field you clear is genuinely cleared from that date. Leave alone what is not changing.
A future date is accepted. The record is stored, marked Scheduled, and takes effect on its own on that day.
Legal entity is who employs somebody, independent of where they sit and who they report to. Staff in one country employed by an entity in another are ordinary, and payroll, holidays and statutory rules follow the entity, not the workspace.
Changing who somebody reports to
The Reporting card has its own Change button, because the reporting line is dated separately from the rest of the job. A manager change and a title change usually happen on different days.
It records a new line and closes the outgoing one the day before rather than deleting it.
A dotted line runs alongside the real one rather than replacing it, and appears under Advisory reports rather than mixed into direct reports, because an advisory report is not your team for HR data access.
Employment statuses
Status
Meaning
Active
Employed and working right now
Preboarding
Accepted and not started yet
On leave
Employed, currently away. Still counted in headcount
Notice
Leaving, still employed until their last day
Exited
Left. Kept on record so past periods stay correct
Rehired
Came back. A second stretch on the same record
Applicant
Not an employee yet
Types of job change
Hire (the first record), Promotion, Transfer (same job, different department, location or entity), Revision (a correction that is not a promotion), Probation end, Status change, and Termination (set the status to Exited on the same record).
Archive, not delete
There is no delete on this list, on purpose. Removing an employee would take their job history with them, and a leaver still existed last quarter, which every headcount trend depends on.
Archive files somebody away without destroying anything, and Restore brings them back.
Somebody who has left is a different thing: that is a termination job record, and they stay in the working list until you archive them.
Archiving does not free a place on your employee limit. An archived person keeps their employment history, so they keep their place. If you are at your limit, archiving will not let you add anybody. Raise the limit instead.
What you can and cannot see
National ID, tax id, bank details and health related notes are never sent to your browser without the sensitive viewing permission. Where you see a restricted panel, there is no hidden data behind it to reveal.
With team level access rather than full access, this list is your direct reports, not the company. "You have no direct reports" is an honest answer. "You are not in the HR system" is a different answer: your team is worked out from your own employee record and you do not have one yet.
Additional details holds fields your workspace defined for itself, and a field marked restricted is removed before the record reaches you, so that list can be shorter for you than for a colleague.
The most common confusion: recording a change and wondering why the old value is still on screen. If the new record is dated in the future it is supposed to be, and it sits under "Scheduled, not yet in effect". If it is dated today or earlier, refresh rather than recording it a second time.
The profile health meter
The percentage is weighted, not a count of filled boxes. A missing work email costs far more than a missing preferred name, because without a work email nothing reaches that person at all. The single heaviest item on the whole profile is one emergency contact.
It counts only fields every viewer of that record can see. Restricted details never move the number. That makes the figure a fact about the record, not about the reader: two colleagues with different permissions always read the same percentage. A number that changed with the reader would send somebody off to re enter a bank account already on file.
100 is reserved for a genuinely finished record. Anything outstanding holds at 99, because somebody told 100 stops looking. Equally, a record with something on it never reads 0.
A group still loading is left unscored rather than counted as a gap, because an unanswered question is not a missing answer.
A low score is a to do list, not a judgement of the person. Opening the meter names each gap and points at the card to fill it in on.
Sharing a profile outside the workspace
Nothing is public until you make a link. One profile can carry several links at once, each with its own label, end date and view count, so the link you sent to a client and the one you sent to a landlord stay separate.
Scope, and why the tick boxes only subtract
Basic publishes name, job title, department, location, work email, work phone, employee number and join date.
Full profile adds their manager's name, how many people report to them, and the job history.
The tick boxes underneath then leave any part of that out. They can only ever subtract. Nothing you tick can put a field into a link the scope did not already allow.
Neither scope ever carries pay, personal contact details, date of birth, documents, leave, or any restricted field.
Other behaviour
The shared page shows initials, never a photo. Employee photos sit on a private disk no public route may reach, and that disk also holds passports and contracts.
Revoking is immediate and keeps the record. The row stays with its label and view count. Anyone opening a revoked link gets a real page saying it is no longer available, never an error, because a dead link that looks broken sends people back asking whether the whole system is down. A revoked link cannot be turned back on.
An archived person cannot be shared. The drawer will not create a link and says why. Existing links can still be revoked from the same drawer, which is exactly what to do when somebody leaves.
Every shared page is read only.
The Employee Portal
Employees who hold no login can still be asked to supply their own details.
Send the code by a different route from the link. An email address is not proof of identity and links get forwarded. Sending the code in the same email as the link undoes the protection in one move. A text, a call, or a word in person all work.
Too many wrong codes lock the link.Locked is not revoked, and the list keeps the two apart: revoked means somebody turned it off, locked means somebody was guessing. The answer to a locked link is to issue a fresh one.
Reviewing what comes back
A submission has not touched the record. It is a proposal. Nothing an employee typed appears on their profile until somebody accepts it.
You accept it field by field. A correct new address and a mistyped phone number do not have to be taken together, and a partly accepted submission says so.
Without the sensitive viewing permission you can see that a bank account was supplied but not what it says, and you cannot accept it either. Approving a value you are not cleared to read is not review, it is a rubber stamp.
What was submitted is kept after review, with when it arrived and where from, because "who filled this in" is the first question asked when a value is wrong.
Leave
Working the queue
The screen opens on Waiting, because that is the only tab with anything owed on it. Every other tab is a record of decisions already taken.
The number on each tab is the workspace answer for that status under your filters, not a count of rows on the page.
A decline needs a comment. The button stays disabled without one.
Checking what a request affects
While a request is waiting, the drawer shows the project cards due while that person is away and anything of theirs already overdue.
It informs and never arbitrates. There is deliberately no "safe to approve" verdict, because whether two cards slipping matters is a judgement about a client relationship this screen knows nothing about. A workspace without the Projects App simply says so.
The tabs
Tab
What it asks
Off today
A date question, not a status one. Approved leave that covers today, so somebody in the middle of a fortnight away is included. A tab matching only requests starting today would miss precisely the people most likely to be missed
Off tomorrow
The same question, one day on
Waiting
Raised and not yet decided. The only queue with work in it
Approved
Decided yes, and counted against a balance
Declined
Turned down by an approver
Cancelled
Called off after it was raised, by the person or by HR. A withdrawn request sits here too
All
Every request whatever its state
Raise a request works out the cost and the clashes as you type, and the preview writes nothing and returns exactly what the submit would produce, so the figure you are shown is the figure you get.
The Leave calendar answers "who is away and when", with off today and off tomorrow side by side, because the real question is what cover looks like now and whether it gets worse.
Payroll
The rule that governs the whole area:
Payroll computes. A human applies. Nothing pays anybody by itself.
Payroll, holidays and statutory rules follow the legal entity on the employment record, not the workspace, which is why staff in one country employed by an entity in another work correctly.
Compensation, claims, loans, settlements, statutory items and payroll accounts each have their own screen and their own How to use panel.
Who can see what
HRM is gated more finely than most Apps, because it holds the most sensitive data on the platform.
Access
What it gives
Full people access
The whole company list
Team level access
Your direct reports only, worked out from your own employee record
Sensitive viewing
National ID, tax id, bank details, health related notes. Without it those values never reach your browser at all
People management
Adding, editing, archiving and restoring. Without it you can read the whole list and no buttons appear, rather than buttons that would be refused
Self service
Your own profile and tools
Time, leave, payroll, hiring, performance, training and workplace areas each have their own permissions on top.
Billing and limits
Human Resources Management is a paid App. Its price is shown on the Plan page.
Your plan caps how many employees a workspace may hold.
Archived employees still count, because they keep their employment history. To make room, raise the limit rather than archiving.
Employees are not platform users. Most hold no login, and the two limits are separate.
Documents and photos count toward the workspace storage allowance shared across every App, shown on the Plan page.
Frequently asked questions
I added an employee. Why can they not log in? Adding somebody to Employees does not create a login. Most employees never hold a seat. Invite them from your team settings if they genuinely need access.
Does adding employees use up my user seats? No. Headcount is people, not seats, and the two limits are separate.
I archived people but I am still at my employee limit. Archived people keep their employment history, so they keep their place. Raise the limit instead.
Why is there no delete button? Deleting an employee would take their job history with them, and every headcount trend depends on leavers still existing in past periods. Archive instead.
Somebody has left. Do I archive them? Record a termination job record with the status Exited. They stay in the working list until you also archive them, which is a separate step.
I recorded a change and the old value is still showing. If the new record is dated in the future it is supposed to be, and it sits under "Scheduled, not yet in effect". If it is dated today or earlier, refresh rather than recording it twice.
How do I correct a mistake in someone's job history? Record a new dated change, dated the day the old value actually became wrong. It is never an edit, so every date before that stays true.
I changed their manager but the title change did not apply. The reporting line has its own Change button on the Reporting card, because reporting lines are dated separately from the rest of the job.
Why does the dashboard headcount not match my date range? The window covers Joiners and Leavers only. Headcount is always as at today. The two must never be added together.
A new hire is not showing as a joiner. Their start date is in the future. They become a joiner on that date automatically.
A dashboard card says "Not recorded". The figure was never computed for your workspace. That is different from a measured zero, and different again from a dimension nobody has been assigned to.
A colleague's export has more columns than mine. Fields you are not permitted to see are never sent to your browser, so they cannot be in your file. Both files are correct.
The employee list only shows a few people. You have team level access rather than full access, so it shows your direct reports. If it says you are not in the HR system, you do not have an employee record yet.
A panel says restricted. What is behind it? Nothing that can be revealed. The values were never sent to your browser.
Why is the profile completeness stuck at 99? 100 is reserved for a genuinely finished record, because a record showing 100 stops being looked at and the last item is never found.
Two of us see different completeness percentages. We should not. It counts only fields every viewer can see, precisely so the number describes the record and not the reader.
What is the heaviest missing field? One emergency contact, followed by work email, without which nothing the platform sends reaches that person.
Can I share a profile with someone outside the company? Yes, with a share link. Basic or Full profile scope, and the tick boxes can only take things away. Pay, personal contact details, date of birth, documents and leave are never included in either scope.
The shared page shows initials instead of the photo. Photos sit on a private disk no public route may reach, and that disk also holds passports and contracts.
I revoked a share link by mistake. A revoked link cannot be turned back on. Create a new one.
My share link says the profile is not available. The person is archived. Archived records are never shown on a shared page, and the drawer will not create new links for them.
An employee portal link says locked. Somebody entered too many wrong codes. Locked is not revoked. Issue a fresh link.
Why should I not email the code with the link? An email address is not proof of identity and links get forwarded. Sending both together removes the only thing stopping a stranger typing somebody else's bank details into your HR system.
An employee updated their details but the profile has not changed. A submission is a proposal. Nothing appears on the profile until somebody in HR accepts it, field by field.
I cannot accept the bank details they submitted. You do not hold the sensitive viewing permission, so the value never reached your browser. Approving a value you cannot read would be a rubber stamp. Somebody who holds the permission accepts those fields.
Why does "Off today" include someone whose leave started last week? It is a date question, not a status one. It matches approved leave that covers today, so people in the middle of a long absence are included rather than missed.
I cannot decline a leave request. A decline needs a comment. The button stays disabled until you write one.
Does the leave screen tell me whether it is safe to approve? No, deliberately. It shows the project work affected and leaves the judgement to you.
Which country's payroll and holiday rules apply? Those follow the legal entity on the employment record, not the workspace, so staff employed by an entity in another country are handled correctly.
Something here not matching what you see on screen? The screen is right and the guide is what needs correcting. Tell us and we will fix it.
Human Resources Management: how to use guide | ExecCortex
