We’re excited to announce the latest updates to Humanforce Cloud! This release includes more alert configuration in Humanforce Cloud, and improvements to Timesheets, Payroll, and Leave Approvals to enhance functionality and usability. Read on for all the details.

Release Schedule

• All Humanforce Cloud accounts and UAT environments will be automatically updated to version 6.0.40 overnight on Wednesday 27th November 2024.
• Staging environments were automatically updated on Thursday 14th November 2024.

Holiday season release schedule for Humanforce Cloud

To ensure you are well placed to meet the challenges of operations over the busy holiday season, we are pausing our release schedule for Humanforce Cloud from the release of 6.0.40 on Wednesday 27th November 2024 until Wednesday 8th January 2025. 

As usual, we’ll provide advance notice of what the automatic update on 8th January 2025 will include, with release notes provided here on Monday 16th December. 

Back Office to Humanforce Cloud

We continue to invest in enabling you to perform key workforce management and payroll tasks faster and more efficiently in Humanforce Cloud. In this release, we’re pleased to bring the following capabilities into Humanforce Cloud.

Support for Restrictive alerts in Roster Manager

Roster Manager now fully supports the Employee Role Restriction and Hours Required alerts when configured as Restrictive.  The Restrictive option prevents saving the shift if it doesn’t meet the alert criteria, making it an error rather than a simple warning. Setup alerts via Admin > System Config > Clock-In Settings.

More roster alert configurations in Web

You can now fully configure the following roster alerts via web:

• Employee's Age
• Employee Working Hours, and 
• Employee Gender. 

Setup alerts via Admin > System Config > Clock-In Settings. Note that the Employee Gender alert is not yet supported in Roster Manager.  

Roster Manager

Management > Rostering > Roster Manager  

Improved search and filtering behavior

We’ve fixed an issue where searching by employee name or code combined with Filters did not display correct results. Searches now respect applied filters.  

Roster/Template Manager

Management > Rostering > Roster/Template Manager  

Simplified fill shift workflow

When using qualifications within shift definitions, relevant qualifications are automatically applied as filters in the Fill Shift modal, helping you assign shifts to the correct employees more efficiently.  

Leave/Availability

Management > Availability > Leave/Availability  

Public holiday availability settings

Public holidays can now be marked as unavailable if an employee's requested leave period includes a public holiday, and they have an insufficient leave balance for the selected leave type. Previously the option to mark the PH as unavailable was not being offered in this scenario.

Leave Approvals

Management > Availability > Leave Approvals  

Accurate leave balances and payroll processing

We’ve resolved an issue where leave accruals and deductions did not update as expected if linked leave requests were deleted or unauthorised. This update ensures accurate leave balances, payroll processing, and clearer timesheet records.  

Enhanced usability

The Leave Approvals screen now displays five requests at a time, with expanded column widths to allow approval actions without scrolling.

Timesheets

Management > Timesheets > Timesheets  

Real-time change notifications

A warning banner now appears if another user makes changes to timesheets you’re viewing. You can refresh the page to see the updated timesheet, and your applied filters will be retained.

Improved drop-downs usability

We’ve adjusted shading and selection colours in multi-select drop-downs for better clarity and consistency.  

Reports

Reports > Roster > Roster By Roles  

Improved Roster By Roles report

Based on user feedback, the Roster By Roles report now uses a portrait layout, includes headers on all pages, and features more defined gridlines for improved readability.  

Payroll

Management > Timesheets > Payroll  

Support for Alesco Payroll integration

Humanforce Cloud now supports exporting payruns to Alesco Payroll. Once a payrun has been processed in Management > Timesheets > Payroll, click the Export drop-down and select Alesco to download the export file.

Humanforce Payroll Native Integration Enhancements

We’ve enhanced the cost centre mapping capabilities within Humanforce Payroll’s native integration with Humanforce WFM. This update introduces greater flexibility for managing cost centre allocations in payroll exports, helping ensure accurate timesheet data representation, even when employees work in cost centres different from their default.

• Expanded Scope for Cost Centre Mapping

  We’ve expanded the supported scopes available when selecting custom cost centre mappings. The following scopes are now supported, Period, Award Profile, Employment Type, Pay Type, Event, Event Function, and Event Type. This update provides greater flexibility and precision, ensuring all cost centre mapping options are available for accurate payroll data alignment.

• Default Cost Centre Mapping
  You can now use default cost centre values where a combination of timesheet attributes does not resolve to a cost centre map string. Instead of sending a blank string, it will now use the default value (if set).

  To set default cost centre values for an existing Humanforce Payroll integration:

  1. Go to Management > Advanced > Integration Central  and find your Humanforce Payroll integration
  2. Click the three dots on the right-hand side, and select Edit
  3. Click Payroll Export to skip ahead to the relevant section
  4. Click Next to go to Payroll Export (page 2 of 2)
  5. Select the checkbox for the relevant cost centre and enter the values in the Default Value field

For further details check out Humanforce Payroll: Native Integration with Humanforce WFM in Humanforce Help. If you have any questions about how setting default cost centre values will impact payroll, submit a request via Humanforce Help.