Objects allow you to gather and store any employee data for a multitude of uses.
Whether it’s text, numbers or files, Objects provide a place to save the employee data that you want to keep or report on.
Ento provides a variety of common fields to capture employee data, but as each company is different, Objects are your way of customising the information your organisation captures and stores for each employee .
Object data can be added to Ento directly via Core HR, by employees during an onboard or other workflow, or by bulk upload using a file import. The data is then stored in Ento for future reference, and can be used in employee exports, for pre-filling fields in contracts and policy documents, and as filter options in Ento reports and dashboards.
Object Groups
Before creating any objects, set up a group for them in Core HR > Account Data > Object groups.
Housing Objects in a group defines how they will display in Ento, including on the ‘Edit employee ’ page of Core HR, where the objects will all show up in a new tab under the Object Group’s name.
If you would prefer this object group’s data was not visible on the ‘Edit employee ’ page to any managers, you can choose to hide an object group from view by unchecking the Visible on edit page checkbox for that object group. Alternatively, you can define which Object Groups each manager type should be able to see via Manager Permissions, so that some managers can see the group, and others can’t.
Creating Objects
Individual objects are created in Core HR > Account Data > Objects.
Choose an identifiable name for the object, and a group for it to sit within.
The ‘Type’ of object you create will either be text, numeric, file or date:
- Text is a given, and can be in the format of a short text input, long text input or dropdown.
- A numeric field will save numbers only. Things that can be a mixture of special characters or include spaces should instead be a text field, as a number field will strip leading zeroes. This means mobile numbers, BSB or account numbers should be text fields, whereas ‘kilometres travelled’ would be a number.
- File objects will allow a reasonable sized file, such as a contract or image, to be saved.
- Dates will provide a date picker for input.
The Field label and description are the text that will display next to the field on the Edit page.
The Field type will be locked depending on your previous ‘Type’ setting, but if it’s Text you’ll have a few options. Choosing ‘Dropdown’ will display an extra field to pick the Option Set that you can learn about creating below.
Finally, choose whether the field is mandatory or not, and then save.
Your object will now be ready for data entry wherever you choose to use it.
Option Sets
If your Object is taking the form of a dropdown field, it requires a set of options to populate that list. That’s where Option Sets come in.
Before you create a dropdown Object, you’re best off creating an Option Set through Core HR > Account Data > Option Sets.
Each option set can be used for more than one object, so Yes/No, True/False, etc. can just be created once.
When creating an option set, simply list as many options as you require.
The ‘Value’ is what will be stored in the system, what will be exported to reports, and what would need to be imported. This should be a more simple but unique ID without spaces or special characters.
The ‘Label’ on the other hand is what actually displays in the dropdown and should explain more clearly to the user what the value represents.
For example, ‘NZ’ could be a Value, and ‘New Zealand’ would be the Label.