Employees

The employee record is the centre of SolaHR. Attendance, leave, payroll, payslips, contracts, documents, warnings and end of service all hang off it. This page covers the Employees list, adding and editing employees, the employee profile, employee numbers, onboarding, status changes and deletion. The two self-service routes have their own pages: Portal Access for the Employee Portal link and My Portal for people who sign in.

Creating an employee does not invite anyone to Solavel. To give a person a Solavel account and a role in SolaHR, use Team. To limit what an HR user can see, use Team access.

Where to find it

Employees appears when your role can view employees and your plan includes employee management. Portal Access appears only for people who can manage employee portal links (Owners and SolaHR Administrators). My Portal appears when your plan includes self-service.

The Employees list

The header shows "Showing from–to of total". The top-right buttons are:

• Export — downloads every employee as a CSV file named employees-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.csv, sorted by employee number, with the columns employee_number, name, work_email, department, job_title, manager, employment_status, start_date, base_salary and currency. The search and status filter on screen are not applied. Needs a plan with data export.
• Add employee — opens the new-employee form (needs the create-employees permission).

Below the header:

• Search (placeholder Search…) — matches as you type, on name, employee number, phone, job title text and National ID. It does not search email.
• Status filter — All, Active, Contract ended, Resigned, Terminated. Each filter has a visible label above its box.

The list shows 15 employees per page, newest first, with a pager at the bottom.

Click anywhere on a row to open the profile. When there are no employees you see No employees yet — "Add employee records to organize your team. Employee records are separate from application accounts." with Add employee.

Add an employee

1. Go to People → Employees and click Add employee (top-right).
2. Fill in the five cards. Fields marked * are required.

Personal information

Work profile

Compensation

Contract — tick Has a written contract to show the contract fields:

If you leave the box unticked, any contract dates are cleared.

Compliance & local

3. Click Create (bottom-right). Cancel goes back without saving.

You return to the list with "Created successfully". If something is wrong, the page moves to the first field that needs correcting and each problem is shown under its field in plain words: a duplicate name, phone or email is reported against that field (they are checked within your organization only), and a server problem shows a message with a support reference you can send to the Solavel team.

What happens when you click Create

Creation is all-or-nothing. In one step SolaHR:

1. gives the employee the next employee number for your organization,
2. sets the status to Active,
3. creates the five onboarding tasks (if your plan includes onboarding),
4. if you ticked Send a welcome email to the employee, sends the branded welcome email (company logo, name, job details and next steps) to the work email, or the personal email if there is no work email, once per employee. The email is sent after the employee is saved, so a mail problem never undoes the employee: you see "Employee saved, but the welcome email could not be sent." and can carry on,
5. prepares the employee's portal link, when the organization's portal settings prepare new employees automatically.

If any part of the saving fails, nothing is saved: you never get a half-created employee or a used-up number. No email is sent unless you asked for it.

Plan limit

If your plan caps active employees and you are at the cap, Create (and reactivating an employee) is refused with:

Your plan allows up to n active employees. Upgrade to add or reactivate another active employee.

If two people add employees at the same moment you may see "Another employee update is in progress. Please try again." Wait a second and click Create again.

Employee numbers

Every employee gets a number, shown as No. in the list and on the profile. This is how numbering works today (fixed on 23 September 2026):

• Each organization has its own sequence. Al Noor Trading LLC and Al Noor Logistics FZE can both have an employee number 1978. Numbers are unique within one organization.
• The first number is the Starting Number in Settings → Employee Numbering (see Settings). New organizations start at 1978 unless you change it.
• A new employee gets the highest existing number + 1. Numbers compare as numbers, so after 999 comes 1000 (earlier versions could skip numbers at 10, 100, 1000…). Consecutive adds produce consecutive numbers with no gaps.
• Renumbering by start date. When renumbering by start date is on for your organization (the default), SolaHR re-sorts all employees by Start date after each add, and after any edit that changes a start date, and numbers them again from the Starting Number. The earliest starter gets the Starting Number. So if you add someone whose start date is earlier than existing employees, their numbers shift by one. Each change is recorded in the audit log.
• Renumbering on demand. In Settings → Employee Numbering you can change Starting Number, click Preview Renumbering to see Current and Proposed numbers per employee, then Apply Renumbering and confirm.

Tip: if you print employee numbers on ID cards or use them in payroll exports, enter employees in start-date order, or agree on numbers before you print.

The employee profile

Open a row to see the profile. The header shows the name, Department · Job title, and the status badge. Top-right:

• The employment status badge.
• Edit — opens the same form as Add, with Update instead of Create. You return to the profile with "Updated successfully".
• Change status — see below.

The profile is a compact dashboard:

1. Summary band under the header: the initials avatar, No. (employee number) and the department ("No department assigned" if empty), then Start date, Salary and Contract end ("No written contract" if there is none).
2. Shortcut row: links to Attendance, Leave, Advances, Deductions, Payslips, Documents, Warnings and End of Service, each filtered to this employee. You only see the shortcuts for areas your role can open.
3. Main column with three tabs (Overview, Contracts, Onboarding) and, under them, the Allowed attendance locations card (see Attendance locations).
4. Right column with the Work schedule card and the Employee Portal Access card.

On a phone the right column drops below the main one.

Overview

Four cards:

• Work profile: Department, Job title, Direct manager, Employment type, Location, Cost center, Work email, Work phone, Probation end.
• Personal information: Preferred name, Phone, Email, Date of birth, Nationality, National ID / Tax ID, Address.
• Compensation: Salary, Opening leave balance, Employee insurance %, Employer insurance %.
• Compliance & local: Work country (as a name, for example United Arab Emirates), Social security no., Permit expiry, Hazardous job.

The Work schedule card

Title Work schedule, with a Change schedule button (people who can update employees) and a link to Work Schedules. It shows the schedule name with a badge: Assigned to this employee or Main organization schedule; then Hours (with "Ends the following day" for overnight shifts), Grace ("15 minutes") and Work Days with the seven weekday names marked as working or resting. A line explains the source: "Attendance uses this employee's assigned hours, grace period and working days. The main schedule does not override this assignment." or "No individual schedule is assigned. Attendance follows the main schedule from Setup and Settings."

The Employee Portal Access card

For people who manage portal access. It shows the status badge, Attendance and employee self-service with "Share this personal link with the employee to record attendance, request leave and access their permitted records.", Show employee link, Copy link, Open link, the status block (Protected self-service, Employee PIN, Connected device, Last used) and the folded Link and security settings. See Portal Access. The card only issues a link for Active employees: "Portal access is unavailable while this employee is not active."

Contracts

Shows Has a written contract, Contract start, Contract end, Date signed and Period (months).

• Download (card top-right) downloads the contract file, when one is uploaded and you can manage records.
• Renew contract appears for active employees when you can manage records. Enter New period (months) (default 12, required), optionally Contract start, New salary (optional), Contract file and Notes, then Confirm. You see "Saved successfully".
• Renewal history lists each renewal with its date, period, start and end.

See Contracts for the organization-wide contracts list.

Onboarding

Lists the five default tasks with their owner and a Completed or Pending badge:

"hr" tasks are assigned to the person who created the employee. The "manager" task goes to the SolaHR user whose email matches the direct manager's work or personal email. All tasks are due on the start date. When every task is complete the employee's onboarding is marked completed; reopening a task sets it back to in progress.

Related records

The shortcut row at the top of the profile opens other pages filtered to this employee: Attendance, Leave, Advances, Deductions, Payslips, Documents, Warnings and End of Service.

Change an employee's status

1. On the profile, click Change status (top-right).
2. Choose Status: Active, Resigned or Terminated. The default is Resigned for an active employee, or Active otherwise.
3. Enter the Effective date (required) and an optional Reason (up to 1,000 characters).
4. Click Confirm (or Cancel). You see "Updated successfully".

When you set someone back to Active, the status change is recorded with today's date, whatever effective date you typed. Every change is kept in the employee's status history, together with who made it.

Change status is the quick way to correct a record. For a real departure (resignation, termination, end of contract) use Resignations and End of Service instead: they confirm the last working day, run clearance, calculate and pay the settlement, and change the status automatically after the last working day. Setting an employee to Resigned or Terminated by hand is accepted, but the attendance roster then warns about "former employees without a leaving date" until you record one.

Moving someone back to Active counts against your plan's employee limit, and gives them a new Employee Portal link. To find resigned or contract-ended employees, use Status: All and search by name.

Delete an employee

1. On the list, click row ⋯ → Delete.
2. The dialog asks "Delete this record?" — "This action cannot be undone. (name)". Click Delete (or Cancel).
3. You see "Deleted successfully".

The employee is removed from lists and their portal access is revoked. Only Owners and SolaHR Administrators can delete. For someone who left, change the status instead, so that attendance, payroll and end-of-service history stay intact.

Employee portal (summary)

Every active employee can have one personal link that opens the Employee Portal on their phone. With it they can check in and out (tied to their device and an allowed location), and use a PIN-protected private area for their own leave, payslips, timesheets, policies, warnings, documents and profile. They don't need a Solavel account.

• Links are prepared automatically for new active employees when Prepare new employees automatically is on.
• When an employee stops being Active, or is deleted, their portal access is revoked at once. If they become Active again, they get a new link.
• Copying links, bulk enable and disable, device resets, PIN resets and the organization settings are all on People → Portal Access. See Portal Access.
• For one employee, use the Employee Portal Access card on the Overview tab of their profile. You only see it if you can manage portal access.

My Portal (summary)

People who sign in to SolaHR and are also employees use Overview → My Portal for their own leave, timesheets, payslips, warnings and policies. SolaHR links them by matching their sign-in email to the employee's Email, Work email or personal email. See My Portal.

Permissions

* Export also needs data export in your plan. Scope is assigned in Team access.

Worked examples

Example 1 — hire a new employee

Al Noor Trading LLC (Dubai) hires Omar Haddad as a Sales Executive in the Sales department, starting 1 November 2026, on AED 9,500 a month with a two-year contract.

1. In People → Job Titles, Mariam (SolaHR Administrator) checks that Sales Executive exists (salary range AED 8,000–12,000). In People → Departments, Sales exists with Layla Mansour as Department Manager.
2. She opens People → Employees → Add employee and enters: Name Omar Haddad, Nationality Jordanian, Phone 971501234567, Email omar.haddad@gmail.com; Job title Sales Executive, Department Sales, Direct manager Layla Mansour (1985), Employment type Full time, Start date 01/11/2026, Probation end 30/04/2027; Salary 9500; ticks Has a written contract, Contract end 31/10/2028 (Period calculates to 24); Work country AE, National ID 784-1994-1234567-1, Permit expiry 31/10/2028.
3. She clicks Create. Al Noor's employees are numbered from 1978 and the last starter has 1993, so Omar gets 1994. Five onboarding tasks are created. Because Mariam ticked Send a welcome email to the employee, the branded welcome email goes to omar.haddad@gmail.com.
4. His portal link is prepared automatically. In People → Portal Access she searches "1994", clicks Copy Link and sends it to Omar on WhatsApp.
5. On 1 November Omar opens the link at Dubai Main, taps Locate, then Check in. His phone becomes the bound device.

Example 2 — a resignation and a rehire

Sara Khan (EMP-0021, Sales Associate, AED 7,000) resigns with her last day on 30 November 2026.

1. On 30 November HR opens her profile, clicks Change status, picks Resigned, Effective date 30/11/2026, Reason Relocating to Abu Dhabi, and clicks Confirm → "Updated successfully".
2. Her badge reads resigned. Her Employee Portal link stops working at once, and Portal Access shows Inactive. She no longer counts toward the plan's active-employee limit.
3. HR settles her in End of Service. Her attendance, payslips and leave stay on file. HR does not delete her.
4. In March 2027 Sara is rehired. HR clicks Change status → Active. If the plan is at its limit, HR sees Your plan allows up to n active employees. Upgrade to add or reactivate another active employee.
5. Once she is Active, Sara receives a new portal link. HR copies it from Portal Access, then renews her contract from the Contracts tab (12 months, New salary (optional) 7,500).

Tips and common problems

Related

• Portal Access · My Portal
• Departments · Job Titles · Org Chart
• Contracts · Documents
• Attendance · Leave · Timesheets · Payslips
• Warnings · End of Service · Resignations · Settings · Team access
• Getting started with SolaHR · Team · Application roles