# How employee records work

What an employee record holds, how it relates to a user and a work contact, how managers, coaches and departments fit together, who sees which part, how an employee leaves, and what the app does not do.

**Employees** keeps one record per person who works for the company. The other HR apps start from it: time off, attendances, timesheets, expenses and letters are filed against an employee, not a user.

## What the record holds {#what-it-holds}

- At the top: the name, the photo, the work email, phone and mobile, and tags.
- **Work**: the company, the **Department**, the **Job Position** and **Job Title**, the **Manager**; under **Location**, the **Work Address**, the **Work Location** and the **Usual Work Location** of each day; a note. The **Organization Chart** sits on the right.
- **Resume** and **Certifications**: the resume, the skills and the certifications: [Add skills and a resume](add-skills-and-a-resume).
- **Personal**: private contact and bank accounts, birth, emergency contact, visa and work permit, citizenship, private address, family, education, documents.
- **Settings**: the linked user and its time zone, the approvers (**HR Responsible**, **Expense**, **Time Off**, **Attendance**), the **Hourly Cost**, and the **PIN Code** and badge number used to check in.

The other apps add their buttons at the top of the form: **Time Off** ([How time off works](/docs/time-off/how-time-off-works)), **Monthly Hours** for attendances ([How attendance works](/docs/attendance/how-attendance-works)) and **Timesheets**, which uses the **Hourly Cost** to value the hours ([How projects and timesheets work](/docs/projects/how-projects-and-timesheets-work)). Expenses use the **Expense** approver: [Vendor bills](/docs/vendor-bills).

## Employee, user and work contact {#user-and-contact}

An employee needs no user: people who never sign in, such as site workers, are managed here too. When a person should sign in, **Create User** in **Actions** makes a user from the employee, or an existing user is chosen in **User** on the **Settings** tab; both need the right to manage users: [Create a user and set access rights](/docs/general-settings/create-a-user-and-set-access-rights). Some features work only through a user: presence based on the online status, and activities, including those of plans.

Saving an employee also creates a work contact with the same name, which carries the work email and phone. The email address of a contact is unique in the database, so two employees cannot share one.

## Manager, coach and department {#manager-and-coach}

- **Manager** is the person the employee reports to. It draws the org chart and drives the **My Team** filter: [Read the org chart](read-the-org-chart).
- The coach is a second person who follows the employee; by itself it gives no rights. A new employee's coach is the manager chosen at creation. Later changes of manager leave the coach as it is. The form does not show it; the list has a **Coach** column.
- **Department** groups employees under a department manager, in a tree of departments: [Organize departments](organize-departments). The two managers are separate fields: choosing a department does not fill the employee's manager. Only one thing links them: when a department gets a new manager, its employees who reported to the former one move to the new one.

**Job Position** comes from the list of positions shared with Recruitment ([How recruitment works](/docs/recruitment/how-recruitment-works)); **Job Title** is free text, filled from the position.

## Dated records {#history}

The work information, job, department, working hours and the note, is kept in dated records. The date at the top of the form is the record in force, and **History** lists the records with their **Effective Date**. The first section of the resume reads them to list the jobs held in the company, and a daily job makes the record of each day the current one: [Employees automations](employees-automations#current-record).

## Who sees what {#who-sees-what}

| Who | Sees |
|---|---|
| A user without a right on **Employees** | **Directory**: a public profile of each colleague, with work contacts, department, job, manager, resume and skills |
| **Officer: Manage all employees** | Every record, with the **Personal** and **Settings** tabs; departments, skills, plans |
| **Administrator** | Also **Configuration**, the settings, work locations, plans, and archiving |

[Employees settings](employees-settings#access-rights) gives the rights in detail.

## When an employee leaves {#departure}

An **Administrator** chooses **Archive** in **Actions** on the employee. The **Employee Termination** window asks for the **Departure Reason**, the date of departure, today by default, and a **Detailed Reason**; when the employee has a user, it also offers to archive that user. The first reason of the list, **Fired** in the demo, is chosen by default: check it before you click **Apply**. The reasons are kept in **Employees/Configuration/Employee/Departure Reasons**.

**Apply** archives the employee. The people who reported to them lose that **Manager** and coach, and the **Time Off** and **Expense** approver fields that named their user are emptied: choose new ones. The archived employee leaves the lists and the charts; the **Archived** filter finds them, and the **Work** tab then shows a **Departure** group with the reason, the details and the date. **Unarchive** in **Actions** brings the person back and clears that group. An **Officer** who tries to archive gets an access error: the step needs the **Administrator** right.

## What the app does not do {#not-done}

- It sends no email by itself. Its scheduled jobs create activities only: [Employees automations](employees-automations).
- It records no time off, attendance, timesheet, letter or expense: their own apps do.
- Its ready-made dashboard, **Employees Analysis**, is part of Analysis: [Ready-made dashboards](/docs/analysis/ready-made-dashboards).

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- Source: https://jaah.app/docs/employees/how-employee-records-work
- Updated: 2026-10-28
- Version: Employees 19.0.1.1