Admin , The Lord Of The Modules..!

Where To Start ?

It is recommended to understand the OrangeHRM system’s modular architecture and how it counters the most recent HRM problem before going through this article. You can refer to my introductory article to this series named Modern HRM needs and the answer from OrangeHRM for that need.
I’m gonna discuss the needs for an admin module and how the OrangeHRM cater those needs using some of the main features developed for that module.

Introduction

HR admin of an organization has very important role to play in the organization HRM processes. HR admins will control the all the processes in the organization regarding the employees. They will define the job roles that will be assigned to the employees of the company They will also define the company hierarchy, pay grades, work shifts, projects, memberships, qualifications etc. As these tasks connect with each other, systematic way to handle these features are in vital need. This is where the OrangeHRM admin module comes to the play. OrangeHRM admin module is developed strictly to adhere those features. I will explain some of the most important features and how they provide a systematic, flexible way to counter the problems that faced by the HR admins.

Admin module is designed for the employees who have the administrative privileges over the system. It has the settings that will affect the OrangeHRM system. The Admin Module is the central control of the system and setting it up accurately is important for smooth operation.

Sub Categories Of Admin Module.

As this module is developed for provide a systematic way to counter the day today tasks of an HR admin, the module is categorized into sub categories.The Admin Module consists of :

• User Management
• Job
• Organization
• Qualifications
• Nationalities
• Announcements
• Configuration
• Audit Trail

I will discuss some of the important features in the following section of this article.

1) User Management

An organization has many employees and each of them is assigned a job role. According that they will be placed in the company hierarchy. So according to that hierarchy, a particular employee will have the privileges over the system. But defining these employee roles can be a complex task because the same employee can have different roles according to the task or project that they were given. As an example, the same employee can manage set of subordinates while that same employee acting as a subordinate of another team or department. If we compare two different companies the two hierarchies can be very different. So to cater these needs modern HRIS must provide solutions with ease of use and with features to provide higher customization.

By considering these needs OrangeHRM has developed a feature called User Management.This feature is to administer the roles and privileges of the users. There are 3 predefined user roles in the OrangeHRM system. They are

• Global/ Default Admin: The user has access to all the modules in the system and can view/access all employees’ information within the system working in different locations/regions of the organization. But the regional access configuration is only available in OrangeHRM Enterprise and it will be controlled by the Global admin.
• Default Supervisor: The user has access to his/her particulars and his/her subordinates.
• Default ESS: where the user has access only to his/her information.

In addition to these user roles, it is possible to create custom user roles to provide higher customizability. The User Roles section allows the Global Admin to create custom user roles with configurable privileges and rights to access and manage employee data across the various modules, manage the workflows of various processes in the organization, and assign these User Roles to specific regions. Workflow is the specific flow of work for a given process in the OrangeHRM system.

Custom User Role Creation

As the main purpose of this tab is user management, it will provide following services to achieve that purpose.

• Creating logins and defining privileges by assigning User Roles (Global Admin/Admin, Default ESS, Default Supervisor).
• Creating new Custom User Roles with specific privileges. Custom User Roles allows for users to be given read/write/update/delete access to selected modules in the system, with regional reconfigurability. If company needs to give admin privileges for an employee with limited privileges, company must build a custom user role accordingly.

An important fact to remember is that the default supervisor and the default ESS user are assigned to every employee when they were added to the system. But the supervisor privileges won’t be active until an employee assigned as a subordinate. The next tab in this module is the Job.

2) Job

HR admins have the responsibility of defining the jobs that need to be done by the employees. They have to define the features in a job such as job titles, paygrade for that job, salaries assigned to that job. The admin must define how these salaries are made. They must assign the bonuses, increments accordingly and they must reflect those section well in the system for both financial and analytical processes. So to support this need the admin module has this Job sub category to cater them.

This feature will define all the job-related information in the system to give syatamtic, analytical and easy information retrieving procedure. The subcategories in this feature have the following sections. I will briefly explain the functionalities of the above subcategories in the following sections.

• Job Titles: In this section, the admins can make a new job for the company. This feature will ask the details about the job such as the name of the job, a brief description of the job and job specification which will contain the specific needs that must be fulfilled by performing the job.
• Salary component: Salary component is developed to manage the salaries received by the employees. This feature will provides forms to manage how the salaries are made according to the company salary structure and how they affect the company costs. Admin users can also modify the salary structure of the company using this feature.
• Pay Grades: In this subcategory, the admins can define the minimum, maximum salary. They can also define the currency to pay the salaries.
• Employment Status: This subcategory will provide information about the status of the employment of the employees that work currently. This feature contains the types of contracts that are currently signed by the company and the employee.
  Eg:- Freelance, Full-time contract, Part-time contract etc.
• Job Category: This will be used to add and edit job categories. Job category is a collection of job titles.
• Work Shifts: Admin users can add separate work shifts. Then these can be assigned to a particular employee or group of employees. In here the admin will need to provide details such as the starting and the ending time of the shift and the name of the work shift such as general or twilight.

3) Organization

In the modern business world, the organizational structure plays a vital role. This is because each section of the organization is responsible for the specific task and the smooth integration between these sections is the key to success. This will get even more complicated when the company is multinational and HRIS must cater the complex needs accordingly. If the company is multi-national the hierarchies, integration between overseas sections, communication between them and privileges should be defined precisely. But this is a complex task and the modern HRIS must have the ability to absorb these connections and proceedings. If that task is done by the HRIS, HR admins can ensure a smoother and better workflow between the section. OrangrHRM system has identified these needs and has developed a subcategory called Organization. The following will describe some of its features in accordance with the modern needs that I have described above

I) General Information

It is the responsibility of the company to maintain it’s organizational information. These would be needed for day to day processes such as communication and for legal reasons under company law. So OrangHRM has identified this need and has developed a feature name general information to capture. This subcategory contains a form which needs to be filled with the general information about the company such as the organization name, address, phone number etc. Then in the future encounters it will provide the general information about the company.

General Information Form in the Admin Module

II) Locations

Under locations, admin can add the details of the company’s branches. This will also provide columns to identify the number of employees working at a given branch. Admin can also add new locations to the system using the add button in the locations category. This feature is very useful if the organization is on global level and have to maintain many branches. Using this HR admins can easily model th system identify different branches which then can be used in other models according to the needs.

Locations tab provides the details about the branches of a company

III) Organization Structure

This feature is used to structure the hierarchy of the subunits in the company. In this view number of employees for each unit and the number of employees in there sub-units will be shown. This is highly important to feature because it gives a highly analytical view over the company. HR admins continuously need engage in different employees in different sections and possibly in different locations. So maintaining a clear, detailed structure about the company will definitely add a strategic advantage to the HR department

Organization Structure

For each Sub Unit, it shows the employee number for that specific department in brackets and the total including the employees of sub departments under that. By clicking the edit button in the top right corner an admin can add a new department to the company structure. It will show a form as follows

Form to add a new subunit

These subunits can be moved from place to place to avoid the need to recreate.

4) Qualifications

An organization has different types of job which must be filled with employees who have appropriate qualifications. So before identifying potential employees, the HR department must profile the job with required qualifications, competencies etc. So maintaining a detailed database about the job roles and particular qualifications that are needed is very important for the progress of an organization. As an example, if HR department can maintain details about skills, educational qualifications, licenses that need to process by the employees can be highly crucial in recruitment processes.

This features is regarding the qualifications needed by the employees to perform the tasks in there given departments. This feature contains several sub categories as follows. All of the following sub categories will be defined in this module and will be used in PIM module later.

• Skills : This is to define different types of skills that are required from the employees.
• Education : This will define the educational qualifications that an employee posses.
• Licenses : This will define the set of licenses that an employee posses.
• Languages : This will define the languages that the employees speak in the company.
• Membership : This feature is used to define different types of memberships that will be used by the employees.

7) Announcements

The announcement tab is to share news and documents such as notices among the employees. This will be done by the HR admins of the system. There are several subcategories under this tab as

• News.
• Documents.
• Document Categories.

Let’s understand the above subcategories in detail.

I) News

This subcategory is used to publish news articles and share information among the employees suing notices etc. When an admin publishes news it will be shown in the dashboard of the employees. Using this feature admins can also restrict who can see the news and who doesn’t. This feature also allows saving news and notices for later purposes.

News publishing

II) Documents

This feature is to share company related documents such as guidebooks, user manuals etc among the employees. This will also be published in the dashboard. Admins have the ability to add and control the visibility of the document.

Document List

Admins of the system can categorize the documents using the document categories tab in the Announcement tab.

8) Configurations

Configurations tab is used to configure the various system fucntionalities. This is important provide higher customizability over the system. Some of them are :

• Allows the admins to configure email subscriptions and notifications.
• Provides a way to localize the system.
• Used to enable different types of authentication frameworks such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID etc.

There are 6 subcategories under this tab. They are as follows:

• Email Settings
• Email Subscriptions
• Localizations
• Authentications
• Directory Configurations
• Canned Reports.

Let’s take some of the above subcategories one by one to identify the functionalities.

I) Email Subscriptions

This feature will allow the admin to subscribe to email notifications that will be sent to the employees and supervisors in the system. A copy of the email will be sent to the email address specified by the Admin. Admin can also select what types of notifications he/she should receive. Email notifications can be divided into three categories.

1. Action Based : These notifications will be triggered according to a particular action. Eg :- Leave Approvals, Time-sheet approval etc.
2. Date Based : These notifications will be triggered according to a specific date. Eg:- Anniversary notification, Retirement notification etc.
3. Scheduled : This feature is to subscribe to a scheduled event.

Email Subscriptions

II) Localization

This feature enables the HR Admin to configure the language settings and translate the OrangeHRM system to the language of admin’s choice. The section also allows you to set the date format according to the requirement. Using this feature admins can customize the system according to the language fluency of different companies. So this can be important in increasing the efficiency of the system

Localization in Admin Module

9) Audit Trail

The audit trail allows administrators to track in detail changes made to the records in the PIM, Leave and Recruitment module made by ESS users,Supervisors and HR administrator. The system will track changes made to the records with date & time of the action and who has done the changes.

Summary

Admin Module is one of the core modules used in the OrangeHRM system. Its main purpose is to provide the controllability of the system to the admins. The configurations made in this module will affect all the other modules in the system and these configurations will directly affect the behavior of the system. So an accurate idea about the functionality of this is very important and the target of this article was also that.