LIGEPE in a large public body: integrated staff, attendance and timesheets

Staff management had grown over time across several applications: a dedicated system for access control and clock-ins, an external payroll platform and another application for attendance and timesheets. Experts and occasional workers were managed outside the system, in Excel spreadsheets.

The client/server attendance application needed replacing, partly in light of new technology and cybersecurity requirements. At the same time, the organisation wanted to reduce paper use, digitise supporting documents and streamline approval processes.

The aim was to extend the Labinf system to all staff and create an integrated environment able to communicate with the organisation’s other subsystems, with digitalisation and dematerialisation of documents.

1. 01

   Fragmented HR systems

   Attendance, access control, payroll, timesheets and document registry used different applications. Staff management had to be centralised while keeping integrations with the specialist systems.

2. 02

   Many categories of staff

   Employees, seconded staff, contractors, freelancers, occasional workers and equivalent personnel follow different rules and flows, to be handled consistently without losing their specific features.

3. 03

   Approvals still paper-based

   Supporting documents and staff paperwork had to be dematerialised, with attachment upload and approval through workflows.

4. 04

   Remote working

   Specific rules were needed for remote working, with start and end of work recorded remotely and, where required, clock-ins subject to approval.

5. 05

   Project reporting

   Staff work on several projects, with planned hours, different UCS costs and budget constraints: available hours, progress, validation and reporting all need to be controlled.

6. 06

   Recovering historical data

   Personal records, employment relationships, job grades, clock-ins, absences and counters from the previous system had to be imported and aligned, keeping historical information available.

Labinf Sistemi began moving the staff management system to LIGEPE, configuring a solution that brings together HR management, attendance, the employee portal and activity reporting.

The project goes beyond replacing the previous application: it connects to the systems already in use for time recording, payroll, administration and document registry.

The solution includes

• Personal records and employment relationships
• Attendance, absences and calculation rules
• Overtime and counters
• Remote working and virtual time clock
• Electronic timecard
• Approval workflows and digital documents
• Manager planning
• Present and absent monitoring
• Personnel file
• Skills map
• Freelance and occasional staff
• Compensation and pay
• Payroll and access control integration
• Timesheets and project management
• UCS costs and project budgets
• Validation, reporting and analytics

The system periodically acquires transactions from the existing time-recording platform, keeping attendance data up to date. The electronic timecard allows supporting documents to be attached and the related approval flows to be managed, while the virtual time clock lets authorised staff record the start and end of work remotely.

The project includes a testing phase running in parallel with the previous system, to check results, integrations and operating rules before the final switchover.

The Timesheet module is directly linked to staff management. For each project it handles managers, periods, funding, budget, assigned staff and costs; the cost of each person can come from contractual UCS, project-specific UCS or customised values per individual.

Managers plan staff hours, while employees report hours or days through the portal. The system checks that entered hours do not exceed hours worked and calculates institutional activity as the difference between hours worked, absences and project hours. The workflow follows four states, with separate responsibilities for employees, project managers, senior management and the Timesheet office.

• Entry
• Consolidation
• Validation
• Reporting

• Staff management centralised in a single system
• Fewer separate applications and Excel spreadsheets
• Supporting documents and approvals digitised
• Integrated management of remote working
• Attendance updated from the time-recording system
• Employee portal for HR activities and services
• Project budget control through UCS costs
• Comparison between planned and reported hours
• Reports by employee, project, manager and period
• Historical data preserved and available

For timesheets, the system provides analyses by employee and project, cost reports and the documentation required for administrative reporting.