User guide

A basic user guide with focus on the primary elements of the system. Generally speaking, the system is made up of:

• Organization units

  Consist of a name, description and a place in the hierarchy. Used to group employees, users, activities and objectives; which can all be shared across several organization units.

• Users

  Consist of a username, a global user role and a password. A user is how you get permission to interact with the system, and doesn't have to be tied to an employee. Without a user, you can't log on to the system.

• Organization roles

  Organization roles is how you give a user permissions to interact with an organization unit. The degree of permissions is given with an organization role (User, Manager or Admin).

• Employees

  Consist of a first and last name, a preferred name (optional), e-mail and phone (optional). Employees are the people that make up the organizations. You evaluate what skills employees have and allocate them to activities.

• Employments

  Employments is how you determine who is part of what organization units. This is used for managers to evaluate the skills of their employees and allocate users to the activities that are being undertaken by the different organization units. Employments are also crucial in calculating the skill gap for an organization.

• Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

  Consist of an owner OU, a title and a description. Objectives are the strategic goals of an organization unit, while the key results are the measurable parts of the objectives. Objectives and key results are used to align activities and employees with the strategic goals of the organization. OKRs play a crucial role in the reports and analysis offered to prioritize work and skills.

• Activities (projects and daily tasks)

  Consist of a title, description, status, type, risk, from-to dates and a manager. Activities are the projects and daily tasks that are undertaken by the organization units. It can be everything from innovative projects or basic operations to keep the organization unit going. Activities are used to allocate employees to the work that needs to be done. The activity skill requirements and OKR impact are crucial elements in prioritizing which activities to do, and not to.

• Skills

  Consist of a name, description, type and volatility level. Skills are abilities that employees have and the activities require to be completed successfully. The volatility level of a skill determines how often it must be updated.

• Employee skills

  Consist of a skill, a level and a date. Employee skills are the skills that an employee has. The level of a skill is a measure of how good the employee is at the skill. The date is the last time the skill was evaluated.

List of common actions and authorization requirements

(Global admins can always do and see everything):

• Setting Up an Organization

  • Create Organization: Only global admins can create top-level organizations, whereas users with organization admin roles can create sub-organizations within their administrative scope.
  • View Organizations: Authorized users can view only the organizations they have an organization role in.
  • Update and Delete Organizations: Organization admins can modify or remove organizations. Only global admins may remove or alter top-level organizations.

• Managing Users

  • User Registration: Only global administrators can register standalone user accounts (but organization admins can register employees and indirectly create user accounts that way).
  • User Authentication: Users must log in with a username and password, after which a JSON Web Token is generated for accessing both the underlying API and the web page itself.
  • View User Information: Authorized users can only see profiles associated with their organization.
  • Update and Delete Users: Organization admins can update users within their admin-organizations, and authorized users can update their own user information (username and password). Only global admins may elevate the global privileges of a user to admin.

• Managing Organization Roles

  • Role management: Organization admins can assign, alter and delete organizational roles to users within their organization.

• Managing Employees

  • Add Employees: Organization admins can add employees. New employees must be given an employment position upon creation. New employees must also be linked to an existing users account, or a new user account will be created automatically.
  • View Employees: Users can view employees within their own organizations—both employees with user roles in common organizations and employees with employments in common organizations.
  • Update Employee Information: Organization admins can modify employee details and adjust their information as needed.
  • Remove Employees: Organization admins can delete employees if they are completely under their management.

• Managing Employments

  • Create Employment Records: Organization admins can add employment records to associate employees with specific organization units. Having an employment in an organization unit is a pre-requirement to be assigned to activities.
  • View Employment Records: Authorized users can access all employment records within their authorized scope.
  • Update Employment Information: Organization admins can update employment details, like the employee's position/title in the organization unit.
  • Delete Employment Records: Organization admins can delete employment records as necessary.

• Managing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

  • Create Objectives: Organization admins or organization managers can define strategic objectives that align with the goals of an organization unit. These objectives may later be adopted by other OUs, but only one OU can be the objective owner.
  • View Objectives: Users can view all objectives related to their organization roles.
  • Update and Delete Objectives: Objectives can be updated or removed by the owner organization admins and owner organization managers.
  • Manage Key Results: The admins and managers can also add key results to objectives, ensuring the objectives are split into measurable and trackable parts. Key results can be impacted by organization activities.

• Managing Activities (Projects and Daily Tasks)

  • Create Activities: Organization admins and managers can create activities, such as projects and daily tasks, within their organization. Activities are key in prioritizing and allocating work in the organization.
  • View Activities: Authorized users can view lists of activities relevant to their organization.
  • Update and Delete Activities: Activities can be updated or deleted by the owner organization administrators or managers, or by the activity manager, helping maintain up-to-date information on ongoing projects and tasks.

• Managing Skills

  • Define Skills: Anyone can suggest new skills to an organization.
  • Update Skills: Existing skills can be modified by any organization admin or manager.
  • Delete Skills: Outdated or irrelevant skills can be removed by any organization admin or manager. Keep in mind that this will also remove the skill from any employee or activity where it is used.

• Mapping Activity Skill Requirements

  • Associate and review activity skills: Organization admins, managers, or activity managers can add, remove and adjust skill requirements and estimates to activities.

• Evaluating Employee Skills

  • Assess employee skills: Organization admins, managers and the employees themselves can evaluate their skills.

• Allocating Employees to Activities

  • Assign employees to activities: Organization admins, managers, and activity managers can allocate employees to activities, ensuring the right skills are available for the tasks at hand.

• Reporting and Analytics

  • Generate reports: Anyone can generate reports on activities, skills, employees and more. You can only see what's relevant for your organizational roles.
  • View analytics: Anyone can view analytics on activities, skills, employees and more. You can only see what's relevant for your organizational roles.