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Attributes in Personio

This article outlines the types of attributes in Personio, providing a list for each. Attributes are categorized into preset and custom attributes based on their customizability, as well as by eight field types.

Preset attributes

Preset attributes are automatically created in your Personio account as they connect to other functionalities. They appear with a gray Preset attribute tag in Settings > Employee information.

Preset attributes can't be edited or deleted, and some values are predefined. 

These attributes are automatically translated into all supported languages and are linked to predefined placeholders in document templates.

 

All preset attributes

Name Description Connected functionality

Name

An employee's name includes First name and Last name.

It's linked to payroll identification.
Preferred name

A preferred name is what someone uses daily, unlike a legal name for official documents.

Note
This attribute is tied to the Public profile section.

It's linked to:

  • Absence calendar
  • Employee list (optional)
  • Employee profile
  • Employee profile header
  • Global search
  • Org chart
  • Public API
  • Recruiting
  • Tasks, notifications, and reminders
Gender

Selection options: Male, Female, Diverse, Other.

 It's linked to gender variables in Personio document templates.
Email The email address is a unique identifier (Unique ID) in Personio.

It is linked to:

  • The import functionality, and required for the import of salary data, attendances, absences and also employee data (if no other attribute has been defined in Personio as a Unique ID). 
  • The initial Personio invitation and for the employee's subsequent logins.
  • Tasks, notifications, and reminders.
Weekly hours

Weekly hours include:

  • how many hours the employee is expected to work on a weekly basis as per their employment contract (example: 30/40 hours).
  • how many hours are considered a full-time schedule for the employee if they were to work full-time (example: 30/40 hours).

 

It's linked to:

  • Attendance data, as it's required to set the employee's part-time work schedule
  • Reports, as it contributes to the full-time equivalent (FTE) of the company.
Position The position currently held within the company. It's linked to the Recruiting app.
Team The team the employee belongs to. It's linked to Org Chart and access rights.
Birthday

The employee's date of birth.

 It's linked to reminders.
Office The office where an employee works. It's linked to Org Chart and access rights.
Legal entity

Every account includes at least one legal entity, your parent company. You can add additional legal entities to reflect your company's structure.

It's linked to preparatory payroll and Org Chart, as in both cases, employees are differentiated by legal entity.
Employment type Employees can be either internal or external.

It's linked to:

  • Reports, as they are pre-filtered by internal employees by default.
  • Preparatory payroll, as it includes only internal employees.

Status

 Can be either Active, Leave, Onboarding or Inactive.

It's linked to:

  • Your Personio plan, as Inactive employees are not considered.
  • General navigation, as all employees can be found by all other employees via the search bar.
  • The Employee List, as it shows only Active employees.
  • The Org Chart, as it shows only Active, Leave and Onboarding employees.
  • Preparatory payroll, as it excludes Inactive employees.
Hire date The date an employee officially begins their employment, marking the start of payroll and benefits processes.

It's linked to:

  • Attendance data, as it's for assigning an accrual policy to an employee.
  • Preparatory payroll, as employees with no hire date do not appear.
  • The onboarding functionality, as it determines the due date for onboarding to-dos.
  • Reports, as employees with no hire date do not appear.
Contract ends The last day of the employee's fixed-term contract. They are linked to different functionalities. Read more in Terminating the employee vs ending their contract.
Termination date

The final day of an employee's employment. Once this date is reached, the employee status is automatically set to Inactive. 
Supervisor The employee overseeing another's work.

It's linked to:

  • Access rights and approval processes.
  • Org Chart, as employees appear linked to their supervisor.
  • Onboarding, as supervisors can be made responsible for certain tasks.
Length of probation Duration of a trial period at the start of an employee's employment.

It's linked to reports.
Children Records employee children's information and estimated birthdate. It's linked to the maternity protection functionality.
Cost center A department in an organization that incurs costs but does not directly generate revenue. It's linked to the preliminary payroll.

 

Custom attributes

Custom attributes in Personio are manually created to fit specific needs. They appear with no tag in Settings > Employee information.

Custom attributes can be freely edited and deleted, and their values are fully customizable.

These attributes are not automatically translated and are linked to custom placeholders in document templates.

 

Examples of custom attributes

Name Definition

Mobile number (business)

 Business telephone number
LinkedIn Link to the LinkedIn profile
Employee ID Employee number
Occupation type Occupation type based on the work schedule; the predefined options are Full-time, Part-time, Minijob, Apprentice, Student, Intern. These options can be edited freely.
Salary type Payroll group; the predefined options are Fixed salary and Hourly salary. These can be used for grouping payroll exports.

 

Other attribute types

Attributes are also classified by text field type, in addition to customizability. 

Text field Description
General A simple text field for short texts such as names, email addresses, ZIP codes, or telephone numbers.
Multi-line  A 2,000-character input field for longer texts, like comments.
Number (integer) Numbers without decimals. For example: the employee ID. 

Note
The Numbers (integer) attribute type automatically adds separators, which is useful for large numbers but not for data such as postcodes. Use the Text type for postcodes to ensure correct formatting (22869 instead of 22.869).
Number (up to two decimal places) Numbers with one or two decimal places, such as the child allowance and monetary amounts or percentages. To determine the number of decimal places, click Edit.
Date

For employee important dates, such as their date of birth or their certificate of study's expiration date.

You may also create reminders for all attributes of this type. Here, enable the Hide year from the public option.
Link Links allow you to, for example, store your employees' LinkedIn or Xing profiles. Correctly stored links open directly in the browser window via hyperlink.
List of options Use the List of Options attribute type to define options for the selected attribute. Lists ensure that attributes cannot be filled out arbitrarily and thus prevent errors. This is useful for yes/no queries, for example.
Tags

Define the available options for multiple selection attributes. You can choose several tags. This is helpful, for example, to record skills such as spoken languages.

 

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