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Employee self-service (ESS) is a web-based application that provides employees with access to their
personal records and their attendance &payroll details. The most common features of ESS allow
employees to change their own address, contact details and next of kin. Often included with ESS is
the ability for employees to apply for leave and have that application directed to the employee's
manager for consideration. Some applications enable employees to change their bank account
details and provide details of pay slips, both current and historical. ESS can operate as a feature on
an employer's intranet.
ESS is increasingly popular in the tertiary sector where there is a high proportion of the workforce
with computer and internet access. The principal advantage for employers providing ESS is that it is a
more efficient means of collecting changes to employee details and distributing payroll related
details to employees. This is particularly true for organizations dispersed over a number of physical
locations. Additionally, because employee self-service technology eliminates the need for postage
and paper printing of these forms, substantial monetary savings can be realized. HR professionals
increasingly value ESS as a means of empowering employees and reducing paperwork errors and
cost. ESS is becoming increasingly popular as more companies 'go green' in an effort to reduce paper
waste.
The biggest advantage that Employee Self-Service (ESS) brings to any company includes the relief
from some of the administrative work that comes with working in the Human Resources
Department, as well as putting the accuracy of the information into the hands of the person who
knows their information best i.e. the employee.
Besides being a useful tool for HR managers, Employee Self-Service also bridges the gap between
employees of an organization and the HR department, thus, bringing in a clear transparency of
records of leave and time attendance that results in satisfaction of the employee.
Key Benefits of the Employee Self-Service Module
The Employee Self-Service module offers a range of features that employees can use to update and
maintain their information. Employee Self Service option enables the employees to view their
Performance data on a daily basis. The information that is available currently on a monthly basis (as
part of pay slip) will now be available on-demand. Every employee can login and see his entire
attendance data till date, monthly as well as annually.
In particular, here is a list of common functions and benefits available to you when you use this
module properly:

Employees will see their personal and contact details as registered with the company. Personal
and contact details can be updated by employee. Relevant changes will be reflected only after
the approval by HR department
Employees can also see their job title, supervisors name, department & other official
information in Employee Self-Service portal.
Employees can also update their dependent information.
Employees can add new bank information to which they need the credit of salary.
Employees can view their Attendance Data on a daily basis. This includes shifts, attendance
status, late-in, hours worked & over time etc.
Employees can view their Shift Calendars online.
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Shift Rosters can be managed from ESS Portal by Reporting heads.
Employees can apply for Regularization of Attendance online and get it approved, totally cutting
down the work of HR. For Example, if someone forgets to punch or leaves early due to some
official work and cannot punch, then employee can send a request for marking manual
attendance to HR.
Employees can apply for leave and managers can approve their applications. This streamlines
the leave application processes and decreases the burden of your HR department. Employee will
see the details of leaves applied for which are pending for approval.
Employees can send additional request to HR using a request form available in the portal.
As you can see, Employee Self-Service has a huge impact on eliminating the paperwork flow that
traditionally has been part of the Human Resources functions to administer employees information.
The accuracy is also much improved, as the Human Resources Information Systems Analysts no
longer need to contact the employee to get the correct information. They simply become the
approvers of information that the employees initiate in the Employee Self-Service portal.
Tips on Implementing Employee Self-Service
Some key points to remember to make the transition to employees using Employee Self-Service
includes making sure that employees are properly trained on what they can and cant do in the
application. Without proper training your information is at risk for data integrity issues as well as
non-value added time on the part of Human Resources tracking down documentation for such
changes.
Another key point to remember is that you need the support of the top level in the Human
Resources Department to ensure that employees are held accountable for managing their own
information in the Employee Self-Service module.
Be prepared to answer a lot of questions such as login information for employees, how to do certain
functions in the Employee Self-Service application and you may have to do some hand holding in the
beginning to ensure that employees are comfortable that this is a value-added process for the
company and very important to get participation by all employees.

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Before we start working with ESS, user has to do some basic settings and configurations in Timelabs.
Here are the points:
1) By default employee code is used as username and his passoword in ESS. Employee can later
change his password from with the ESS portal.
2) A reporting head must be configured for each employee who will approve, reject or cancel
employees request. User can set reporting head from Timelabs portal Employee Menu
Reporting Heads.
3) User are provided three type of roles in ESS. System User Login, HR Login, Employee Login.
For HR user login, an employee has to be mapped with the role of HR user. This can be done
from Timelabs Application Portal - Manage User - ADD new user or EDIT an existing user and
specify the employee code in MAP TO EMPLOYEE CODE field

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System User Login

Login with System user will display you below webpage where you can enable or disable some
particular features of ESS.

1) Dashboard: Here you can find some quick links of ESS like Upcoming Birthdays of Employees,
Recent logs of ESS, Pending Request links etc.

2) Quick Menu:

User can configure ESS Settings, Holidays or ESS News by login with System user. ESS Settings and
ESS News can be configured only by System User. HR users and other Employees cannot do the
same.

ESS Settings: You will see General ESS Settings, Mail Setting for alerts and Authorization Limit
settings etc. from this section. Only System user will be able to do the same.

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Show OT in Timesheet
Allow will show OT column in Employee Timesheet in ESS portal.

Apply Leave in case of NO Leave Balance

If it is checked, employee cannot apply for leave if they do not have any leave balance.

Update Shift Roster by RH

This will allow Reporting Head / Manager to update shift roster of employees who report to
him/her.

Portal Access Link

Administrators must specify ESS Portal access links for internal network and external
network which will be shown in email alerts sent from ESS portal. Employees can access ESS
Portal directly by clicking these links within their emails clients.

Send Mail on Employee Request

If this option is checked RH will get email alert on each ESS request send by employees.
SMTP settings are required in Timelabs Desktop Engine to send mail alerts from the system
and the email id of the person should also be configured within the employee details.

Apply Authorization Time Limit for RH

If this setting configured, RH will not able to approve/reject ESS requests after a specific time
period. All the requests then show him in disabled mode. Only system user can

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approve/reject that type of requests or RH has to send an Auth Limit request from his portal
to System user. After approving Auth Limit, RH can be able to approve/reject those requests.

Apply Time Limit for Employee

This is another setting that provides control to administrators and HR department. Admins
can specify a time limit for employees within which, they have to apply for their Leave or
Tour Request for a given day. If this setting is configured, employee can not apply for
Leave/Tour after the time limit specified has exceeded. This time limit is in Number of Days.

Optional Settings available (specific to module license)

Apply RH to Approve/View Employee Docs

Employee Docs is an add-on module and only available to user who has activated the same
on his license. If this option is checked, RH will be able to approve/view the documents
uploaded by an employee.
Show Pay Slip to Employee
This is the part of Payroll module and only applicable if the Payroll module is activated. If it is
checked Employees are able to view/print their salary slips.
Compulsory to upload documents for IT Declarations
This is the part of Payroll module and only applicable if the Payroll module is activated. If this
is checked it will be mandatory to upload document proofs for employees while submitting
IT Declaration.

Approvers Setting: System user can set approvers for each module of ESS request. For example if
Attendance module is checked for Timelabs User (HR User), then reporting head will not able to see
Attendance requests of their employees. Only HR users will be able to approve/request those
requests.

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Holiday Calendar: This will display holiday list of selected company.

ESS News: System user can broadcast a message on each employees dashboard from this ESS News
panel.

When Employee login in ESS, they will see these News flash on the dashboard as shown below:

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3) Manager Service Menu: System user can View/Approve/Reject an Employees Personal Details,
Contact Details, Family Details, Leave Request, Tour Request, OT approval, Reset Employee
Password, release authorization limit for Reporting Head etc.

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Employee Login
Online management of employee data and making the attendance record along with leave balance
available to employees in real-time is the core purpose of putting an efficient employee self-service
portal to work, thus increasing the transparency between employees and management.
Automating process of Leave, attendance and tour application forms the basic part of ESS.
Apart from the above, an employee can see his personal details, contact details, official details,
account details, attendance and leave details in the ESS. He/She also can send a request to update
their personal details, contact and account details.
If an employee is a reporting head of any employee, he/she can View/Approve/Reject an Employees
Personal Details, Contact Details, Family Details, Leave Request, Tour Request, OT approval etc.
He/She also can mark a request to HR or System User for their approval.
DASHBOARD
Dashboard is available upon login to the portal where users can see their profile information along
with a snapshot of their pending requests and their previously approved / rejected requests. This
also shows the announcements made by the HR/Admin department

Users can see the birthdays of their colleagues in the system. To view all the updates of their
requests, users can click on More near recent updates section to view a complete list of requests
approved/rejected by their reporting heads.
1) Update Personal, Contact, Family and Account Details = Employee can send a request to
update his/her Personal, Contact, Family or Account Details from ESS Dashboard or Self
Service Menu.
For example, to update personal details click on Personal Details link on dashboard:

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Or click on Self Service Menu and then Personal Details:

On the above window update the details and after putting Remark, click on SUBMIT button.
The request then will be sent to Reporting Head. Similar process can be adopted for
submitting the contact information and family information for keeping their records updated
with HR /Admin.

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2) Timesheet
An employee can view his/her Daily Timesheet from the ESS portal. This allows the users to
keep track of their attendance and ensure that their attendance has been successfully
downloaded from the biometric device and reflecting within their account.
Users can view Timesheet for the current month as default and can also change the month
to view previous month timesheets. Monthly summary page allows users to view the
summary of the current selected month and Yearly summary shows their performance for
the entire year month by month.
Users also can send Tour request and regularize the attendance and apply for the leave
directly from the Timesheet by clicking on specific icons:

On the same page Employee can see his/her attendance in Monthly Summary or Yearly
Summary. See below snaps:
1. Monthly Summary

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2. Yearly Summary

3) Update/Regularize Attendance
An employee can update his/her attendance log as well from the ESS portal. To do the same
click on Dashboard Shortcut link or go to Self Service Menu and then Regularize Attendance:

Here on the above page select the date for which the attendance update request has to be
sent to the reporting head. Enter In-Time and Out-Time and then click on Add New button.
If there are multiple entries for the same day, repeat the process.

Now at last enter a Remark and SUBMIT the request.

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To view the list of pending requests already submitted, Go to Self Service Menu and then
Regularize Attendance. Scroll at the bottom of the page. See the screen shot below.

If users need to edit/remove an existing request, click the icon in the action column.
4) Send Tour / Business Trip Request
System allows users to apply online for Full day business trips / tours & also for half day trips
/ tours. All the requests will be directed to the Reporting heads who can approve or reject
the request.
To apply Full Day Tour Request, click on Dashboard shortcut link or click on Self Service
Menu and then Tour Entries. Then Apply Tour Entries. Select ON TOUR from the radio
button and click on the calendar button to open the calendar for selecting date. Default time
will be reflected automatically. Enter the remarks for the request which can be viewed by
the approver before approving the request. All applied but pending requests will be shown
in the grid below. See screen shot below:

You will see below confirmation message on submission:

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To apply for a Half Day Tour Request, select Duty type as On Duty, enter In-Time & OutTime with tour date and click on SUBMIT button.

5) Send Leave Request

Leave management is an integrated module of the system where users will see all the leave
types applicable to themselves and their account balance available in the specific leave type.
Employee can request for a leave by clicking on Dashboard shortcut link or from Self Service
menu. The first screen would show a list of already approved leaves in the system, which will
also be reflected in the timesheet of the month.
Along with the list of approved leaves, users will also see their leave balance for all the
allotted leaves and what has already been adjusted in a month.
Users also see a Leave summary based either on calendar year or financial year for each
leave type. This will give a complete snapshot of leaves consumed and allotted in the entire
year on a month to month basis.

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Second tab is for submitting a new leave request. Click on Leave Application tab to
continue applying a leave request.

Here you will see two tabs, where you can either apply for a Paid Leave or for apply a
Compensatory Off. The list will show the leave requests already submitted and that are
currently pending for approval by the reporting manager. You can also change the status to
view the requests that have been rejected in the past by your reporting managers.

How to apply for Full Day Leave (Paid Leave)

From Paid Leave tab click Apply New Leave button. You will see below pop-up box:

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Leave the category as General Leave, select appropriate option for either a full day leave or a
half day leave and select which leave type this leave will be consumed from i.e. Earned Leave
or Sick Leave or Special Leave etc. As you select the Leave Type, system will show you the
available balance of that leave.
After filling all the details click on submit button. You will see below message box:

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How to apply for Half Day Leave (Paid Leave)

System allows users to apply for half day leave online and specify for which half the
user is applying for the leave. The only difference from full day leave is that half day
leave cannot span across multiple dates.

How to apply for Compensatory Off Leave

From Compensatory Off tab click Apply New CO button. You will see below pop-up box:

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There can be multiple type of compensatory off policies applicable in the organization.
Select your options carefully to avail & apply the right CO as the available working days for
weekly offs data will be shown according to the selection of CO TYPE.
Note: You can apply CO for a single date at a time and mark the date against which you
would like this leave / off to be adjusted. Please also ensure that if you are applying for a
FULL DAY CO, then you must select a previous working for FULL DAY, which is available
under the column AVAILABLE FOR. See screen shot above.
The ENTRY FROM column shows if you have earned this CO or it is a part of the opening
balance of CO credited to your account.
Your request would be submitted to the Reporting Head when you fill up the remarks and
mark appropriate selections.

6) Leave Cancellation Request

If for any reason, an employee needs to cancel his/her ALREADY Approved leave, they can
then send a Leave Cancelation request to their Reporting Heads. Go to Self Service Menu ->
Leave and then under the Approved Leaves Page click on Leave Cancellation icon to
proceed for the cancellation (as shown in the figure below):

Now from the next pop-up box type the reason for the cancellation and Press OK button to
send the request.

7) Send Additional Request = Additional request can be sent to Reporting Head, HR User or
System User by an employee. Click Additional Request from Dashboard link or from Self
Service Menu:

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On the above page fill the form and Click on SUBMIT button.
Submitted requests are placed in the grid below on the page.

8) View Shift Roster = Employees can view his/her Shift Roster or Scheduled Shift for the entire
month. Date along with applied shift name will show on the screen. See below snap shot:

9) Change Password = Employees can change their existing ESS login password from here:

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If Payroll is applicable, employees are able to see below additional fields in their ESS portal:

10) Salary Details = Employee can view his/her current salary along with salary components on
this page:

11) Advances & Loan = Employee can view his/her loan and advance details here.

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12) Salary Register Employee can view his/her issued monthly Salary from this page. They can
print the salary slips as well by clicking on print icon showing under Action column. Please
note this Salary Register option is only available when the same is enabled by system user
from ESS settings.

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13) IT Declaration = This module allows employees to submit their Tax Declarations to
HR/Reporting Manager. Income Tax savings declaration can be done at the beginning of
financial year or Monthly or whenever employee invest in new instrument. The module will
display like this:

Set Default Chapter-VIA Sections: Here employee can set default sections among the full list of
Chapter-VIA-Sections. Select investment sections and Save the details.

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Add new Declaration for Chapter VIA-80C: Go to ESS Self Service Menu Payroll Details IT
Declarations. Here click on Chapter VIA-80C and Add New Declaration. See below:

It will show you default sections only. To add more sections click on blue link on the same
window Add More Section or set default section from the main IT Declaration page.
Now from the above page select the sections, enter declaration amount and remark and Save
the details. You will see below confirmation message:

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Pending declarations will show on the main IT declaration page:

Add new Declaration for Chapter VIA-Other: Go to ESS Self Service Menu Payroll Details IT
Declarations. Here click on Chapter VIA-Other and Add New Declaration:

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It will show you default sections here. To update the section list here, either click on blue link
Add more sections or change Set Default sections list from main IT Declaration page.
Now from the above page select the section, enter declaration amount and remark and Save the
details. You will see below confirmation message:

Pending declarations will show on the main IT declaration page:

Declaration for House Rent: Go to ESS Self Service Menu Payroll Details IT Declarations
House Rent.

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From the above page click on Update Rent Details. Now from the next pop-up fill Rent Details
accordingly and click on Save button. The confirmation message will display like this:

Note: If annual rent paid exceed Rs. 1,00,000.00 per annum, it is mandatory to the employee to
report PAN No. of landlord along with Landlord Declaration Form to the employer. Landlord
Details can be entered from here:

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Other Income: Employee can submit details regarding the other income from this IT declaration
module. Click on Other Income from main IT declaration page and click on Add New button for
other income.

Submit IT Declaration Draft

Once all the declarations are added, employee needs to Submit the same to Payroll Reporting
Manager. After adding declaration details a Submit Draft button is shown on IT declaration
page. Click on that button to Submit the IT declarations:

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Once the draft is submitted successfully the status of all the declaration will changed to
Submitted

Once the declarations are approved by Payroll Reporting Manager the status of the declarations
will be changed here:

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14) Reimbursement = This module allows an employee to submit office, tour and travelling,
mobile etc expenses to his/her reporting manager.
Uploading New Bills: Click on Self Service Menu Reimbursement to upload a new bill:

Here select Reimbursement Type (i.e. tour, medical, mobile etc) first. Please note these
reimbursement types/categories are created and allotted from payroll module by your
reporting manager. If a Reimbursement type is not allotted to you by your payroll manager,
you will not able to view that category here.
Fill up other required details and at last click on Upload button. Uploaded bill are listed
under the Bill List. See below screen:

After uploading all the bills you need to Submit the same to your Reporting Manager for bill
claim.
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So now you need to select uploaded bills and click on Submit button. All pending submitted
bills can be seen by changing bill status. See below:

After approving submitted bills a claim will be generated and will be shown in next tab:

15) Asset List = Assets management is a part of Payroll Module. Assets are issued and recovered
from Payroll Module only by the HR. If any assets if issued to employee, he/she is able to
view the same from his ESS portal here.

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Reporting Head Role / Manager Service Menu

After login on ESS portal, Reporting Head will see an addition Menu on Dashboard called Manager
Service Menu. Reporting Heads can see the entire pending requests under the Pending Requests
for Your Approvals on the Dashboard:

or they can move on Manager Service Menu to view all the requests.

As reporting head can be from any department, by default they will see their own department. In
case multiple employees from other departments are also reporting to him/her, the RH will need to
select the Department from the drop down list and either select ALL or select specific department.

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On each request Reporting Head can perform following actions:
1) Approve a Request
Reporting Head can approve employees personal, family, account details. He can approve Tour
Entry, Leaves, Employee attendance, and additional requests. For example to approve a leave
request RH needs to click on Dashboard shortcut link under Pending Requests for Your
Approval or click on Manager Service Menu A/R Leave Applied

Note: A/R means Accept or Reject a request

Click here to approve

the request

On this page filter the pending request by sorting company, branch and department. On pending
request list you will see approve leave icon. Click on this Approve Leave icon
, which will open a
new pop up window with the leave details as requested by the employee. See figure below:

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Here on above page, review the details. Leave details section will show the total number of days
for which leave has been applied, along with the date range below and leave type specified by
the employee against which this leave has to be adjusted. The value in the adjustment box
should be equal to the total duration of days for which the leave is being applied. Manager /
Reporting Heads can optionally put a comment and click on Approve button to update the
status of the request and grant the leave.
System can also send an email alert back to employee whenever the request has been either
approved or rejected by the manager. If you want to send an email alert to employee on
approval, check mark on Send Mail on Request and then click on Approve button.
Note: - By default, send mail to employee on update of request status is disabled. SMTP
settings are required in the server configuration section for sending email.
2) Reject a Request
Above request can also be rejected by Reporting Head. On the pending request list you will see a
request icon under the Action menu.

3) Mark a Request to HR User

Reporting Head can mark Employees request to HR user. Those requests then will be showing
on HR Users panel. HR user then can approve, reject or mark the request to system user. For
example to Mark an Attendance request to HR open the pending Attendance request from
Dashboard shortcut link or click on A/R Attendance under the Manager Service Menu:

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From above page check mark the pending request, select Mark to HR from the drop-down list
under the Action menu and at last click on A/R Mark Selected button.
4) Mark a Request to System User
Same as above Reporting Head or HR user can mark employees requests to system user as well.
System user then can Approve or reject those requests.

5) Approve/Book OT(optional)
If OT approval is applicable from Company Settings, this option will be shown on Reporting
Heads panel. Reporting Head can approve employees Overtime from this section.

This OT approval can be done either by Employee wise or Date wise. User also can Export OT data
from there and can upload the excel sheet again after updating Book OT.
6) Request Authorization Limit Release
The administrator can set a limit for approving or rejecting a request by any reporting employee
in the system. If the time limit for updating the status of the request has exceeded, Reporting
Head then will not able to Approve/Reject the requests. The request will be showing in disabled
mode to Reporting Head as shown below:

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In this case Reporting Head should get his authorization limit released from the System User /
Administrator.
To request for releasing Authorization Limit, Reporting Head needs to click on Request
AuthLimit Release under the Manager Service Menu from ESS portal (as shown in the figure
below).

Once the requested is submitted, it will be gone to System User/Administrator Panel. System
user / Administrator can approve/reject this request by the reporting head. Once the request is
approved, Reporting Head will be able to Approve/Reject Employee requests for that specific
period.
7) Update Shift Roster
Reporting Head can also update Shift Roster of the employees from his ESS panel.

View Roster = Will display shift roster for the selected employees.
Update Roster = Reporting Head can update shift roster of the selected employees from this button.
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Export Excel = Shift roster can be exported into excel sheet. Reporting Head then can update shift
roster simultaneously for his employees and upload the same from Update Roster wizard.
8) View Employee Details = This menu is located under the Manager Service Menu:

From this menu RH can View Timesheet, Leaves Details, Reimburse Claim and Assets list of the
employees reporting to him/her.

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