Relevance: All users
Version release: Aluminium 12.00 (including from 11.07)
Release to staging: 10/01/2025
Planned release to production: 16/01/2025
Actual release to production: 16/01/2025
Summary of functionality
Aluminium 12.00 is a release with a lot of little things we just wanted to get out of the way for the start of the year. There is nothing by itself that is major. Well, maybe a few things, but really just a lot of individual cool stuff and a collection of tiny enhancements and fixes.
Info notes change
At the moment, info notes that advise of system changes are available to view prior to a timesheet being approved, but once approved, they disappear. Now the notes will remain visible regardless of the timesheet status. Handy for when you want to go back to past payruns and check something.
New flag to allow managers to view indirect reports details within reports
When councils have managers where they have enabled those managers to view indirect reports, they can also now enable them to have access to include indirect report data with their direct report data when downloading reports. This can be applied at an individual manager level. For this to work, councils must have the following enabled in their general settings:
Allow managers to access indirect reports:
Allow managers access to download reports:
Downloadable integration log
The integration log was available on the integration modal but could not be downloaded. This version adds the ability to download the integration log to Excel. It also adds in a bunch more data and handy information like where the data has ended up. Oh, we also froze the header on the integration log modal to get rid of that scroll-up thing.
Change to cost centre strings
Where a cost centre string has only a single choice available in any part of the string, then the user will no longer be forced to select the single choice. Instead, similar to what happens when users don’t have options for other things, the only option they have is the only option they see, and they don’t have to select it first. Not saying we don’t like people having options, but we shouldn’t force them to choose if no choice is available.
Timesheet workflow change for excluding timesheets
If a timesheet has unapproved requests, then it can no longer be excluded. This includes requests for leave, excess-time, and duties. We probably don’t even need to talk about why this is an issue and can just move on, but where requests were outstanding and part of a closed payrun, they could cause issues.
This will also mean that when bulk-excluding timesheets, this requirement will still come into play.
Ability to apply for duties request directly from the My teams duty calendars and show public holidays
On the My teams duty calendars page, the calendar did not show public holidays, and there was no way to apply for duties for staff on this page. Now, users with the ability to request duties for themselves or others will be able to do so from the calendar view and also see public holidays when looking at duties. Handy, right?
Special public holidays
If councils create their own public holidays – called special public holidays for things like shutdown periods and union days (remembering you can choose who gets special public holidays) – then those public holidays, like the normal holidays, show automatically on team leave calendars. Because that is kinda helpful, right?
Totals in timesheet plant view
The plant view in a timesheet is cool; we get that. It shows a snapshot of all the plant costed to by a user in a payrun period. But now it is even cooler. The totals are now shown, not just the individual use. So, put those calculators away.
Add ability to turn URLs into clickable links from comments
For councils using custom content to help staff complete overtime, call-out, and other forms, users can now link back completed requests into their timesheet comments. This means managers and supervisors can just click on the comment to view the completed form, which is kinda cool.
The list of all the naughty and nice things (aka small enhancements and fixes over Christmas) passed on by Santa
General
Fix character case issue on tags – Turns out tags that were not title case could not be created, and no validation message was shown. Now, you can create them. I could try to find something more to write about here, but I have nothing.
Fix issue with button to reassign manager on user termination that is trying to submit the form rather than reassign the manager. Because buttons should do what they say. Especially if they say “Do not touch”. Actually, what does a button do if it says “Do not touch”? The only way to find out is to press it. I strongly recommend this behaviour, except when in a submarine.
Leave
Fix error when applying for a part day leave across public holidays – There was an issue when users applied for part day leave across multiple days in a single request that including public holidays where, you guessed it, the leave would also apply on the public holiday regardless of whether staff were scheduled to work on the holiday or not. Now they just get the leave if they should get the leave. Kinda makes sense I reckon. Well done, me (though I didn’t fix this one).
Fix error where leave request doesn’t display on timesheet if booked on a public holiday – If a user did have leave on a public holiday, then the schedule would show the day was a public holiday but would not show the fact that the user was on leave. Which is kinda like lying cause they were on leave. Stop the lying, we said, and now a user schedule will show leave and public holidays together if a user has both on the same day. Representing like the friends they are.
Amend leave calendars to show a maximum of two decimal places – Don’t get me started on the whole decimal vs minutes. It turns out no one wants to know if someone is taking 7.231787777777 hours of leave today. So now, when people take those not-divisible-by-100 leave durations, they will round to the closest minute in the calendars.
Fix issue where notification is sent even if notifications are turned off to be triggered when leave request is cancelled – Life is busy, we get that. So if notifications are off, then notifications should not be sent. Now if they are off, then they actually are off.
Fix bug with searching balances on leave details page – On the My teams leave details page, when viewing the leave balances, after selecting the leave type a manager or payroll want displayed, if you searched for a user nothing would happen. It was kinda like my dates at university – nothing ever happened. But unlike my issues, it turns out this one can be fixed, so now it is.
Fix error if trying to add an attachment at the same time as cancelling a leave request – When adding an attachment to a leave request at the same time as trying cancel the request, users would get a ‘601: Sorry, this service is not implemented yet’ error. I mean, seriously. Why tell you that you can do something and then when you try to do it, tell you you can’t? Sounds a bit like one of my outdoor education teachers actually. Yes, you can go climbing. No, not Everest. Okay, maybe not the same, but anyway, now it is fixed.
Timesheets
Alter message when staff doesn’t have a main role for the whole timesheet period – We have tried to make validation messages on the approve timesheet page more helpful because they are called ‘help text’ after all.
Add button ‘Back to timesheet details’ above the timesheet issue and summary listing on the timesheet approve page – Yes you could use the button at the bottom of the page, but all that scrolling was so tiring. So, to save mouse wear and tear, now there is a button at the top of the page as well. We estimate council savings on mouse costs due to decreased scrolling needs to be at least 0.0000005 cents per year*.
*Note: We didn’t actually estimate this; I just found it really annoying.
Fix issue where “Plant Summary” view was not showing on the timesheet if the user only recorded plant use against non-standard plant items. Because even non-standard counts, so now it shows.
Fix issue with PH cost centre when checking holidays from timesheets if part of the time included historic roles. Sometimes those cost centres can change, and when they do, we need to respect it, so we now do.
Workflow
Fix workflow errors when if payroll return timesheets they can no longer approve or if they are the approver on more than one step they cannot do final approval – this is a bit of an annoying one. Now payroll can do what payroll needs to do when they need to do it, even if technically they have already done it once but need to do it again.
Fix weird issues happening on workflow modal – Okay, when you see a bug task that includes the word ‘weird’, you know it is either because the person making the request is too lazy to describe the issue or the bugs are kinda random. As I created this one, I would just like to point out that it is definitely not the first option. Basically, in some random cases, if managers tried to approve things via the workflow modal there was an extra submit button showing, even though it was submitted already. And if you rebuilt the workflow for a leave request, sometimes it would change the status to resubmitted, which is a bit like saying this request that exists does not actually exist. Like that whole if the cat is in a box thing. See, I told you it was weird.
Remove ability to skip submit a timesheet when the timesheet has submission issues – You must now resolve issues before you can skip submit.
