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Create and manage document categories and templates (Implementation)

 

This article explains how to create document categories for storing employee documents, how to create and store document templates, and how to populate a document template with a specific employee's data.

 

What are the benefits?

  • Organize your employee’s documents: use document categories so employees can find documents relevant to them, like payslips, contracts, or employee manuals.
  • Streamline your work: create document templates with placeholders. Personio automatically populates these templates with your employees’ data.
  • Customize documents: use different document templates to match your needs. From job references to promotion letters, you can customize and automate your repetitive HR processes and increase efficiency.

Create document categories

Document categories in Personio help you to organize and store employee documents. Create customized categories like “Payroll”, “Company Policies”, or “References” before you start creating and storing templates.

To create new document categories, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings > People > Documents
  2. Click the Categories tab
  3. In the new document category field, type the name of your new document category and click +Add.

 

Tip 
In this area, you can also edit and delete categories. System categories that have a lock function cannot be deleted or renamed since they are linked to Personio's internal processes.

Note 
If you create new document categories, ensure that you grant access rights for these categories in your employee roles via Settings > People > Employee Roles. Learn more about Access Rights.

 

Create document templates

You can use document templates as a basis to generate employee-specific documents by inserting placeholders, gender variables, and text blocks for selection. To create document templates, you need a word-processing application. Personio supports templates in Microsoft Office or OpenOffice formats.

You can add placeholders that are automatically populated with the corresponding employee data. Placeholders must always be placed inside two sets of curly brackets.

Personio supports the following three types of placeholders:

      • Predefined system placeholders: For system attributes that cannot be modified or deleted, such as First Name or Department. These must be named in English, for example {{first_name}} or {{department}}.
      • Custom placeholders: For attributes you have created. They must be named exactly as they are stored in your Personio account. For example, you may have created an attribute for Preferred Pronouns. As a placeholder, this would be {{Preferred Pronouns}}.
      • Free placeholders: These do not reference attributes and are manually populated with text when assigning the template to an employee. For example, in your document, you may wish to list the goals employees worked on during a recent performance cycle. This might be {{Goal 1}}.

Find a full list of placeholders and detailed information on how to create document templates in the article Create Document Templates - Placeholders. You can also View and download sample templates.

 

Store a document template in Personio

To store the document templates you've created in a word-processing application in Personio, follow these steps: 

  1. Go to Settings > People > Documents.
  2. Click the Templates tab.
  3. At the bottom of the page, click Add template.
  4. Select a document category, name the template, and select the document language.
  5. Choose the document template in Microsoft Office or OpenOffice format that you created previously.
  6. Click Upload.

Assign a document template

To populate a document template with a specific employee's data: 

  1. Go to the relevant employee profile > Documents > Create new.
  2. Search for and select a template from the Select template drawer that appears.
  3. If the template contains multiple choice text blocks, choose the relevant one under Options.
  4. If the template contains placeholders, fill out any missing variables and review the pre-populated variables.
  5. Click Preview changes at any point to preview the file on the left side of the screen.
  6. Once the document is complete, under Document details, enter a name for the document and choose to save as a PDF or original format.
  7. Click Create.

You'll be able to access the generated document in Personio under the relevant employee’s documents, depending on access rights.

 

Upload documents

You can upload documents individually or in bulk. To learn more about these two options, refer to the following articles:

 

Next steps 

Congratulations 🎉
You can now move on to the next module.