Aluminium 3.00

by | Jul 4, 2023 | Releases

Relevance: All users
Version release: Aluminium 3.00 (including 2.04 to 3.00)
Release to staging: 24/06/2023
Release to production: 05/07/2023

 

Summary of functionality

We made it. There were so many parts to this version that we worried we might not hit the monthly release target on this one. So many little things including the quick tasks to counter some of the things we introduced in Aluminium 2.00.

We hope you find something here to delight you. My personal favourite is a tiny tweak to the schedule labels.

Leave digest

We have an inbuilt leave calendar and sync leave to your Outlook, Google, or other calendars but sometimes people want old school. So we now have a daily leave digest that people can subscribe to. Who is away today, you ask? Well, just check your email digest each morning.

Note: This functionality must be turned on and then can be opted in by the user.

 

Some other leave display changes

Leave is such a hot-button topic. Even though we don’t track it, we understand how much some people care. In this version, we have:

a) Add the committed balance into the leave dashboard. Where staff have committed balances, we have added that into their dashboards (so they can see how much of their balance is technically available now but might be committed already to leave in the future).

b) Show leave transaction history for terminated employees. Even if staff have left, we sometimes need to check their leave transaction records, so now you can.

c) Hide people without leave from the balances tables on the leave details page. If staff are not entitled to leave, they don’t need to clutter up the leave details page, so now they don’t. That may be harsh, but I think fair.

 

Increased manager access controls and higher duties now inherit additional user settings

Previously elementTIME offered ‘either’ ‘or’ controls for manager access at a system level. This version adds more granular controls so access can be different depending on the manager. For example, access to indirect report timesheets, personal dashboards, and leave balances can now be set at the manager level.

As part of “When a user is acting on behalf of a staff manager”, that user now gets access to the same dashboard information as well as existing timesheet and leave data and workflow responsibilities.

 

eNPS data by payrun

Previously eNPS data was only visible for the last payrun. Now eNPS data can be viewed across multiple payruns. Handy, right?

 

Excess-time approval tasks as part of other tasks page

We needed somewhere to put excess-time approval tasks when people required to approve excess-time don’t have access to the actual timesheet. So this is it. It is not perfect but we are already making it better.

 

 

All the other awesome things (big and small)

 

General

[FEAT] Add list of timesheets to users summary page. A new link has been added to the user summary page allowing access to all timesheets for that user even if they have been terminated.

[FIX] Fix “Login with Microsoft” button for Azure integration when on smaller screens. Some users on smaller mobile screens (when in vertical mode) were not able to view the log in with MS button due to the responsive design automatically hiding the object. This is sorted because discriminating against smaller screen users is not what we are about. Every user should be able to log in.

[FIX] Cache data issues. Fix issue on the process caching data where the logged user was being used to create the key and it was causing errors in some places, including the mobile app API. Not ideal so we resolved it.

[FIX] Fix issue found in the log that happens on backend with user views old timesheets and they didn’t have a pay-type associated with an hour recorded, generally during the testing phase of a new implementation.

[PERF] Run multiple improvements to system performance including updating system to use reader / writer connection splits by default rather than when forced. Modify database and created configuration store for frequent requests within session.

[CHORE] Add HR manager to system access filter on Staff management. You couldn’t filter staff management records by HR manager users but now you can.

[CHORE] Alter personal dashboard – time worked graph. The time worked graph on personal dashboard is now split by payrun not month because we all know payruns and months are not always equal.

[CHORE] Alter payroll dashboard layout to improve performance. A number of changes have been made to the payroll dashboard to improve the load services of the dashboard.

 

eNPS

[FIX] Fix issue with eNPS feedback being sent without content. eNPS HR feedback is optional but if null then was creating a null notification record. We all get enough emails so figured we could do without emails that tell us nothing.

[CHORE] Change eNPS responses report label. The label didn’t make sense. I am a dad so easily confused. We fixed it.

 

Timesheets

[FIX] Fix issues with recording panel into timecard. As part of the performance improvements, we split some of the timecard services. This meant that sometimes though timecard performance was improved the recording panel performance sucked, so we improved this.

[FIX] Fix issue with recording panel on time-card not loading automatically all times. This was kind of related to the above issue. In trying to make things more awesome we broke a couple of things, but then we fixed them and made them better straight away. Unlike my kids who still haven’t fixed the smashed bedroom window.

[FIX] Fix issue on approval screen when issues list wasn’t updating correctly after changes to the timesheet. Enough said – it wasn’t and now it is.

[FIX] Fix error on time-card with navigating among days by the buttons on the time-card header (previous / next).

[FIX] Fix issue where timecard form breaks when clicking on “Save and continue”. In an ironic way when selecting save and continue you could not actually continue at all. Now this option does what you think it would.

[FIX] Fix error when costing excess time against multiple work orders if the copy from previous day functionality is used. If you copied your day and you had multiple work orders and excess time, the excess time would cost to your master account not the relevant work orders. People love the copy functionality so we fixed it to work correctly.

[FIX] Fix error on trying to solve issues on timesheet approval page. Another thing the excess-time workflow from Aluminium 2.00 brought in. Luckily we picked it up and fixed it as part of the post go-live review.

[FIX] Fix issues with “Complete missing hours” button. People love the “Complete missing hours” button as well. So when it doesn’t work right we get told, which means we fixed it, like straight away.

[FIX] Fix issue with timesheet calculations when leave is approved after timesheet submission by an approver that is not part of timesheet workflow. This was creating a change in recorded hours so now the sequence needs to occur correctly and any approval triggers a recalculation.

[FIX] Fix copy from previous period error when time-types are no longer valid. If a user was copying their timesheet and the last timesheet had a time-type that was no longer valid then the copy would fail. Now the copy will post the hours to the master time-type and advise the user.

[CHORE] Alter content on warning modal when copying from previous timesheet. See above – the Copy from modal information wasn’t very helpful. So now it is.

[CHORE] Create information modal when using copy from previous day functionality. See above – the Copy from modal information wasn’t very helpful. So now it is.

[CHORE] Amend rounding issue when displaying issues. We weren’t always rounding issues to two decimal places. What is .0004563 of an hour anyway?

 

Excess-time

[FIX] Excess-time once fully approved could not be amended or switched to the secondary rule. This needs to happen so we fixed it.

[CHORE] Allow users that are not in the excess-time workflow to request amendments if they are on timesheet workflow. The new excess-time workflows caused some trouble where the different workflow rules clashed. But we managed to sort it out.

 

Reports

[FIX] Fix issue with detailed check report where only one timesheet is being returned – obviously not helpful, so resolved that.

[FIX] Fix report filters for detailed check report into my team’s timesheets. The filters for downloading the reports were not working – you could select download all the data or none of it but nothing in between, so we resolved that as well.

[FEAT] Create new CSV report: Keypay batch file. For Keypay users, we have created a new report allowing a batch file load of timesheet data into Keypay.

[CHORE] Update reports so new reports are set as inactive by default. So many reports, we used to turn them off on new instances but now we turn them on as needed.

[CHORE] Show sub-departments on filter for daily cost report to department managers. Managers can now select sub-departments if they need to.

 

Workflows

[FIX] Check status of workflow to ensure approve button is only showing when valid for user. For some users with workflow but not timesheet approval rights the approve button was not showing on other items even when it should. Hiding rarely solves anything, so we made sure they show again.

[FIX] Fix issue where managers could still make changes to a timesheet after they had already approved it. Look, I don’t want to mention this, but for a couple of hours, managers could approve a timesheet and still make changes. This should not happen so we stomped on it pretty quick.

 

Scheduling

[FIX] Fix end time calculation by changing the duration when creating a shift. If you created the end time for a shift by adding the start time and then duration, the end time would error when assigning to multiple days. Fixed.

[CHORE] Add the ability to view the role name linked to a shift with the shift name on the timesheet schedule view. Okay, this used to drive me cray cray. Even though this is a small thing I am super happy to say that now if a user has multiple roles but the same shift names, you can now see the role name and the shift name when you are scheduling them on the fly through their timesheet.

 

Integrations

[CHORE] Pass higher duty pay codes to accrued hours lines on Authority integration. Where tenant is using Authority, higher duty pay codes can be passed to accrued hours lines rather than base pay rate if needed.

[CHORE] Alter Synergy upload file to add higher duty pay code for accrued hours. Where tenant is using Synergy, higher duty pay codes can be passed to accrued hours lines rather than base pay rate if needed.

[CHORE] On some ERP systems where if staff record plant use against master project/work-order prior to allocating time to sub-work-orders, the plant use remains against the master. This shouldn’t happen so now it doesn’t.

 

API

[CHORE] Add user info to return of service.

[CHORE] Update documentation for service `…/auth/session/take` to add missing authorisation.

[CHORE] Add tenant theme info to service `GET …/tenant/current`.

[FIX] Fix swagger documentation for API service `POST …/auth/login`.

[FIX] Fix errors on API service to logout user.

[CHORE] Change Locked HTTP code from `201` to `200`.