In Personio, you can set up document categories based on your company's needs, to ensure that documents and records stored in your employees' profiles are organized. You can also create and store templates with placeholders, allowing you to produce personalized documents for employees based on the info stored in their Personio profiles.

Document categories

Before you start

To create and edit document categories in Personio, ensure you have the following:

• The Core Plan. To get these features, upgrade your plan or contact your Account Manager.
• Permissions for Documents and Account Configuration - Documents.
• You need to grant the necessary users permissions to any new categories you create. 
• The document categories for candidate documents are predefined by the system. Use Recruiting Roles to define permissions more specifically.

Create a document category

To create a new document category, follow these steps:

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

The category appears in the Document categories list. You can save document templates to a category in the settings area, or select the category when uploading documents to an employee's profile.

Edit or delete a document category

Only custom categories can be renamed or deleted. Categories without a bin icon next to their name are predefined and linked to Personio's internal processes, and cannot be deleted or renamed. To edit or delete a custom document category, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the People section, click Documents.
3. Click the Categories tab.
4. Select the category to edit or delete.
   • To rename the category: click (Edit), enter the new name, then click Submit.
   • To delete the category: click the Bin Icon to the right, and click Delete to confirm.

System categories

In Personio, system categories are pre-made document categories that come with built-in behavior for certain parts of Personio (and some integrations). Certain features in Personio use these categories automatically. Find a description of the system categories for documents below:

• Application documents: Contains documents stored for applicants during the hiring process. When a candidate is hired and an employee profile is created, Personio automatically moves the applicant documents into this category in their employee profile. 
• Payroll: Contains payslips and other payroll documents. Used by Personio Payroll and payroll integrations like DATEV, and Loket for final employee payslips.
• Performance: Contains performance review documents. When performance reviews are exported from the Performance and Development area, they're automatically stored in this category. 
• Time off certificates: Contains documents related to time off requests, like doctors notes. If your time off policy requires certificates, uploaded files are automatically saved under this category. 
• Work contracts: Contains work contracts and other contractual documents. When an applicant becomes an employee, Personio automatically transfers files from the Recruiting category "Offer" into this category. 

Document templates

Pre-requisites

To manage document templates in Personio, ensure you have the following:

• The Core Plan. To get these features, upgrade your plan or contact your Account Manager.
• Permissions for Documents and Account Configuration - Documents.

Create a document template

By creating document templates and storing them in Personio, you can produce employee-specific documents more efficiently. To create your own document template, follow these steps:

1. Create a document in Microsoft Word or OpenOffice to serve as the base template.
2. Using a supported font, format the document and include all necessary text elements.
3. Add different placeholders and variables to the document, which automatically populate when using the template.
   • Insert placeholders linked to system attributes to personalize documents with the corresponding employee's info saved in Personio, like their Name, Address, or Date of birth. Use two sets of curly brackets, for example: "{{last_name}}". 
   • Include gender variables (Female, Male, Diverse, and Undefined) for gender-specific and grammatically correct documents.
   • Add date formatting variables to define how dates appear on the document. For example, the date "20.11.2020" can be changed to "Friday, November 20, 2020".
   • Include text blocks to store various text options in the template. These are commonly used in evaluations, where text needs to differ based on rating. For example, choose between "He has outstanding specialist knowledge" and "He has satisfactory specialist knowledge". 
   • Insert e-signature placeholders in templates that require signatures, like contracts. 
4. Save the finalized text file in .docx, .dotx, .odt, or .ott format.
5. Upload the template to Personio.

Find best practices and pre-made templates you can download in our sample document templates article, or create your own.

Note:
Support for vector images (embedded into a pdf) is limited and might lead to errors. If you encounter issues, rasterize the image and embed or provide it as a rasterized, not vectorized image.

Edit or delete a document template

Edit the template's title, language, or category

To edit a document template's details in Personio, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the People section, click Documents.
3. Select the template you want to edit from the Templates list.
4. Next to Preview, click (Edit) to change the title, template language, or category, then click Submit.

Edit the original template file 

To edit the original file of a document template, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the People section, click Documents.
3. Select the template you want to edit from the list.
4. Click Download to download the original file. Open the file in a word-processing software and make any changes to the document.
5. Save the text file in .docx, .dotx, .odt, or .ott format and re-upload the template to Personio.
6. Delete the old template from Personio if it's no longer relevant. 

Delete a document template

To delete a document template, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings. 
2. In the People section, click Documents.
3. Select the template you want to delete from the list.
4. Click the bin icon on the top-right above the template preview. Click Delete to confirm permanent deletion.

The document template disappears from the templates list, and no longer appears as an option in the creation experience. Any documents previously created using the template remain in the employee's profile, and must be deleted manually.

Save and assign a document template to a category

Once you have created a document template, store it in Personio and assign it to a specific document category. Follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the People section, click Documents.
3. At the bottom of the template list, click Add Template. 
4. Choose the category you want to assign the template to, and enter a name.
5. Select the template language. The language you select for a template impacts how dates will be formatted. Read more about formatting dates in templates. 
6. Upload the document template file. Make sure it's the correct format, Microsoft Word (.docx/.dotx) or OpenOffice (.dt/.ott).
7. Click Upload to complete the process.

After you upload a template, select it from the templates list to preview it. Save a copy of it by clicking the Download button. Only Google fonts display correctly in the document preview. See Add documents to an employee profile how to create employee documents using templates.

Tip:
If you want work contract templates to be automatically displayed in the Recruiting section when you Create a job offer, upload them to the Work contracts system category.

More information

Supported fonts

When creating document templates, ensure you're using one of the fonts supported by Personio. If special formatting or unsupported fonts are used, the format of the preview may differ from the original formatting. Find a list of all supported fonts below:

Next steps

See Add documents to an employee profile to create documents in an employee's profile using templates, or upload and save an existing document to the appropriate category. 

Administrators can create data retention policies to set rules for when documents stored in Personio must be reviewed for deletion. They can add rules to specify which document categories a policy covers.

Video

The video below explains how to create and manage document categories and templates. See our Help Center article on best practices with sample document templates for download.