Create custom documents that your employees can review and sign
One of foundU's most beneficial HR features is the Document Library. This feature allows you to create and store personalised document templates, which can be issued to employees for signing and stored against their profiles.
Some common use cases for this are:
- Employment Agreements/ Letters of offer
- Employment contracts
- Employee handbooks
- Performance management documents
This article will cover:
- Key information before you start
- How to create your document templates
- Data placeholders
- How to send document templates either in bulk or to individual employees
- How employees can review and store their documents
- Document communications
- Document reporting
- FAQs
For a comprehensive review from start to finish of the Document Library and other useful Employee Management features, please watch our On-Demand webinar on Exploring the Employee Management Tools.
Using the Document Library
When it comes to employee management tools in foundU, there are two options available for capturing an employee's acknowledgment, if necessary.
These options offer ways to simplify the acknowledgment process and ensure effective communication with employees. Below, we have highlighted a few key features:
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Terms and Conditions
- Used for general policies that apply to all (or a specific group of employees).
- Terms and Conditions do not contain an employee's personal information.
- Can be included as part of the employee's 5-step onboarding journey.
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Document Library
- Used to create a library of custom documents.
- Data placeholders can be added to apply an employee's personal information.
- It is not included as part of the employee 5-step onboarding journey; however, documents can be issued to both Pending and Approved People.
The Document Library feature is a valuable tool for storing and easily accessing a collection of documents, which can be distributed to your workforce as needed. To start using this feature, you'll first need to create your Documents within your library.
When making use of this feature, it is important to understand the specific workflow, as outlined below:
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- Create a Document Template.
- Review a Document Template.
- Send the Document to the employee(s).
- Employee reviews and signs the Document.
Permission Reminder: Admins must have the 'Access Document Library' permission enabled to create, edit and save document templates.
Create a Document Template:
- Navigate to the main menu, Platform Settings > Document Library.
- Select the required action:
- To create a new template - select + Add Template.
- To edit an existing template - select the edit icon (pencil).
- To delete an existing document - select the delete icon (bin).
- When creating a new template, add a unique Title.
Hot tip: Consider using a naming convention, preferably something descriptive so it is easy to identify but that can also be sent directly to employees without edit.
- In the Document Editor, you can add in your content by:
- Writing your document from scratch in the editor.
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Copying and pasting your content from an external document (e.g., a word document).
- Personalise your template by:
- Adding Data placeholders - these include an employee's name, pay rate, and signature. Please refer to the section below for more details.
- Using the top toolbar to format the text to suit.
- Select Preview to review the document's formatting. This displays how the document will appear to your employees.
Please note: The Document Library has specific formatting rules. Therefore, copying content from an external source may require reformatting and checking with Preview. - Select Save once completed.
In addition to being signable, your templates can automatically pull certain information from employee profiles using Data placeholders.
This allows you to create standardised documents that can be personalised with prefilled employee personal details, such as their name, address, and rate of pay before being sent to the employee.
Hot tip: When using multiple placeholders in a row, remember to include the spaces in between.
In the lists below, we have listed all the Data placeholders and indicated where they pull data from in your platform.
Dates
- Employee Accepted Date - Add the date when the document is signed by the employee.
- Date Issued to Employee - Adds date when templates are issued to the employee.
Employee Details
The following details can be found and edited from the Employee's Profile > Employee Card > Details.
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Employee ID
Hot tip: An Employee ID is applied when an employee is registered and cannot be edited.
- Employee First Name
- Employee Last Name
- Employee Email
- Employee Street
- Employee Suburb
- Employee State
- Employee Postcode
- Employee Mobile
- Employee Date of Birth
These last two are located on the Employee's Profile > Overview page; these fields are generally added as part of the employee approval workflow; however, they can be updated manually. This is beneficial if you are sending a document to a person currently onboarding.
- Employee Start Date - Employment start date.
- Employee Manager - Manager.
Operation Details
When a position is assigned to a permanent employee, an Operation is required to be selected. Information from the selected Operation can be applied to your Document Template.
The following details can be found and edited from the selected Operation > Details > Details.
- Operation Name
- Operation Address
- Operation Phone
The last placeholder is located in the selected Operation > Overview.
- Operation Manager - Manager.
Office Code (Entity) Details
When a person is approved in foundU, their Office Code is added as part of the employee approval workflow.
However, it can be updated manually from the Employee Profile > Overview, which may be the case if you are sending a document to a person currently onboarding.
The following details can be found and edited from the main menu > Payroll Settings > Office Code.
- Entity Company Name
- Entity ABN
- Entity Address
- Entity Contact
- Entity Phone
- Entity Label Name
- Entity Logo
Position Details
The following details are applied to an employee's profile when setting up a position, located the Employee's Profile > Employee Card > Employment Type.
- Position Start Date
- Position Title (Custom)
- Award
- Positions Table - lists employees' position details in table format.
- Annual Salary (with Super)
- Annual Salary (without Super)
- Hourly Rate (4 decimals)
- Hourly Rate (2 decimals)
- Payment Cycle - this is set in your employee's assigned Operation details.
- Contracted Hours (per Week)
- Employment Basis - Full Time, Part Time, Casual.
The following details can be found and edited from the Employee's Profile > Financial > Superannuation.
- Employer Super Contribution
- Default Super Fund - adds Employee's superfund name and USI.
The placeholders below are set up in the Award itself.
- Position Title (Award)
- Classification (Award)
- Max Ordinary Hours (per Day)
Authorisation Details
The data for these placeholders are captured during the process of sending a document to an employee.
- Employee Full Name - from the Employee's Profile > Employee Card > Details.
- Employee Signature - signature is applied after the employee has reviewed and signed the document.
- Authorised Officer Name - name of the Admin User logged in.
- Authorised Officer Signature - Admin User's signature; this is captured when sending documents to employees.
Sending Documents to employees
It's important to carefully consider the best way to send a document template from your platform. Templates can be sent to multiple employees at once or individually, depending on your needs.
When sending a document to multiple employees, it is important to keep in mind that the document template can't be reviewed or edited. With this in mind, this method is it's best suited for distributing a generic document (for example, a notice) or other documents with only a few data placeholders.
Permission Reminder: Admins must have the 'Manage and send Employee documents' permission enabled to send a document. Without this permission, your admins may be able to view a list of documents on the employee's profile. However, this will depend on the other permissions granted to your admin users.
Send a document template to multiple employees:
- Navigate to People > Approved/ Pending People.
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Choose the employees to send the document to by:
- Selecting employees individually (for specific employees).
- Filter your employees (to send to a specific group of employees).
- From Bulk Actions, select:
- Issue Document to Selected - if you have manually selected your employees.
- Issue Document to All Filtered - if you choose to filter your people menu.
- In the workflow, select the template from the drop-down menu, then select Next.
- The workflow's next steps will vary depending on whether your document template contains data placeholders or an authorised signature.
- No data placeholders and no authorised signature; you can send the document straight away.
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Uses data placeholders, you'll receive a warning reminding you of the placeholders used within the template. Select Next once reviewed.
Hot tip: When using data placeholders, please ensure that the employees you're sending the document have the applicable data, as any missing data will be left blank on the sent document.
For example, if you send a document that makes use of the position data placeholders and the employees do not yet have positions, nothing will be displayed in that section.
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Uses an authorised signature, you will be prompted to add it at this stage.
- You can select the undo button to undo your last signature stroke. This is useful for multiple-part digital signatures.
- You can also select the delete button to erase the whole digital signature and start again.
- When ready, select Confirm and send.
For detailed documents like employment contracts, it's best to send them to employees individually. This approach allows you to review, edit, and save the document template before sending it out.
Permission Reminder: Admins must have the 'Manage and send Employee documents' permission enabled to send a document. Without this permission, your admins may be able to view a list of documents on the employee's profile. However, this will depend on the other permissions granted to your admin users.
How to send a document template to employees individually:
- From the quick menu, navigate to People > Approved/ Pending People, locate and select the employee name to go into their profile.
- Navigate to the Documents icon > Documents tab.
- Select Add Document; this will open up the Document Editor Screen.
- To load a template from the Document Library, select Search Existing Templates. From the drop-down list, find your document template and select Use Template.
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Review and apply any manual edits to the document if needed, and when ready, select Save.
Hot tip: When using data placeholders, please review the document by selecting Preview to ensure that the employees you're sending the document have the applicable data, as any missing data will be left blank on the sent document.
For example, if you send a document that makes use of the position data placeholders and the employees do not yet have positions, nothing will be displayed in that section.
Please see the Data Placeholders section above for details on where data is pulled from.
- Select Back to Candidate Profile to navigate back to the Employee Profile Overview.
- Saving a document does not automatically send it; you have the option to review and edit at your own convenience prior to sending. To send the document, navigate back to Documents > Documents and select the send icon (paper aeroplane).
- At this point, you will be prompted to provide the signature; if you use an Authorised Signature placeholder, this signature will be applied to your document.
- Select Send; this will automatically notify your employee to inform them they have a document to review and sign.
Once a document has been sent to the employee, they will receive a message notifying them that they have a document to download and sign.
For easy access, employees can download and sign their documents from the Employee App.
How can my Employees sign their documents:
- The employee will receive an email/ SMS (depending on your settings) notifying them to download and sign the document.
- In the employee app, an additional notification is displayed. The employee can select the notification to direct them to the document.
- The employee can then select, review and sign the document. Once the document has been signed by the employee, an email will be sent to their manager.
For further reading to assist your employees with signing their documents, please refer to our employee article on Pending documents to sign.
Document Storage
After an employee signs a document, it will be stored for that employee and cannot be deleted. This will help you maintain an audit history of all documents sent to your employees.
Both admin users and employees can view and download their signed documents at any time. We will explain how both employees and admin users can access stored documents below.
Employees - Employee App
The employee can access their documents from their app at any time. This can be done from the main menu > View Profile > Documents > My Documents.
Admin Users - Employee Profile
Documents are stored and can be reviewed from the employee's profile. To find an employee's document history, navigate to the Documents icon > Documents tab.
You can view a list of all documents linked to the employee from the Documents tab. These documents will have one of the following statuses, reflecting the stage of the document.
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Unsent
- The document has been saved on the employee's profile and has not been sent.
- Unsent documents can be sent, edited, or deleted.
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Pending Approval
- The document has been sent to the employee for review and signature.
- Pending Approval documents can be sent (this will just trigger a second notification) or deleted.
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Approved
- The employee has downloaded and signed the document.
- Approved documents can only be downloaded. To download, select the download icon.
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Unsent
Communications, Reporting and FAQs
Your platform provides platform-wide communication specific to offered shifts, which you can send to your employees or managers.
These communications are sent using email by default. However, if your platform has SMS enabled, you may choose to receive them via SMS instead.
Permission reminder: Your ability to edit communication settings and content may be restricted based on your permissions.
Below is a list of some of the key communications. You can customise the content of these notifications to better suit your specific needs:
- Admin Send Document To Candidate
| ID | Recipient | Default content |
| 115 | Employee | Notifying employees they have a document to review. |
- Employee Approve Document
| ID | Recipient | Default content |
| 116 | Employee | Notifying employees confirming the document has been reviewed. |
- Admin notification for Employee signing document
| ID | Recipient | Default content |
| 144 | Dynamic | Admin is notified that the employee has signed a document. |
To learn how to edit your platform communication templates, please refer to our article on Personalising your email and SMS message templates.
If you're looking to keep track of which documents have been accepted by employees, as well as when they did so, we have two solutions available.
- In the Employee's Profile > Documents > Documents.
- This option lists all Documents that have been saved or sent to an employee.
For more information, please refer to the section on Signing and storing the documents above.
- Using the Employee Document Report.
- This option lists all employees who have accepted or are yet to accept any documents sent.
- This report can also be filtered for specific documents.
Please note: This report is updated at 3 am daily. Documents sent today will be displayed in the report tomorrow.
To run the Employee Document Report:
- Navigate to Reports > Workforce and select Employee Document Report.
- Specify your date range, or leave blank for all data.
- Apply any filters to view documents for:
- Specific Employees
- Document (Specify Document)
- Office Code
- Document Status
- Employment Type
- Manager
- Employee Status
- Optionally, you can select the Date Approved checkbox.
- This will filter your results by the document approval date rather than the date the document was sent.
- Select Submit. You can also Export the data into a CSV, PDF or Print.
Is it possible to send multiple documents to the same employees simultaneously?
When sending documents on your platform, you can only send one at a time using one of the methods in the sections above.
If you are looking to send multiple documents to the same employee, you would have to save/ send the first document and then send the second one.
This will result in the employee having multiple pending documents at the same time.
What if I want the same authorising signature on all document templates sent?
When using the placeholder for the Authorised Signature, it will capture and add the signature of the Admin User sending the document.
If your company has an Authorised Officer whose signature is used for all contracts, instead of using the Authorised Signature placeholder, you can add their signature as an image when creating the template itself.
I have multiple documents I need to build into my platform, but I am short on the time to do so. Can foundU do this for a fee??
Yes, if you need some help with a big administrative task but don't have the time to do it - Our Admin Service Team can help!
foundU Admin Services provide 2 tiers of data entry options to choose from:
- General Administration tasks - This covers basic data entry that doesn’t require any platform or payroll expertise. This could be anything from ‘cleaning up data’ for imports to setting up multiple rosters in the system.
- Advanced Administration tasks - This covers any data entry work that requires a degree of platform or industry expertise.
For further reading about foundU Services, please refer to our article, here.
I need help creating some HR resources. Can foundU help?
Yes, human resources and legal advice are essential but often out of reach for many businesses. That's why we've set up an HR Support Service for our customers.
For further reading about HR Support Services, please refer to our article, here.
I have sent the wrong document to an employee; what can I do to correct this?
Once you have sent a document to an employee, you can delete it as long as it has a Pending Approval status.
After a document has been Approved, it cannot be deleted. In this case, please contact our support team for assistance.
My document templates require placeholders for my specific business needs; what can I do?
When creating a document template, foundU provides a variety of data placeholders to meet your general document needs.
However, your business may need specific placeholders for your contracts, such as an Admin's Phone Number or Return by Date.
In such cases, you can highlight the text in a bright colour to make it stand out. This will allow you to quickly edit the document when sending it individually to an employee.
Why does the document I am sending have blank spaces? Why wasn't my employee's information added?
When using data placeholders, please review the document prior to sending.
To review the document select Preview to ensure that the employees you're sending the document have the applicable data, as any missing data will be left blank on the sent document.For example, if you send a document that makes use of the position data placeholders and the employees do not yet have positions, nothing will be displayed in that section.
Please see the Data placeholders section above for details on where data is pulled from.
I've added a table in my document template. Is there any way I can hide the borders?
When using Document Editor, tables are a great tool for organising images and other items on a page, for this reason you may wish to hide the borders.
There are 2 options to hide table borders:
- Copy a table from a word document, this will automatically hide the border.
- Create a table in the Document Editor, and select the cells/ table borders you wish to hide.
Can I add a PDF document or links to my template?
When creating a document template, you cannot directly add a PDF file. Instead, you can add the following items:
- Links
- Images
- Tables
- Data placeholders
If you want to include content from a PDF in the Document Builder, we recommend converting the PDF back into a Word document, then copying our content, as it is more compatible.
Can my employees respond or answer questions in the documents they have been sent?
Employees have the ability to add their signature to a sent document, but they cannot make any modifications to the content of received documents.
When my employee signs the document, will the signed copy be automatically emailed to our admin and accounts team?
After an employee signs a document, a notification can be sent to a specified admin to inform them that the document has been signed. However, this notification will not include a copy of the document. Please refer to the communications section above for more details.
To view any documents sent, your admin and accounts team can access and review them using the Employee Document Report.
I have saved a contract to an employee's profile, but then we updated the template in the Document Library. Will the changes made to the template in the Document Library automatically update the document saved against my employee?
When you apply a document template to an employees profile you are applying a copy of the original document.
As such, if any changes are made to the template in the Document Library, your changes will not be applied to the documents saved agasint your employees (Unsent or Pending Approval status).
For example: If you have saved Employment Agreements v1 against and employee. Then you update the template in Document Library to Employment Agreements v2, only the template in Document Library is updated to v2, the employee proifile will still have v1 saved.
To update the document on the employee's profile you will need to either:
- Edit the saved document to apply the changes.
- Delete the saved document and send a new document.