Within Natural HR we have default workflows built in for all actions which require approval such as adding time off, training, expenses, mileage, timesheets etc.

These standard workflows generate notification emails to employees, managers and approvers as well as sending reminder emails should a request not be approved within a predefined period.

Additionally, we have specific workflows available for onboarding, offboarding and recruitment.

If these default workflows do not meet your requirements, it is also possible to create custom workflows using the Workflow builder tool.  The Workflow builder can be found at:

Administration > HR > Workflows

The process of building workflows is outside the scope of this article, but further resources can be found in the knowledgebase by searching for "Workflows".  There are also training videos available - please see the "Further resources" links throughout this article.

There are 3 distinct types of workflow available:

1. Approval – a workflow for anything attached to a system request such as a time-off request or a sensitive change such as a salary increase etc.  Usually, these requests will require an approval, but can also be set as "Notify only" workflows which will automatically approve the request.  These Workflows automatically replace the systems default workflow (when present) and trigger immediately as the request or change is submitted. 
   
   There are 14 types of approval workflow available:
   
   
   1. Allowance change - This type of workflow triggers when a change is made to the employee's timeoff allowances.
      
      
   2. Expenses - This type of workflow triggers when an expense report is submitted.
      
      
   3. Job change - This type of workflow triggers when a role-related field is changed on an employee's record.
      
      
   4. Mileage - This type of workflow triggers when a mileage report is submitted.
      
      
   5. New employee - This type of workflow triggers when a new employee is added to the system.
      
      
   6. Recruitment requisition - This type of workflow triggers when a new requisition is added to the recruitment module.
      
      
   7. Rotas - This type of workflow triggers when a rota is created.
      
      
   8. Salary change - This type of workflow triggers when a salary-related field is changed on an employee's record.
      
      
   9. Timeoff - This type of workflow triggers when timeoff is requested.
      
      
   10. Timeoff - deletion - This type of workflow triggers when an existing timeoff request is deleted.
       
       
   11. Timesheets - This type of workflow triggers when a timesheet is submitted.
       
       
   12. Time tracking - This type of workflow triggers when a time tracking record is created.
       
       
   13. Time off trades - This type of workflow triggers when an employee requests a timeoff trade.
       
       
   14. Training - This type of workflow triggers when a training record is created.
       
       

       Further resources:
       A training video on the topic of Approval workflows can be found in our training video library here.  There is also a knowledgebase article on the topic of Approval Workflow Steps available here.

        

2. Continuous – This workflow type runs when a condition is met.  This type of workflow triggers overnight as part of a batch process.
   
   There are 9 types of continuous workflows available:
   
   
   1. Calendar - The workflow will trigger on a given calendar date. This can be either a relative date, such as the first Friday of every month or an absolute date, such as "12th January".
      
      
   2. Changes - The workflow will trigger whenever a change has been made to a given piece of information, for example if an employee's start date or bank details changes.
      
      
   3. Trigger date - The workflow will trigger once on a specific date, based on the "When should this happen?" selection in the first step of the workflow. Please note, this will not trigger on the earliest date that a step might trigger in the workflow - it will always be based on the first step in the workflow. This is useful for things such as employee birthdays.
      
      
   4. Expenses cost - The workflow will trigger when the total cost on an expense report falls within a specified range.
      
      
   5. Mileage distance - The workflow will trigger when the total mileage distance on a mileage report falls within a specified range.
      
      
   6. Mileage cost - The workflow will trigger when the total mileage cost on a mileage report fall within a specified range.
      
      
   7. Timeoff duration - The workflow will trigger when the total time off duration for an employee falls within a specified range. You can also set a trigger date for this. If a trigger date is set, only time off instances after this date will used counted in the calculations.
      
      
   8. Timeoff instances - The workflow will trigger when the total number of instances of timeoff for an employee falls within a specified range.
       
   9. Employee age - The workflow will fire when an employee's age matches the conditions given.
      
      Further resources:
      A training video on the topic of Continuous workflows can be found in our training video library here. 
      A knowledgebase article on the topic of continuous workflow trigger types can be found here.
      

       

3. Tasks – Task workflows are one-off workflows that are set against employees for tasks such as onboarding and offboarding. 

   Unlike Approval and Continuous workflows these are typically manually triggered or "published" against a given employee or employees, though you can also automatically trigger these workflows from actions within the system such as a form submission.

   Instead of trigger types, the types for task workflows are used to identify the type of task you are assigning to the employee.  These labels are largely for reference:

   1. Onboarding 
   2. Offboarding
   3. Recruitment
   4. Task
      Further resources:
      A training video on the topic of Task workflows can be found in our training video library here. 

Workflow Conflicts

When creating workflows it is important to note that you can make workflows which perform actions based on the same reason such as multiple workflows for different types of employee on-boarding. 

Whilst task and continuous workflows will work when created in this way without conflict it is important to keep in mind that if you have several approval workflows that trigger on the same event, eg having 2x Approval (Job Change) workflows or 2x Approval (Timeoff) workflows, these will conflict with each other and as a result neither will trigger.

If you have 2 or more workflows that conflict you will see the below banner warning at the top of your workflow page and it is advised that you resolve any conflicts displayed here before triggering your workflows:

This warning does not mean that there are actual issues, just that having 2 or more of the same category of workflow could mean you have potential conflicts. 

Should this happen you can use workflow Diagnostics (accessed by the "Diagnostics" button at the bottom of the workflow table).  This will show you which workflows are conflicting for which employees to help identify the overlap.  You can then adjust, for example, the workflow sites to ensure that each employee only has one Timeoff workflow etc. as required.