title: HR Administrator FAQ - Employee & Absence Management description: HR administrator FAQ for time cockpit: maintain employee data, manage absences, review working time, and prepare exports for follow-up processing.

keywords: [hr administrator, employee data, absence approval, sick leave, vacation entitlement, working time, payroll export, hr faq]

HR Administrator FAQ

This FAQ answers common questions from HR administrators who maintain employee data, manage absences, and review working time information in time cockpit.

Note

For general time tracking questions, see the User FAQ. For developer/API questions, see the Developer FAQ.

Note

Reviewed in April 2026.

Employee Management & Onboarding

How do I add a new employee to time cockpit?

In standard time cockpit, onboarding usually has two parts:

  1. Create or enable the user account in Account Management.
  2. Maintain the employee's master data in User -> User Details.

The standard HR setup usually includes:

  • visibility
  • department assignment
  • holiday calendar
  • weekly hours of work
  • vacation entitlement
  • role assignment, if needed

Vacation entitlement is maintained separately in User -> Vacation Entitlement.

Typical standard roles include:

  • Time Tracking User
  • Project Manager
  • Project Controller
  • Department Lead
  • HR Admin
  • Billing Admin

For offboarding:

  1. Set Date of Separation in the employee record.
  2. In Account Management, set the user to Active = false if the user should no longer have access and should no longer be billed.
  3. Set Hidden if the user should no longer appear in selections.
  4. Do not delete the user if you need to keep historical data.

See Also:

How do I set up different working time models (full-time, part-time)?

In standard time cockpit, weekly hours of work define planned hours per weekday. They do not define exact normal working times such as 08:00-17:00.

Common setups are for example:

  • full-time with the same planned hours on each workday
  • part-time with reduced planned hours per day
  • part-time with planned hours only on selected weekdays
  • compressed weeks with more planned hours on fewer days

To configure this:

  1. Open User -> Weekly Hours of Work.
  2. Create or edit the record for the employee.
  3. Enter the planned hours for each weekday.
  4. Set days without planned work to 0 or leave empty.
  5. Add included overtime per month only if you use overtime calculation.
  6. Use validity periods when planned working time changes over time.

Important standard behavior:

  • weekly hours of work are maintained per employee
  • validity periods must not overlap
  • planned hours are used for target/actual comparison, overtime, and remaining-leave calculation
  • exact normal working times are not maintained in this list

See Also:

How do I bulk update employee information?

Use export when you need a review or handoff file, but be careful with import in standard time cockpit: the importer creates new rows and does not update existing ones.

That means:

  • use Data Export to review current employee data outside the system
  • use Data Import for controlled creation of new records
  • update existing employee master data in the relevant lists, or use customization if you need true bulk updates for existing records

If you prepare data externally, test the import mapping first and review the result before using it in production.

See Also:

Vacation & Absence Management

How do I configure vacation policies and entitlements?

In standard time cockpit, vacation entitlement is maintained per employee and calculated together with weekly hours of work.

The core setup is:

  1. Maintain the employee's planned working time in User -> Weekly Hours of Work.
  2. Maintain the employee's entitlement in User -> Vacation Entitlement.
  3. Use the vacation lists and the remaining-leave calculation for ongoing review.

Important standard behavior:

  • vacation entitlement is managed in weeks
  • remaining leave is also calculated in weeks
  • used vacation is converted based on the employee's planned hours of work
  • part-time and historical changes in weekly hours of work are considered in the calculation

If your company needs special accrual or expiration rules, review your current configuration carefully because the standard documentation mainly describes the entitlement and remaining-leave calculation, not custom policy automation.

See Also:

How do I approve or reject vacation requests?

If the approval workflow is enabled, HR administrators can approve absences for all users on behalf of department leads.

  1. Open the absence calendar described in Absence Time Management.
  2. Enable Show all users if you need to work across departments.
  3. Narrow the result with the Department and User filters if needed.
  4. Select a pending row in the list above the calendar to preview the absence.
  5. Use the approval or rejection action in the rightmost columns.

Standard behavior documented for this workflow:

  • HR administrators can approve on behalf of department leads
  • the calendar jumps to the start date of the selected absence
  • the requesting user receives a notification after approval or rejection
  • rejected absences are deleted

See Also:

How do I handle sick leave and medical absences?

Use User -> Sick Leave for sick-leave records. If the approval workflow is enabled for sick leave, the approval process is handled in the same absence calendar as other absence types.

For day-to-day work, this usually means:

  1. Create or review the sick-leave entry.
  2. Open the absence calendar if approval is required.
  3. Approve or reject the record there.
  4. Review the result in the employee's absence history and related working-time views.

The standard documentation describes absence entry and approval, but it does not document built-in handling for medical certificates or other external documents. If your process includes document storage, review your tenant setup separately.

See Also:

What's the difference between vacation, sick leave, and compensatory time off?

In standard time cockpit, these are separate absence types:

  • Vacation is used for leave that counts against vacation entitlement.
  • Sick Leave is tracked separately from vacation.
  • Compensatory Time Off is also tracked separately from vacation.

The approval workflow can be enabled separately for each absence type. Vacation entitlement and remaining leave are described in the working-time documentation, while the approval workflow for all three categories is described in the absence documentation.

See Also:

Compliance & Reporting

How do I run reports to monitor working time compliance?

The main standard views for HR administrators are:

  • Time Report for working time, breaks, remarks, and overtime in a selected period
  • Target-Actual Hours Comparison for planned versus actual hours across a date range
  • Overtime per Effective Date for an overtime snapshot on one date
  • Working Time Violations if your tenant uses working-time regulations
  • absence-related lists and the absence calendar for vacation, sick leave, and compensatory time

Use these views together depending on the question:

  1. Start with Time Report when you need a detailed view for one user and one period.
  2. Use Target-Actual Hours Comparison when you want to compare users across a date range.
  3. Use Overtime per Effective Date when you need the overtime balance on a specific date.
  4. Use Working Time Violations when you review rule-based violations and the feature is configured in your tenant.

See Also:

How do I prepare data for payroll processing?

In standard time cockpit, payroll preparation is mainly a review-and-export process.

Before exporting, review:

  • completed time entries for the payroll period
  • approved absences for the same period
  • planned versus actual hours where relevant
  • overtime balances if your payroll process uses them

Typical standard sources are:

The standard documentation explains how to export data, but the final payroll format depends on your downstream payroll system and any custom integration you use.

See Also:

Need More Help?

HR Administrator Resources

Related FAQs:

Documentation:

Support:

  • Email: support@timecockpit.com

Last updated: April 2026.