What's new in Sense HR

Book half days, quarter days or exact times

You can now book part of a day for any Planner event: sickness, time off, working events and more. Pick half a day, a quarter of a day, or type the real times, such as 09:00 to 13:00. Sense works out the hours and minutes for you.

A booking over several days can also start or finish part way through a day. You no longer need to split it into lots of small bookings.

One sickness absence is now one booking

Before, sickness that started at lunchtime on Monday and ended at lunchtime on Thursday had to be split into three bookings. That could start three return-to-work processes for what was really one absence. Now it is one booking, and one return-to-work form.

Open-ended sickness, with its own dashboard widget

Don't know when someone will be back? Leave the end date empty. The booking stays open until you add a return date, so nobody has to guess. A new dashboard widget shows every open sickness case in one place.

Return-to-work forms, right on the sickness record

Open a completed return-to-work form straight from the sickness record it belongs to. No more searching through to-dos or running a report to find it. The form and the process stay the same.

TOIL (time off in lieu) with expiry dates

Each TOIL award is now tracked on its own, with its own amount and expiry date. Staff still see one simple balance and book against it. When they book, Sense uses the TOIL that expires first, so less of it is lost. You get a clear history of TOIL given, used and expired.

Holiday for new starters: five ways to work it out

When someone joins part way through the holiday year, choose how their first-year entitlement is worked out:

• Fixed: the full amount, whatever their start date.
• FTE-based: based on their FTE.
• Pro rata by day: based on the days left in the year.
• Pro rata by month: based on the full months left.
• Step-based: a set amount for each full month left.

From the second year, the normal yearly entitlement applies.

Entitlement that resets each year, or carries on

Set an entitlement to start fresh every year (Fixed yearly), or to carry on as one balance across the years (Ongoing). Your current rules stay as they are.

More control over who can book what

For each event type, choose who can book it for themselves, who can book it for others, and whether it can be edited or deleted. This works together with your access roles: an action is only allowed when both say yes.

Outlook calendar sync, for personal and shared calendars

This was our most requested integration, and it used to need a lot of set-up from our team. Now you can install it yourself from the Workflow Hub. When an event is booked, approved, changed or deleted in Sense HR, Outlook updates too.

• On the first day, it fills in events from one month back to two years ahead.
• You choose which events show as Busy, Free or Out of office, and whether sickness is included.
• For a shared team calendar, it can also invite the employee, so the event shows in their own calendar.

RotaCloud integration: staff details and time off, in sync

Use RotaCloud for your rotas and Sense HR for everything else, with no double entry.

• Staff are linked to RotaCloud by email address, or created there for you.
• Changes to personal, contact, pay or job details are sent automatically.
• Time off is sent when it is booked, changed or cancelled. If it needs approval, it is only sent once approved. Ongoing sickness stays up to date.
• Choose what is synced, and whether to use the Sense HR employee ID or payroll ID.
• Every sync shows in Activity, including anything skipped and why.

Personio attendance integration: keep Personio, add Sense clocks

Already use Personio? You don't need to move. When staff clock in or out on Sense hardware, the attendance record goes straight into Personio. If the record is edited or removed in Sense, Personio is updated too. Your HR data, approvals and payroll stay exactly where they are.

Three new APIs to connect your own systems

• Employee data API (17 Aug): every employee record in one call, including job, department, location, start and leave dates and line manager. Secure with an API key, plus an optional IP allow-list. Read the guide.
• Planner events API (19 Aug): holiday, sickness, TOIL, overtime, working from home and other events, for the dates and people you choose.
• Attendance API (11 Sep): for each person and each day, what they were meant to work and what really happened: first clock-in, last clock-out, breaks, and anything booked. Spot late starts, missed breaks and absences with nothing booked. Read the guide.

Roll Call: one live register for every fire marshal

Tell your fire marshals to bin the clipboard. Start a roll call from the mobile app and Sense already knows who should be on site, from work patterns and clock-ins. Every marshal sees the same live list. When one person is marked safe, every list updates at once.

1. Start the roll callTap the Roll Call tile in the app.
2. Sense lists who is on siteFrom work patterns and clock-ins.
3. Marshals share one live listGroup by location or team.
4. Close and get a summarySee who is still missing at any time.

Use it for fire drills, real evacuations, site checks, events and any time you need to account for people fast.

Indeed integration: post jobs to Indeed from Sense ATS

Turn on "Sync with Indeed" and the vacancy goes to Indeed. No separate upload. Change the title, pay, place or closing date and Indeed updates too. Close the job and it comes off Indeed. People who apply through Indeed land in Sense ATS with everyone else, and AMI scores them the same way.

Since 8 September you can switch on all your vacancies in one go, and a contact phone number is no longer needed. Read the guide.

Email applicants from inside Sense ATS

Send emails to applicants using your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace account. Replies to your recruitment mailbox are added to the applicant's profile, with any attachments, so the whole team sees one conversation instead of lots of inboxes.

Automatic emails at each pipeline stage

Move an applicant to a new stage and the right email goes out. Set up to 15 templates: a shortlist note, an interview invite, a "no thank you", or a heads-up to the hiring team. Each one can go to the candidate, the hiring team or your admins, with the candidate's name and job filled in for you. Nothing is sent until you set it up. Read the guide.

Flexi time: four big upgrades

• Back-dated changes fixed for you. Add a half-day holiday after the day has passed, and the flexi deduction for that day is reversed.
• Your break rules. For example, take off a 30-minute break after every 6 hours worked.
• Carryover cap built in. Set one cap for everyone, or base it on FTE. A 10-hour cap at 0.5 FTE becomes 5 hours.
• Use clock-in records. Flexi can now use attendance from clocking in and out.

Weekly flexi time, for staff with no set days

Some staff have a set number of hours a week, but no set days. Weekly flexi adds up everything they worked in the week and compares it with their contract, every Monday. It also handles back-dated changes. You can run daily and weekly flexi side by side. Read the guide.

Overtime that crosses midnight, and before and after shifts

Overtime from 23:00 to 01:00 now shows on both days. Overtime before a shift and after a shift is approved separately and placed at the time it was worked, so what is approved is what really happened. It also makes it easier to pay the two at different rates. Read the guide.

Organisation Explorer: your org chart, grown up

See your company by reporting line, department, location, sub-company or job title. Search, zoom and open or close branches to find people fast in a big organisation. Centre the view on one person to see their manager, their team and who they work with. Export as PNG or PDF, or print it for a meeting. Read the guide.

Since 18 August (HR 6.3.4) you can filter by department, location, job title and sub-company. It also finds reporting loops, where two people report to each other, and shows you how to fix them.