Part of the reason paper forms are so common is you can create the exact form and workflow that you need where this is challenging in most HR systems. But there are risks that come with the flexibility of paper forms, such as they tend to get lost and submitted late. Today I will show you how you can create the forms and workflows you need with Scissortail HCM.
I am logged into Scissortail as a system administrator and have Custom Forms open. Let’s open the Handbook Acknowledgement Form. I used the button here to load a PDF into the system and added the fields from Scissortail we want to populate. We can look at the Employee Last Name field and here you can see the requirements at the top, where we are pulling it from the database, and at the bottom the location on the form.
Once we have created the form our next step will be to create a workflow to send it for approval. Scissortail HCM has custom workflows you can build that will tell the system how the form should be routed, what happens each step of the way, when notifications should happen, and what happens if it is rejected.
Let’s pull up Workflows and take a look at a simple workflow for a Time Off Request. I can see all the steps and how they are linked together. If I click on the Generate Email step I can see the email that will be sent. The tags on the right will pull data from the database and populate in the email like the Recipient First Name. Once the email is sent at the bottom I can see the next step is to wait for manager approval. If I look at the manager approval step I can see if the manager approves it sends an email and same for rejected. Let’s look at the rejected email and at the bottom you can see it moves on to the End step. The Approved email looks similar just different wording in the email.
Now let’s look at a more complicated workflow and have the system build it for us using a default workflow. We will click Add Default and pick the Timesheet option. Let’s select the Approve Levels (With Email Steps). Let’s zoom out so we can see the workflow. This workflow takes us through 5 approval levels. Let’s zoom in and look at the first step which splits the request to 5 different approval levels. You will see the each just lead to an email. Let’s look at the first approval email. Then it goes on to where the manager can approve or reject and what happens on each – an email to 2nd approver or a rejected email. Each approval step looks the same. There is a join which joins the workflow back together after certain approver step.
Let’s look at one more workflow for FMLA Questionnaire that helps an employee determine if they are eligible for FMLA leave. Let’s zoom out on it to see the overall workflow. Next let’s look at the first question. In the middle you can see the question and the steps below and where each goes.
Being able to create your own custom forms and workflows with Scissortail HCM makes your job easier.