Onboard your team

Add the people who work for your company to Kelola. You invite each person, one at a time or many at once from a CSV file. Each person then activates their own account and sets a password. When someone leaves, you offboard them and Kelola keeps their records.

Before you start

• You need the Owner or Admin role. Only owners and admins see the People menu.
• Each person you invite uses a seat. Your seat count shows at the top of the People page, for example "12 / 20 seats".
• Set up your office locations and work schedules, and your departments and positions, first if you can. Then you can pick them when you add someone. See Set up your company and Build your org structure.

Invite one employee

The Add employee form has two steps: Person and Pay. The top of the form shows the step you are on, for example "Step 1 of 2".

1. Go to People.
2. Select Add employee. The Person step opens.
3. Enter the person's First name, Last name, Work email, and Join date. The join date is required, because payroll uses it.
4. Check the Employment type. It starts as Full-Time. You can change it to Part-Time, Intern, or Contractor.
5. If you have the details, fill in the optional fields: Department, Position, Office location, Work schedule, and Line manager.
6. Select Next, or press Enter. Kelola checks the fields first. If a field is empty or wrong, Kelola shows why under the field, and you stay on Person.
7. On the Pay step, do one of these:
   • To enter the person's pay now, fill it in, then select Create & invite. The section Set up pay while you invite below explains it.
   • To add pay later, select Skip for now. Kelola invites the person without pay details.

To go back to Person, select Back. Kelola keeps what you entered on both steps.

Kelola adds the person with the status Invited and emails them an activation link. A message confirms that the email was sent.

Everyone joins with the Employee role, because the form has no role field. To make someone a manager or an admin, change their role after you invite them. See Manage roles and access.

Each work email can be used only once in your company. Kelola rejects an email that is already on your list. If you typed an email wrong, change it later in Edit employee.

When Kelola rejects a value from the Person step, for example an email that is already on your list or a join date more than a year ahead, it takes you back to Person. The reason shows under the field. Fix it, select Next, and finish again. See Edit an employee's record.

If the email belongs to someone who has left (an Offboarded employee), Kelola offers to Re-invite them instead. See Re-invite someone who has left below.

Choose the optional fields

• Office location is where the person clocks in. Leave it as Remote / unassigned for someone who works remotely. Kelola then skips the location check when they clock in, and marks the clock-in Remote verified instead of on time or late.
• Work schedule holds their start and end time. For someone with an office location, Kelola uses it to mark a clock-in as on time or late.
• Position decides who the person reports to. Their manager is whoever holds the parent position, which you set in Settings → Org structure. If that position is empty, Kelola moves up to the next filled position.
• Line manager is a fallback. Kelola uses it only when no filled position sits above the person, for example when they have no position yet. Only Active employees appear in this list.

Set up pay while you invite

You can enter the person's pay on the Pay step, so you do not have to open their record again later. The step has two parts:

• Compensation & banking: the Base compensation, the bank account, the tax ID, and the Tax & BPJS (Indonesia) settings.
• Recurring pay components: the earnings and deductions the person gets each month. Select Add component for each one. For what to enter, see Set up payroll.

These are the same fields as on the Edit employee form, with the same rules. Only owners and admins see them, and Kelola encrypts Compensation & banking (stores it in a coded form). Kelola saves them when you select Create & invite. There is no separate save button here.

• If you change nothing in Compensation & banking, Kelola saves no pay details. It saves only the components you added.
• If you select Skip for now, Kelola saves no pay details and no components, even if you typed some.
• If Kelola cannot use a component you added, it adds no one and shows why. You stay on the Pay step. Fix or remove the component, then select Create & invite again.
• The audit log records that pay details were set, but it never records the amounts.

You can skip this step and fill in pay later. See Edit an employee's record.

Add a missing option from the form

You can create a department, position, office location, or work schedule without leaving the Person step.

• Department: type the new name in the field, then choose the option to create it. Kelola adds it and selects it for you.
• Position: type the new title, then choose the option to create it. The New position window opens. Check the Position title. Choose its Department: Kelola fills in the department you already chose on the form. In Reports to, choose the position directly above it, or No parent (top level). Then select Create & select.
• Office location: type the new name, then choose the option to create it. The New office location window opens. Enter the Latitude and Longitude of the office, and the Geofence radius (m). To fill in the two numbers, you can also select Use my current location, or paste a map link. The geofence radius is how far from that point a clock-in still counts as on site. Then select Create & select.
• Work schedule: type the new name, then choose the option to create it. The New work schedule window opens. Enter the Start time, End time, and Grace period (min). The grace period is the number of minutes after the start that still count as on time. Then select Create & select.

Stay within your seat limit

Invited, active, and suspended employees each use a seat. Offboarded employees do not.

When every seat is in use, Add employee and Import CSV are greyed out. Each button's tooltip explains why. A notice at the top of People says All seats are in use. To add someone, offboard a person who has left. Or select Get more seats on the notice. It opens Billing, where the owner can ask the Kelola team for more seats. See Manage billing.

Import many employees from a CSV file

1. Go to People.
2. Select Import CSV.
3. Select Template to download a sample file.
4. Open the file in a spreadsheet app. Add one row for each person, then delete the example row.
5. Save the file as CSV. Kelola reads values separated by commas, semicolons, or tabs, so a file saved by a spreadsheet app in any region works.
6. Drag the file into the upload box, or click the box and choose the file.
7. Check the preview. It shows how many rows are ready to import and how many will be skipped. It also lists the line number and the reason for up to six skipped rows.
8. Select the import button. It shows the number of rows, for example Import 12.

Kelola sends nothing until you select the import button. When the import finishes, a message shows how many people Kelola imported and how many rows it skipped.

Fill in the columns

• Keep the header row exactly as it is in the template. Column names are case-sensitive, so firstname does not work.
• Kelola reads only these five columns, and the import window lists them. If your file has any other column, such as department or jobTitle, the preview shows a warning that names it. Kelola ignores that column.
• Import up to 500 people at a time, in a file of up to 2 MB. If a file has more than 500 valid rows, the import fails and nobody is added. Split a longer list into several files.

Check what Kelola skipped

The preview checks the format of each row. Two more checks run when you select the import button:

• Kelola skips a row when its email is already on your list, or appears earlier in the same file.
• Kelola skips a row when its email belongs to someone who has left. The message after the import says how many. Re-invite each of them from People, as described below.
• Kelola imports rows from the top of the file until your seats are full. It skips the rest.

The preview warns you before you import when the file has more new people than you have free seats. It says how many fit, and how many Kelola will skip. It counts people who are already on your list as duplicates, not as new people.

Everyone you import gets an activation email and joins with the Employee role. If an email cannot be sent, the message after the import says how many, and Copy links copies their activation links so you can send them yourself. They have no department, position, office location, work schedule, or line manager yet. Set these for each person on their record. See Edit an employee's record.

Help the employee activate their account

Kelola emails the person an invite. The email is in English, because the person has not chosen a Language yet. It says the link expires in 48 hours. After the person activates their account, other emails from Kelola use the language they choose in Preferences.

The person then does this:

1. They open the invite email and select the activation link. The link works only once.
2. On the Set your password page, they check their First name and Last name.
3. They enter a Password. It needs at least 10 characters, with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, and a number.
4. They select Activate account.
5. They select Go to sign in, then sign in with their work email and the new password. Activating does not sign them in by itself.

Kelola sends them a welcome email, and their status on People changes to Active.

If activation stops part-way, for example on a bad connection, the page says the account was not activated and shows Please try again. The link still works, so they select Please try again. If they selected Activate account twice, the page says Your account is already active, and they select Go to sign in. If the page says the email is already used by another account, their work email already has a Kelola account in another company. Change their work email, then resend the link. See Edit an employee's record.

After they sign in, they can add their contact details in My space → My profile, under Personal & emergency contact. They can also upload files such as a contract or an ID under Documents. Both are optional. See Update your profile and documents.

Resend an activation link

An activation link expires 48 hours after you invite the person. After that, the person sees "This link isn’t valid" when they open it. That page tells them to ask you for a new link. On People, their status changes from Invited to Invite expired.

Send a new link to anyone who is Invited or Invite expired:

1. Go to People.
2. On the person's row, select the send icon. Or open Edit employee with the pencil icon and select Resend activation link.

Kelola emails a new activation link that works for 48 hours. The old link stops working at once. If the email cannot be sent, the message shows Copy link, so you can send the link yourself.

• You can send at most 5 new links to one person in 24 hours.
• The audit log records each new link.

An invite whose link has expired does not use a seat. So when you send a new link to someone with Invite expired, you need a free seat.

Offboard an employee

Offboard a person when they leave your company. Offboarding removes their access at once and frees their seat. Kelola keeps their attendance, leave, and audit records.

1. Go to People.
2. On the person's row, select the pencil icon. Edit employee opens.
3. Select Offboard.
4. In the confirmation box, pick the Last working day. It starts on today's date in your company's time zone. You can pick any day from the person's join date up to 60 days ahead.
5. Select Offboard again.

The person can no longer use Kelola, even if they are signed in. They leave your list, and their status becomes Offboarded.

The last working day decides two things. Reports count the person's days up to and including that day. Payroll pays them for the last time in the month of that day. The person loses access at once, even if the last working day is later. When you tick Show offboarded, their row shows the date under their status.

You cannot offboard the owner. The Offboard button does not appear on the owner's form.

Change the last working day

Correct the last working day of an offboarded person if it is wrong.

1. Go to People.
2. Select the Show offboarded checkbox.
3. On the person's row, select the calendar icon.
4. Pick the new date, then select Save changes.

You can pick the same dates as when you offboard someone. The audit log records the old and the new date. Reports use the new date at once. A pay run that already exists does not change. See Run payroll.

Reinstate an employee

Reinstate an offboarded person who comes back to your company.

1. Go to People.
2. Select the Show offboarded checkbox.
3. On the person's row, select Reinstate.

The person comes back as Active and signs in with their old password. They use a seat again, so you need a free seat before you reinstate them.

Reinstating clears the person's last working day. The audit log keeps the old date.

Re-invite someone who has left

Re-invite a person who left and now joins again. Kelola uses their old record, so their payslips, leave, and attendance stay.

1. Go to People and select Add employee.
2. Enter the person's Work email and fill in the form. Then select Create & invite or Skip for now on the Pay step.
3. Kelola tells you the email belongs to someone who has left. Select Re-invite.

The person becomes Invited, and Kelola emails them a new activation link that works for 48 hours. Their last working day is cleared. The audit log keeps the old date.

• If they had an account before, their old password stops working, and they are signed out on every device. They set a new password when they activate.
• Re-inviting uses a seat, so you need a free seat.
• Kelola keeps the old details, not what you typed in the form. Check their details and their Join date in Edit employee after you re-invite them.
• They come back with the Employee role, whatever role they had before. To make them a manager or an admin again, change their role after you re-invite them.

Reinstate is the quick undo for someone you offboarded by mistake: they come back as Active with their old password. Re-invite is a fresh start with a new password.

Next steps

• Edit an employee's record
• Manage roles and access
• Build your org structure
• Manage billing