Everything about your people lives on People → Employees & Teams in the admin menu. This page covers adding and inviting people, editing them, teams and managers, and the everyday admin tasks around them. When someone leaves, see Offboarding & Archived Employees.
The Employees & Teams page
The page has three tabs:
- Employees — everyone, with an Active / Archived switch. Search by name or email, filter by team, or tick Group by team.
- Teams — your teams, their managers and member counts.
- Settings — Employee ID Prefixes, for auto-generated employee IDs such as EMP-001. Each prefix keeps its own counter, and can be tied to departments.
The Roles column shows an icon for each role a person holds: Owner, Admin, Billing, Manager and Ops. See Roles & Permissions. Someone serving out a notice period shows a Serving notice until chip with the date their access ends.
Adding people
| Method | Best for | How |
|---|---|---|
| Add Employee | One person, with full details | Click Add Employee |
| Import employees | A spreadsheet of many people | Click Import employees |
| Add your team (quick add) | A few people with team, location and manager in one go | Settings → Onboarding → Add team members |
| Directory sync | Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace (Professional and above) | Sync Directory, once Single Sign-On is set up |
Add one employee
Open the form
Click Add Employee. Enter Name and Email — both required. If a directory is connected, TimeLeaf looks the person up as you type the email, and you can fill the form from the match.
Decide how they get in
Password is optional. If you type or generate one, the invite email goes out as soon as you save, with that password in it. If you leave it blank, nothing is sent yet; the invite you send later contains a link for them to set their own password.
Fill in the details and save
Add what you know: Employee ID, Job Title, Department, Location (their base — it decides their public holidays and timezone), Hire Date, Start Date, Employment Type, FTE Percentage, Contract Type, and personal and emergency contact details. Click Create Employee.
To give the person a manager, add them to a team (see Teams and managers below).
Import from a spreadsheet
Click Import employees, then Download CSV template if you want a starting file. Upload your Excel, CSV or text file, map your columns on Map, check Preview, and import. Only Full name and Work email are required; you can also map job title, department, team, manager email, location, employment type, employee ID, hire date, date of birth and country. A work email that already exists is skipped, so re-running a file is safe. Imported people are not emailed until you send their invites.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of every method, see Set Up Your Workspace.
Plan limits
Each plan has an employee limit. When you reach it, a new person is refused with a "plan limit … reached" message until you free a seat (for example by archiving a leaver) or upgrade under Settings → Billing. People you archive stop using a seat.
If you add someone whose email belongs to an archived employee, TimeLeaf tells you to restore them from the Archived view instead of creating a duplicate.
Directory sync reviews
With directory sync, a Directory sync: N people to review panel can appear at the top of the Employees tab. It lists people who are no longer in your directory (or are disabled there), anyone the sync held back for your decision, and people it could not import because your plan's employee limit is reached. Use Restore, Archive, Keep active or Acknowledge on each. See Directory Sync.
Inviting people
Nobody can sign in until they've had an invite.
- One person: open their row's Actions menu (⋮) and choose Send Invite.
- Many people: tick them and click Send Signup Links. A summary shows who was sent a link and who was skipped (for example Already active or Already invited).
The row menu shows each person's invite status: Sent with the date, Expired (signup links last 7 days), or Accepted with the date they first signed in. For a pending or expired invite, choose Resend Invite.
Row actions
Open the Actions menu (⋮) at the end of a row:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Edit | Opens the Edit Employee window (below). |
| Policies | Shows the person's assigned time-off policies, and lets you assign more. |
| Add leave for… | Records leave on their behalf (see Recording leave on someone's behalf below). |
| Send Invite / Resend Invite | Emails a signup link. Shows the invite status. |
| Make … / Remove … | Gives or removes the Owner, Admin, Billing, Manager and Ops roles. Only an owner can change who is an Owner. Make Ops appears only when On-Call Scheduling is on. |
| Lock roles / Unlock roles | Stops (or lets) SSO group mapping and directory sync change this person's roles. |
To assign a policy to many people at once, select them and click Assign Policy, then Assign next to each policy.
Editing an employee
Choose Edit in the row menu. The top of the Edit Employee window shows the person's balance for each leave type (available, booked and accrued) and their hours this month and year. Below the profile fields are five collapsible panels. Each one loads only when you open it.
| Panel | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Leave balances | Set a starting balance or correct one (see Balance adjustments below). |
| Work pattern | The weekdays this person works, if different from their leave policy's work days — for example a Monday-to-Thursday part-timer. Leave is then charged only on those days. A pattern starts today or later, and full-day leave booked from that date is recounted. |
| Working-time opt-out | Records the employee's written agreement to work more than an average of 48 hours a week (as UK law allows). While it is in force, the averaged weekly limit isn't applied to them; every other limit still is. Record the date signed, the notice to withdraw, and where the signed copy is kept. |
| Training | Courses the person has completed, with an expiry date. A shift role that requires a course is only rostered to people whose training is current on the day of the shift. |
| Work restrictions | Work this person must not be rostered to, from a start date and optionally until an end date: a maximum number of hours a day, no night work, blocked tasks, or excluded locations. You can add a reason; schedulers see what is restricted, never why. |
Further down you'll find the Password section (Set/Reset Password via Email), the person's Contracts, and the Employee Timeline of hires, contracts and status changes. Click Save Changes to save profile edits; the panels save on their own buttons.
Employment status
The Status field in Employment Status has these options:
- Active
- On Paid Leave
- On Unpaid Leave
- Furloughed / Inactive — no access and no plan seat
- Terminated
- Resigned
- Retired
A Termination Date and an Access ends on date (the last day their sign-in works) sit beside it. To let people go, it is usually easier to use Furlough or Lay Off from the bulk bar — see Offboarding & Archived Employees. A person whose personal details were erased shows as Erased in the Archived view.
Date of birth for young workers
The date of birth is required for employees based at a location where working-time law sets stricter limits for under-18s — today the United Kingdom and Germany — once one of your overtime policies sets young-worker limits. Until it is recorded, rostering treats the person as under 18. The add forms and the import refuse a new employee there without one, and an edit can't remove a stored date.
Teams and managers
Time-off requests and timesheets go to the employee's manager. A person's manager is the manager of the team they belong to.
Make sure the manager has the Manager role
In the person's row menu, choose Make Manager. Only people with the Manager role can be picked as a team manager.
Create or edit the team
On the Teams tab, click Add Team (or the edit icon on an existing team) and set:
- Team Name and Description.
- Team Manager — approves the members' time off and timesheets.
- Manager's Approver — approves the team manager's own requests.
- Manager can approve their own vacations — only for a manager with nobody above them.
- Team Members — tick each member. Saving makes the team manager their manager.
Click Create or Update.
When nobody in someone's management chain can approve — no manager is set, or everyone up the chain is away or has left — the request goes to the Standing escalation people on Time off → Approval Delegation, and failing that to any admin. Admins and owners can decide any request. For multi-step approvals, see Approval Workflows.
Org chart
People → Org Chart shows the whole reporting line, with managers marked and a count of reports under each. Search by name, email, job title or department. Import teams loads teams from a file.
Recording leave on someone's behalf
Use this for a sick day phoned in, or for someone without a login.
Open the form
In the person's row menu, choose Add leave for…. (Managers do the same from Team Reports, for their own reports.)
Choose how to record it
Under How to record it:
- Submit for approval — goes to the usual approver, as if the employee had submitted it.
- Record as approved — approved by you straight away. If an approval workflow puts its first step with someone else, this is refused; submit it instead.
Fill in the request
Pick the Leave Type (it shows the person's balance), the dates, and half day or hours if allowed. Add a title or notes if useful, then click Submit for approval or Record as approved.
Good to know:
- The employee is told the leave was recorded for them, by notification and email.
- Minimum notice and blackout periods still apply. If an admin's booking breaks one, the form offers a checkbox to override that rule for this booking. Each override is recorded in the audit log. Managers can't override.
- Balance and overlap checks are never overridden.
Balance adjustments
To set an opening balance or correct one:
- Choose Edit in the person's row menu and expand Leave balances.
- Pick the Policy.
- Under Change, choose Add or deduct (enter a positive or negative amount and an Effective from date) or Set balance to (enter the new balance).
- Enter a Reason — for example "Opening balance from previous system". It's required.
- Click Adjust balance (or Set balance).
Each adjustment is listed under its policy with its date, reason and who made it, and is recorded in the audit log. It belongs to that leave year: what's left at year end carries over like any other unused days.
Managers can make the same adjustments for their direct reports (never themselves) from Team overview on their dashboard — but only if you tick Managers Can Adjust Their Reports' Balances in Settings → Working Time.