Employee, Supervisor and Manager Roles for iHRIS Manage

Three additional roles have been proposed for iHRIS Manage: Employee, Supervisor and Manager. The purpose of these roles is as follows:

• Employee: Enables a person to log in to the system and update his/her own record (a "self-service" option). This will be useful for recording contact information changes or requesting trainings, for example.
• Supervisor: Enables a person to log in to the system and view or update the records of any employee s/he supervises, as well as produce reports showing only data about that person's supervisees. This will be useful for recording performance assessessment, disciplinary actions and notes in the employee's record.
• Manager: Enables a person to log in to the system and view or update the records of any employee working in a department, office or facility that s/he manages, as well as producing reports showing only data about that department, office or facility. This will be useful for providing limited access to data to middle-level managers.

While some information and notes have been added to the use cases to support these roles and the actors have been defined in the use case model, the documentation has not been completed.

This feature request is a priority for IntraHealth's implementation of iHRIS Manage and should be completed by June 30, 2008.

The Guest Role

A fourth role that will also need to be implemented is Guest. (The Guest role is referred to as the Applicant actor in the use case model.) Logging in with a guest account (a generic username and password) would enable a user to have access to the job application form and to add educational and employment history only. The person would have to validate his/her identity to access additional functions.

When the guest logs in, s/he may complete an application form. At that time, s/he may enter a password to access the system at a later time and update the application information only. However, the user will not have access to any other functions unless s/he is assigned to a position and thus converted to an Employee.

Logging In

It is proposed that users with these roles would first log in as a Guest. Then, if they have an employee record in the system, they can authenticate against the First Name, Surname and Password stored with the employee record (the Password feature has not been implemented in the current version of iHRIS Manage). Their role in the system is determined from data stored in the employee or position record. This login procedure has not yet been documented but would be added to the Log In use case (UC-PT48).

Employee Role

Next to Guest, the Employee role is the most limited of all roles. The Employee can only view and update his/her own record, and may not be able to change many items in that record, such as position, salary and notes. The Employee will be able to complete a job application and enter educatonal and employment history in order to apply for open jobs in the organization. The Employee may be able to view some reports, such as a Staff Directory. The Employee cannot view other staff records.

The Employee is considered to have left the organization's employment when a position change is recorded but no new position is set for the Employee. The Employee then becomes an Old Employee and should be denied access to the system except as a Guest.

Supervisor Role

The Supervisor role should be set for any person who fills a position that supervises other positions. The Supervisor would be able to perform all of the same actions as an Employee, but also would be able to view and update some data in the records of the Employees that s/he supervises. The Supervisor will probably not be able to update all data, such as positions and salary, but should be able to record notes (such as disciplinary actions). The Supervisor may review applicants and record notes about applicants for open positions that s/he supervises. The Supervisor may have access to some reports, such as the Position List, but those reports may be limited only to data about the Employees s/he supervises. The Supervisor role will be important for any Performance Management module to be developed, and may also be useful for assessing employee competencies (see the Competency Model module).

Manager Role

The Manager role is not as clearcut as the Employee or Supervisor role. The Manager is also an Employee and may also be a Supervisor if s/he directly supervises other positions. But the Manager is defined as a Manager of a department or office/facility. Therefore, this role would be set for any person who fills a position that is marked as a Manager of a department or an office/facility. Alternatively, the Manager position can be selected with the department or office/facility information is added to the database. (This feature is not supported in the current implementation.)

The Manager's primary function would be to review reports, but data displayed in the reports would be limited to employees/positions in the department or office/facility that the Manager manages. Therefore, the Manager role is a scaled-down version of the Excecutive Manager role -- a middle manager with less access to data. (The Executive Manager can view all data and reports.)

The Manager can also view records for employees in the department or office/facility, but cannot update the records, just as the Executive Manager can do for all records. The Manager should also be able to review job applications for open positions in his/her department or office/facility, just as the Executive Manager can do for all open positions.

There may also be managers of districts, but this has not yet been finalized.