Setting up HR
The setup guide: organisation, people, roles, time and leave, and payroll, in order, with real progress and a focused screen for every step.
Maska HR comes with a setup guide. It shows on Home as a band, and it always stays under Setup › Get started › Setup guide, even after you finish.
The guide page
The guide is a two-pane workbench. The five areas run down the left, each with its own count and state (Done, Next here, Ready or After People). The selected area’s steps sit on the right with their status, time and action. The guide opens on the area that holds your next step.
The header shows one number for the whole setup, such as 22/31 steps done, the time left, and Continue for the next step. Each area lists its Set up steps, then an Assign access step so the work can be shared. Its imports open from Import from CSV.
An area that needs another one first says so, for example Waiting on People · finish Job details; press it to open that step. An area also says what finishing it unlocks, such as “Finishing People unlocks Roles and Payroll”.
The Setup chip
The Setup chip in the top bar shows the same count as the guide, for example Setup 22/31 (steps done of all steps). Click it to open the guide. On a computer, hovering over it or moving keyboard focus to it shows a summary: the next step with Continue, the two steps after it, and what finishing the current area unlocks. On a phone, tapping it opens the summary as a sheet from the bottom.
| Area | What you set up | About |
|---|---|---|
| Organisation | Legal entity, locations in HR, departments, designations and grades, general settings | 8 min |
| People | Employees, job details, reporting lines, app invites | 10 min |
| Roles | The inbuilt roles, who has HR and payroll access, relationship roles, designation defaults | 5 min |
| Time & leave | Leave types and plans, holidays, shifts, weekly offs, punch and attendance rules, geofences | 15 min |
| Payroll | Pay group and schedule, registrations and salary bank, salary structure, everyone’s salary, the declaration window, ready to run | 20 min |
How progress is counted
A step is done only when someone did it: a record a person created or changed, a committed import of that type, or an explicit answer on the step. The defaults Maska sets up when HR is switched on never tick a step, so a new company starts at 0 steps done.
Some steps show a partial count, such as 42 of 50 people with a reporting manager. Imports are listed in every area for convenience but never count toward the count.
Working a step
Press a step’s button and the step opens as its own page. There is no popup. A slim setup bar sits under the top bar on that page, for example Setup › People › Job details · 8 left, with two buttons:
- Back to setup returns you to the guide, on the step’s area.
- Done, next checks the step again. If it is now done, the next open step opens. If it is not, the bar says what is still missing, and you can Skip for now.
On a phone, the setup bar is shorter and Done, next stays at the bottom of the screen.
Fix-it pages
Ten steps open a fix-it page instead of their usual screen: Locations in HR, Add employees, Job details, Reporting lines, Invite people to the app, Leave plans, Holidays, Weekly off, Geofences and Salary of every employee.
A fix-it page lists only what is still missing, such as the people with no department or designation, or the locations with no state. You can:
- fill in a row and save it there;
- tick many rows and set one value for all of them at once;
- open the matching import, for example Import job details from CSV, to bring the rest in from a spreadsheet.
Each row you fix leaves the list, and the count in the setup bar goes down. When the list is empty, press Done, next.
Every other step opens its usual screen, with the setup bar on top.
Answers you can give a step
- Skip for now keeps the step on the list; it does not count as done.
- Not needed counts as done. It is only offered on optional steps, such as geofences when staff do not punch with GPS.
- Use recommended accepts the default Maska suggests. For Holidays it adds this year’s national, gazetted and state holidays to each location’s calendar. For Shifts it creates a General shift from 09 to 18. For the other steps with a default (general settings, inbuilt roles, relationship roles, punch rules, attendance rules) it records that you keep the default.
- Undo removes your answer.
Organisation
Add your legal entity with its address or PAN, add the locations HR runs and give each its entity and state, then your departments and designations. Open an entity to add its tax numbers, registrations, outlet licences, documents and logo; see Company legal data and documents. Setup › Organisation › General holds the employee ID prefix, the month your leave year starts and the day your week starts.
People
Add employees one by one or with Import employees, then make sure each has a department, a designation and a reporting manager. The import can read a manager’s name and lets you mark the people at the top; see Data import. Inviting people to the app is optional.
Roles
Check the inbuilt roles, then give HR and payroll access to the people who run it with you. See Roles and permissions.
Time and leave
Create leave types and plans, holidays for each location, shifts and weekly offs. The punch and attendance rules start on safe defaults; review them or keep them.
Payroll
The Payroll area reads the same checks as Payroll › Settings › Readiness for your default pay group. Every check that is not green is listed under Ready to run with a link to the screen that fixes it.
The Assign access step in this area is done when one person prepares payroll and a different person, or the owner, approves it.
Hiding the guide on Home
Hide on the Home band hides it for everyone in your company. The guide stays under Setup › Get started, where Show on Home brings the band back.