Email and HR
Your email and your staff records, in one place
Most companies run these as two systems that know nothing about each other. One holds the person's mailbox, the other holds their leave balance, and neither has heard of the other when they resign.
The problem with two systems
It is not the subscription cost. It is that a person exists twice.
Somebody joins, and they are created in the mail system and again in the HR system, with two spellings of their name and two ideas of which department they are in. Somebody moves from Sales to Support, and it is updated in one place. Somebody leaves, and their mailbox is closed while their staff record quietly stays active — or, more often, the other way round.
The result is a directory nobody trusts. Who reports to whom is a question with two answers, and the correct one depends on which screen you asked. That is a small daily annoyance at ten people and a genuine liability at eighty.
Here there is one record of a person. Their mailbox, their chat account, their files, their shift, their leave balance and their manager are all attributes of the same employee, so the answer to who they are cannot disagree with itself.
What the staff side actually does
Not a form that stores a job title. These are the things a company has to get right every month.
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Hours against a shift, not just hours
Working time is recorded against the shift that person is meant to be on, so lateness is measured in minutes rather than argued about. Night shifts that cross midnight are handled properly.
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Leave that adds itself up
Annual and casual balances accrue automatically. The company chooses the entitlement, whether it accrues monthly or arrives in one lump, whether the year resets on each person's own anniversary or on 1 January for everybody, and whether unused days carry over.
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Public holidays that do not cost anybody a day
A holiday inside a booked leave period does not come out of the balance. For Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE the list is filled in for you and follows the company if it changes country; anywhere else the company adds its own days. Every date can be corrected — the calendar is the company's, not the product's.
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Records, warnings and the good things too
A written record can be edited or removed only by the manager who wrote it or an administrator, always with a reason, and the employee has to acknowledge it. Positive feedback is recorded the same way, because a file with only warnings in it is not a record of a person.
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Who may read a record
Narrower than the reporting line, on purpose: a warning is not the business of every manager above somebody. The person it is about, whoever wrote it and administrators can read it, and so can the readers the company names deliberately — an HR officer, say.
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Several departments at once
A person can genuinely belong to more than one, which is how companies of this size actually work, and every department-based rule accounts for it.
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One calendar with all of it
Meetings, public holidays and who is away, in one view — so a meeting is not booked on a day half the department is off.
Offboarding, which is where two systems fail
The day somebody leaves is the day you find out how many systems you actually had.
Removing someone properly means their mail, their chat, their meetings, their files and their staff record all close together, and their mailbox and documents stay with the company. Done as a list of separate applications, that takes an afternoon and somebody always forgets one — usually the one with the customer correspondence in it.
Here it is a single action, because there was only ever one account. Their access ends everywhere at once. What belonged to the company remains with the company.
The same is true on the first day. One account created, and the new person has an address, a chat handle, a calendar, the files their department can see, and a leave balance already accruing — rather than five separate setups spread over their first fortnight.
Questions
Do we have to use the HR side to use the email?
No. Plenty of companies start with email and chat and leave the staff records alone until they are ready. Nothing is switched on that you have not asked for, and the HR screens simply are not in the way if you do not use them.
Can managers see each other's teams?
No. Visibility follows the reporting line: a manager sees the people who report to them. Staff records are narrower still, and an administrator can name a person who may read them — an HR officer, say — deliberately, and that grant is recorded.
Does it calculate leave automatically?
Yes, live from the database rather than a figure somebody typed in. Entitlement, accrual, carry-over and the reset date are all company decisions; once set, the balance keeps itself correct, including skipping weekends and public holidays inside a booking.
Can an employee see their own record?
Yes. Anything written about them is visible to them and must be acknowledged, and an edit made after that acknowledgement voids it so they are asked again. A record somebody has never seen is not a record, it is a rumour with a date on it.
What if our weekend is not Saturday and Sunday?
Set it to whatever your week actually is. The weekend, the working hours and the shifts are all company settings, and every calculation that touches days — leave, lateness, accrual — reads them rather than assuming.
One record of a person, not five
Tell us how many people you have and we will build it. Usually the same day.
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