Setup and management

In addition to creating individual folders in each employee profile, it is possible to create folders common to all employees. 

Creating generic folders

Go to Employees > Employee list and click on the gear icon to access the configuration mode. Under the second tab (folder management), you can create a new folder, as well as rename or delete existing generic folders. The folder creation will apply to all employees. This folder will also be present by default in the profiles of new hires. 

This allows you to avoid repetitive manual configuration for each employee and to standardize document management for all employees.

Deleting generic folders

To delete a folder, go to Employees > Employee list and click on the gear icon. Under the folder management tab, you will see all existing generic folders. To the right of the folder to be deleted, click on the three vertical dots ⋮ and select delete. The folder will be deleted for all employees. The documents it contains will automatically be moved to each employee's permanent folder.

⚠️Warning: this action is irreversible. 

To manage folders individually (employee profile) go to Document management in employee profiles. 

Who has access to managing generic folders?

Every user with the permission to access profile customization. 

You have created your employee profiles and completed our training? You’re almost there!

Setting up your Folks environment can be done quickly, but you may also want to plan the platform’s rollout for optimal use.

If you want to launch the platform as quickly as possible, follow the steps below. You’ll also find tips 💡 for creating long-term impact.

👔 Employees: Organizational Structure and Supervisors

After importing your employees, validate their information in the summary (Reports > Summary List > Employees >Employee Summary). You can always create custom fields and use the import/export features to bring in new information.

The next step is to create your organizational structure (job titles, departments, and working sites). However, it’s possible that you already imported this information during the initial import.

If that’s the case, go to the organizational structures to identify the supervisor for each department. You will also need to identify the supervisors of your department heads. Read the instructions below to learn how to proceed.

💡 Are you planning to recruit soon? Consider automating the onboarding and integration process for your new hires. If any steps involve reading or signing documents, add them to your document resources or to the electronic signature module!

• Complete steps for setting up onboarding processes
• Introduction to E-Sign steps

The offboarding too can be automated (see Complete steps for configuring offboarding processes).

Did you know? Our requisition feature allows managers to request new resources for their teams or to request replacements. You can set up requisition request forms through Recruiting > Job Requisition >⚙️ icon (see create a configuration for job requisition requests).

📅 Time Management : Norms and Banks

In order to use the time management module, you must add your Holidays and establish employee's norms. 

The timesheet can be used to track how many hours your employees have worked. See instructions below.

Did you know? You can manually add employees to the notification list (Settings > Notification Management). You can choose when a notification is sent; for example, any request or changes made to an employee profile. 

🔒 Users : Roles & permissions

Once you are done with all the desired configurations, you can invite your employees by creating their user accounts. Make sure you have created roles, assigned the appropriate permissions and verified everything with our team.

Congratulations!🎉 You are now ready to launch Folks.

👉 Other Modules to Explore

The following modules can be implemented before or after launch to maximize the value of the platform.

• Professional Development – Add employee certificates to track their issue and/or renewal dates. Adding training also allows you to track all related costs (instructor, travel, etc.) for development activities.

• Expenses Accounts – In addition to leave and overtime requests, employees can submit expense account requests when a request form is available (Employees > Expense Accounts > ⚙️ icon).

• Performance Evaluation – Optimize your organizational performance by creating custom evaluations (Career Development > Performance > ⚙️ icon).

Continue to check our Help Center for resources and information on using Folks.

We’re happy to have you with us!

The “Import/Export” option is a handy feature that lets you quickly import data on several employees at the same time.

If you're ready to start using Folks and would like to import your employees, read on to learn how.

Step 4: Correspondence

A new page will open, and you'll need to link each column in your import file to the corresponding field. Once you've made these connections, click on Import. If any errors are detected, they will be indicated. Make sure to correct them in the original file before re-importing it.

 

 

Tips for filling out the spreadsheet correctly:

• The identification number is unique. Make sure not to assign an existing number to any employee in your file.
• The following fields must match existing entries exactly: job title, department and working site. If they do not already exist in your Folks environment, they will be created.
• All dates must be entered in yyyy-mm-dd format.
• Language must be entered in uppercase: French or English.
• Job type must correspond to one of the options supported by the system:

- Casual Relief

- Part-time CDD

- Full-time CDD

- CDI part-time

- Part-time fixed-term contract

- Full-time CDD

- CDI part-time

- CDI full-time

- Maternity/Parental Leave

- External consultant

- Contract worker

- Contract - Part-time

- Contract - Full-time

- Student

- Disability

- Occasional

- Early retirement

- Probationary

- Seasonal worker

- Subcontractor

- Trainee

- On-call/full-time

- Supernumerary

- Temporary

- Part-time

- Full-time

- Temporary foreign worker

• Province names must be written exactly as they appear in the system, with the first letter capitalized (e.g., Ontario, not ontario).
• Country names must also begin with a capital letter.

If you're responsible for setting up Folks, this guide is for you!

At Folks, our philosophy is to have fun while we perform. That's why we aim to provide you with an enjoyable experience, both during the implementation phase and in day-to-day use.

Step 0 - Kick-off meeting with the Folks team

After the kick-off meeting, you'll receive your access codes and be ready to move on to step 1.

Step 1 - Logging in to the platform

When accessing the platform, click the icon at the top right od the screen, click on your profile and pick Account management. Here you can change your password and system language (see How can I Modify my Login Information).

To validate your company information, click Settings > Import / Export in the left-hand menu.

Step 2 - Importing your employees into Folks

Once your information has been validated, the next step is to import your employee data into Folks.

1. Open the import file provided by our team. If you have not received the file, please send a request to support@folksrh.com

2. Fill in the required fields. Mandatory fields are marked with an asterisk. If you wish to add custom fields to the file, you must first create them in Folks. Values in drop-down custom fields must be separated by semicolons (example: Option1;Option2).

   Column	Note
   Last name*
   First name*
   Employee number*	The identification number must be unique.
   Position	Must be identical to Folks. The position will be created if it does not exist.
   Department	Must be identical to Folks. The department will be created if it does not exist.
   Working site	Must be identical to Folks. The working site will be created if it does not exist.
   Union	Must be identical to Folks.
   Job type	Must be identical to Folks. See the list of supported job types on the Folks import page (Admin > Import/Export > Import Employee Information).
   Start date*	Must use yyyy-mm-dd format
   Birth date (recommended)	Must use yyyy-mm-dd format
   Recognition date (optional)	Must use yyyy-mm-dd format
   Personal email
   Corporate email
   Language	French ou English
   Gender	M or F
   Address line 1
   Address line 2
   Address line 3
   City
   Province	The province name must begin with a capital letter.
   Country	The country name must begin with a capital letter.
   Postal code
   Phone
   Alternative phone
   Work phone
   Phone extension
   SIN
   1st emergency contact
   1st emergency contact link
   1st emergency contact phone
   2nd emergency contact
   2nd emergency contact link
   2nd emergency contact phone
   Hourly rate (recommended)
   Annual salary (optional)

3. Save the file as CSV (semicolon separator) and import it (Admin > Import/Export > Import Employee Information). The following formats are also supported: .xlsx, .xls and .csv.
4. Match the columns in your file to the correct fields and click Import.
5. A report will be available once your file has been processed. If any errors are detected, please correct them before re-importing the file.
6. Validate the information in the employee summary (Employee > Summary).

Step 3 - Viewing training sessions

Ask our customer success team to view our three training sessions.

We will then be able to assist you with the various steps involved in setting up the platform, such as user management.

Once the setup is complete, you can plan your deployment and start using Folks! 🎉

Tip: When the time comes, share our introductory guides with your colleagues to introduce them to the platform.

• Manager - Getting Started with Folks
• Employee - Getting Started with Folks

Setup resources

A number of resources are available to help you become an expert on the system and your HR data.

Here are a few resources that may be of interest to you at the start of your process:

• Configure Holidays
• Can I Modify a Default Employee Profile Field?

See our list of Folks training videos for more information on the platform's various functionalities.

Your organizational structure can be set up manually or by importing a file. We recommend importing a file, as this method is much faster during the initial configuration. Follow these steps to import a file:
 

Step 1: Export your employee list

To export the required information, go to Employees > Employee List from the menu on the left. On this page, click the View Summary button in the top right corner.

On the Employees Summary page, click the Export button to display the export options pop-up. Deselect all fields except the following:

• Employee
• Employee number
• Company number
• Position

Once you’ve selected only these fields, click Export. A CSV file containing the selected information for all your employees will begin downloading. Open this file and proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Modify the file to add the organizational structures

In the downloaded file, you will find the following information:

• 5 columns: Last name, First name, Employee number, Company number, and Position
• The Position column should be empty

When you import this file, the positions, departments, and working sites it contains will be created. You must manually add the Department and Working Site columns (if necessary). If you only have one site, we do not recommend adding the Working Site column. Then, enter the information specific to each employee in the Working Site, Department, and Positions columns.

⚠️Warning! Make sure there are no mistakes in the names of the structures to avoid creating duplicates. Example: “Sales” and “Sale” in the Department column would create two different departments during import.
 

Step 3: Import file

Once the file is complete, you must now import it into your system. Go to Settings > Import/Export, then, in the Employee Import tab, select the completed file and click Import. 

On the next page, link the following fields together:

• Employee number -> Employee number
• Company number -> Company number
• Working site -> Working site
• Department -> Department
• Position -> Position

You do not need to import the employee's first and last name, so leave those fields set to Do not import.

Once everything is mapped correctly, click Import to complete the process.

Step 4: Add supervisors to the departments

Go to Company > Organizational Structures, then click the Departments tab. Click on the paper/pencil icon at the end of each department row to select the supervisor for each working site. 

Note: Only one supervisor can be assigned per working site within the same department.

Once supervisors are linked to their departments, they will be automatically associated with the employee profiles according to their corresponding working site and department.
 

Single sign-on (SSO) allows users of your Folks to log in to the platform using their existing business credentials, simplifying access while strengthening security.

Settings in Folks

In the left menu, select Settings > Security.

Make sure you are on the Single Sign-On (SSO) tab, then click Activate.

Fill in the following fields:

• Company code: you can choose this freely as long as it is not already taken

• Identity Provider: Google Workspace or Microsoft.

Configuration with Microsoft

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. Go to Enterprise applications.
3. Click New application, then Create your own application.
4. Name your application Folks and click Create.
5. Once the application has been added, set up single sign-on by selecting the SAML method, then click Edit.
   👉 For more information, see the documentation SAML configuration for Microsoft Azure.

6. In the first section (Basic SAML Configuration), fill in the following fields:
   Identifier (Entity ID):
   https://api.folkshr.app/auth/sp/your_company_code/
   Reply URL (Assertion Consumer Service):

   https://api.folkshr.app/api/v2/authorization/sso/respond/your_company_code
   (Replace your_company_code with the name you previously defined in Folks under Settings > Security.)

7. Click Save.

8. In the third section (SAML Certificates), download the Federation Metadata XML file.

9. Return to Folks, upload the XML file in the designated area (Identity Provider), then click Finish.

Configuration with Google Workspace

1. Navigate to the Google Admin Portal.
2. Select Apps.
3. Click Web and mobile apps. Select Add custom SAML app from the drop-down Add App menu.
4. Name your application Folks and upload an App icon. Then click Continue.
5. In the Google IdP Information screen, click Next.
6. In the Service Provider Details screen, enter the following information and click Next :
   • ACS URL: https://api.folkshr.app/api/v2/authorization/sso/respond/your_company_code
     your_company_code refers to the company name to be defined in Folks, which can be edited in Folks under Settings > Integrations > SSO
   • Entity ID: https://api.folkshr.app/auth/sp/your_company_code
7. In the Attribute Mapping screen, click Add New Mapping.
8. Set the Primary email to email.
9. Make sure that the Service Status Button is on.
10. Return to Folks, upload the XML file in the designated area (Identity Provider), then click Finish.

User login

When a user accesses the Folks login page, they will see a new button allowing them to log in via Single Sign-On (SSO). They will need to enter the company code you provided to complete the login process.

Require SSO Login

To enhance security, you can require all users to sign in using only SSO:

• Simply turn on the toggle for Require SSO login for all users.

⚠️ Important: When this option is enabled, the standard login method (manually entering an email address and password) is no longer available. Therefore it is important to ensure that all your users have a professional email address linked to Microsoft or Google.

The default supervisor is determined based on the organizational structure defined for your company. Assigning a default supervisor to a department or working site allows you to efficiently group employees under the same supervision.

In the corporate section of the employee profile (or when creating an employee profile), once you select a department and a working site, the corresponding supervisor is automatically assigned based on the predefined configuration. A “default” label appears next to the supervisor’s name to indicate that the assignment was made automatically based on the department and working site combination. You can always remove the default supervisor and select another one manually.

👉If you remove the default supervisor or assign one manually, the Use Default Supervisor button becomes visible. 

This button allows you to quickly restore the supervisor linked to the department/working site combination without having to search for it in the drop-down list.

If no default assignment exists for the selected combination, the Supervisor field will remain empty.  In this case, you must choose a supervisor manually from the list.

Changing organizational structures settings

From the organizational structures settings page, any change made to a department’s or working site’s supervisor—whether it’s a modification or a deletion—is automatically reflected in the profiles of affected employees. The default supervisor will automatically adjust according to the new configuration.

⚠️ Exception: If a supervisor has been manually assigned to an employee’s profile, subsequent configuration changes will not affect that profile. Once a supervisor has been manually assigned, they will no longer be automatically updated based on the department or working site—unless you reset the default supervisor using the button provided for this purpose.

Here is a summary of the features available in the documents tab of the employee profile.

Adding and Editing documents

From the employee profile, in the documents tab, click the + Add button. Select the document you wish to add by browsing your computer. 

Once the first document has been uploaded, the following actions will be available by clicking on the three vertical dots (⋮) next to the document: Move to, Download, Rename, Show Preview, and Delete.

To share the document with the employee, simply set the toggle to Yes.

⚡ Note: A single folder can contain both shared and unshared documents.

Creating and Managing Folders

By default, the Permanent Folder is present and cannot be renamed or deleted.

To create another folder for this employee, click on the + Add button in the custom folders section. Once the folder has been created, you can rename or delete it.

Manually created folders will be visible to the employee even if none of the documents inside have been shared with them. They can also add their own documents to these folders.

To filter documents added by the employee, use the Added by employee filter.

E-Signature Integration with Documents Tab

This feature allows documents signed via the electronic signature module to be automatically integrated into the employee's file. When sending a document to be signed by the e-signature module, the add to profile option will be available.

If this box is checked, as soon as the document is signed, it will be sent by default to the Permanent Folder in the employee's profile. It is possible to send the same document to be signed by different employees and determine in the profile of which employee(s) the system will send a copy of the signed document.

All signed documents are tagged as Signed by employee (in the documents tab of the employee's profile), making it easy to filter and identify.

⚡ Note: You cannot send a document for signature directly from the employee's profile. This action must still be initiated from the e-signature module.