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Step 5: Set up Approval Flows & Managers
Appogee HR is highly configurable, so you can make it fit your business requirements and organization structure. Below are our top tips for getting your Appogee HR set up, they have been split into 5 key stages and we strongly advise that you complete the steps in the order below.
Step 1: Configuration
Categories & Fields Configuration
A Category is a section within an HR Process and Fields make up the data within the Category. Categories are grouped by the HR Processes supported in Appogee HR - Personal, Employment, Performance, Learning & Assets. Every employee has access to these categories by using the navigation bar down the left side of Appogee HR.
Go to Profile > Admin & Config > Categories: Records & Fields.
Take a look through your current Employee Profile Categories & Fields to ensure you have the fields and security you require.
It is important to do this as a first step, especially if you go on to add Employees and Field information using the CSV import as the CSV reflects your configuration.
Take a look at our support articles on Categories and Field Configuration and Employee Profiles for more information. You may also find it useful to look at how to Re-organise your Profile structure.
You can configure this section with what information you want to display in those designated sections according to your requirements.
Company Document Types
Company Documents are documents or files that are related to the company and can be shared by all employees, or at a team level. A Company Document can be a file, link or note that you wish to make available to multiple employees for acknowledgement.
Go to Company Docs > Config.
Company Documents can be categorised by Company Document Types for ease of access and navigation. We've set up some default Types - Company Policies, Office Documents, HR Documents & Employee Templates. Feel free to use these if they work for you or alternatively create your own.
You can add as many as you need and access is controlled within each Company Document Type.
For more information, take a look at our support article on Company Documents.
These documents can be in different formats and files ranging from uploaded documents and links and or YouTube videos. This section is a useful way of storing company files and useful information which can be shared across the organisation and organised and updated according to your company's requirements.
Leave and Sickness Types
You can configure which types of Leave & Sickness employees request by setting up Leave & Sickness Types.
We have a range of default Leave & Sickness Types which you can import and use or add your own Types. Leave & Sickness Types can be set up as deducted or non-deducted, so they can affect an employee's allowance or not.
To set these up, go to Leave > Admin & Config > Leave Types or Sickness Types.
For more information, take a look at the support article on Configuring Leave & Sickness Types.
Public Holidays
You can configure public holidays which will be marked as non-working days in the calendar.
Appogee Leave has a number of Public Holidays set up as defaults. Select one for your country or create your own. you can set them up as half days or full days depending on the requirements
Public holidays
To set these up, go to Leave > Admin & Config > Public Holidays.
Here you can have the option to use given public holiday profiles in your country or create your own custom public holiday profiles.
To do this please click create . Name your public holiday and set the dates as required and if this is a full day or half day.
If you need more information, take a look at Managing Public Holidays.
Step 2: Teams
Setting up Teams
Setting up Teams is the next logical step in setting up Appogee Leave. This is where you will set up your approval flows for Leave & Sickness.
Every Employee must belong to a Team, however, they can manage a Team and be part of a different Team themselves.
Teams are set up under the Organization option in the menu.
Click the Create button on the top right to start making a new team . You can assign them colours key to help differentiate them at a glance. On team settings, you can also configure calendar access assign approval flows and add managers.
All employees must members of a team. it is possible to have multiple work profiles, managers and approvers within a single team.
NOTE: if you're following these steps, it's likely you haven't added any employees yet. You will not be able to set up Managers or approval flows without adding users to the system. It is however important to do this later, see step 5 for more information.
Take a look at Creating & Editing Teams, Configuring your Org Chart and Deleting users & teams for more information.
Step 3: Work Profiles
The Work Profile defines the working hours and allowances for a group of Employees. Every Employee must belong to a Work Profile, you may only need one for your organisation or you may need multiple to cater for all eventualities.
This section is where you would configure designated information such as the rota, working hours, leave entitlement and carry and accruals if required and what public holiday schedule is assigned to those profiles.
To Set these up under Leave > Admin & Config > Work Profiles > Create From the left hand modules
Enter the configured information as required according to your working requirements for the employees to be to whom these work profiles can be assigned .
For more information, take a look at the following article: Work Profiles.
Step 4: Add Employees
There are 3 possible ways to add Employees to Appogee Leave.
- Manual Registration
- CSV Import
- Through an integration
- Google Workspace (G Suite)
- Office 365
- Xero
1. Manual Registration
The manual registration allows you to add Employees using a simple form to add individuals to the system.
You will be prompted to provide:
- Full Name
- Work Email Address
- Job Title
- Team
- Work Profile
- Employee Status
- Joining or Active
- Employment Start Date
- Access to the system
You can see more information on this here: Manual Employee Registration.
2. CSV Import
The CSV import enables you to add Employees to Appogee HR in bulk. Use this option if you have a lot of Employees to add at once for set-up purposes. To help avoid errors during this process please ensure the information in your CSV documents is populated in the same format as the corresponding fields in Appogee HR where it will upload.
There is further information on the CSV import in this guide:CSV Upload Guide
3. Integrations
You will need to enable your Integration before being able to import your employees through this method.
Take a look at the following articles to set up an integration of your choice:
Importing your employees through Xero can be done as part of setting up the Xero integration.
To import through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 use the import wizard, which will take you through selecting employees from your domain then:
- Assigning Teams
- Setting Work Profiles
- Configuring Login
You can find further information on this here: Importing Employees from Google Workspace / Office 365.
Step 5: Set up Approval Flows & Team Managers
Now that your employees have been added to the system, you can assign which of them are Approvers & Managers.
Approvals are set up within Approval Flows - you can create as many different Approval Flows as necessary, Approval Flows can be assigned to Teams or Employees.
Approvals flows are used to configure how your wish to set up your structure for leave requests and who submissions are sent for review and decision-making on Leave.
To create your Approval Flows go to Leave > Admin & Config > Approval Flows from the left-hand panel.
Use the edit icon on the right to configure the approval flow or create your own new one by selecting Create from the top right of the page.
Select an Employee on the Approval Flows tab. Assign the desired approval flow by selecting it from the drop-down menu in the approval flows box or create a new one by selecting create new from the list.
Once you've set up your Approval Flows, you can assign these to your Teams or employees.
To do this, go to Organization > Teams.
Select a Team and then go to Leave, Approvals & Calendar > Approval Flows. Select the Approval Flow from the list and optionally click to override the Approval Flow for certain individuals. Ensure you have saved changes to apply the modifications you have made.
Next, you'll need to assign Team Managers. These could be the same as your approvers, or you could select different Managers. From the Team page, go to the Managers tab and add the managers. You can have more than one manager in the team and select a primary option if you want.
Use the search bar to find the employee to set as a manager then click the plus icon to add them as the team manager then save the changes once completed.
Approval Flows could also be assigned per employee. To do this, go to Organization > Employees.
Employee Approval Flows can be configured from two separate places - the Team and the Employee Admin.
Making changes from the Team setting
Go to Organization > Teams > Leave, Approvals & Calendar > Approval Flows.
Tick the box underneath the Approvers table 'Do you want to override the Team Approval Flows for specific members of this team then save the changes
Making changes on the individual Employee :
Go to Organization > Employees > select an Employee from the list > Approval Flows.
To make a change, click Override Team Approval Flows.
A configuration box will appear where you can change the Approval Flows by selecting from the dropdown.
Additional Setup Options
Backfill
You may wish to use the Backfill feature within Appogee Leave to import your employees' historic requests. This will allow you to use the system as a single source of truth for the full Leave year, regardless of when you implement the feature.
There are two ways you can use Backfill - manually or in bulk using a CSV template.
Requests submitted through the Backfill tool will be added to the system as approved, therefore bypassing the approval process. If you would like these requests to be approved in the system, you can add them manually, or ask employees to add them in themselves.
Go to Leave > Admin & Config > Backfill.
This will take you to the manual Backfill element of the tool, to use the CSV template, and change the option from the top-level menu.
Manually adding Backfill:
To manually add Backfill, enter the email address of the user, followed by the dates of the request & reason, then click Create Request.
Repeat this process for all requests for all your employees.
Adding Backfill in bulk:
Go to Leave > Admin & Config > Backfill from CSV.
Download the CSV template and complete it with the employee names, dates of requests & reasons.
Save the template as a CSV file and upload it to the system. Follow the steps on the setup wizard till completion. once completed the leave request data will be uploaded onto the relevant employee's profiles. There will be an audit trail in the profiles to show a history of all changes made.
Checklists
Appogee HR has a Checklist functionality to enable you to set up clear actions to take to complete key processes across your business.
If you would like to see more information on how Checklists work and how to configure these, please take a look at our Checklist Guide.
Reporting
Appogee HR has reporting facilities for both Employee Profile information and Leave information. The HR Reports match your Employee Profile configuration, allowing you to report on exactly what you choose to keep in Appogee HR.
The Leave Reports allow you to look into all types of absence across the Company, by Team or Individual. You can view these in a series of tables, charts or exports.
See the following guides:
Notifications
Appogee HR Notifications allow you to stay in control of all dates your store within Employee Profiles, Employee Records or Company Documents. Set Notifications so you always know when the next Performance Review is, when a Record needs reviewing or when an Employee is reaching their employment anniversary.
This Notifications Guide will take you through how to configure date Notifications across Appogee HR.
