Personnel files and confidential staff records¶

A personnel file groups an employee's confidential records in one place. Each record has a subject, a type, one main document and an official record number. The personnel file has its own reference and can contain several records. This helps authorized HR staff distinguish the employee's file from the individual documents filed within it.

Availability: These instructions describe the intended WorkOS Final Screens journey. The current frontend preview uses sample staff and documents; its add-record and document-change controls do not complete real uploads or saves. The backend supports personnel-file reads and record creation, but a connected, deployed journey has not been verified. Use your organization's established personnel-record process until that availability is confirmed.

Access and responsibilities¶

Personnel files are a restricted part of People. Directory access alone does not grant access to these files. Viewing personnel records and adding records are separate permissions. The add form also needs permission to retrieve staff-directory choices. Ask your administrator to check these permissions if you can enter People but cannot load the form or its staff choices.

Managers and executives should agree who may add records, who reviews their accuracy and who handles corrections. A management title or workspace role does not itself establish personnel-record access. Support staff must use the approved support process; this guide does not grant access to confidential documents.

Use the dedicated personnel-file journey: generic Records search, detail and document-download paths exclude personnel records. A filename on the personnel detail screen is information about the main document; it is not a download button. The intended personnel journey has no edit, delete, replacement or supporting-document action after filing.

Find a personnel file¶

1. Open People, then Personnel files.
2. Use Name, email, or personnel file reference to identify the file and select Search. Check both the staff member's name and email, especially where people share a name.
3. Review the matching staff row, work profile, employment information, file reference and record count. Use the page controls when more results are available.
4. Select Open for the intended person.
5. Confirm the person's identity and file reference again before reviewing records or adding a document.

The search matches names, email addresses and personnel-file references. It is not a search within document contents or record subjects. The list's latest-record date comes from the creation time of records linked to that file; it is not the employee's last profile edit or last sign-in.

If no results match, use Clear search and try another known name, email or file reference. No matching result does not establish that the organization has never added a personnel file. The current design contains conflicting wording on that point; use the search context to interpret the result.

A personnel file can exist before its first document is added because staff-profile synchronization can create it. A file with zero records is therefore different from a missing file. Employment and work-profile information can also take time to reflect a staff change. Do not interpret the preview's “In progress” employment badges as the employee's actual employment state.

Review a file¶

The intended detail screen presents the staff identity, personnel-file reference, accountability information and filed-record cards. For each record, distinguish these facts:

New personnel records are filed immediately. The backend sets both their current stage and filing state to Filed. The current design's example of Registered alongside Filed needs reconciliation and should not be treated as a required intermediate step.

Filing does not by itself prove that a document was signed, independently checked for accuracy, approved by a manager or accepted for a legal purpose. Those judgments require the relevant organizational process. This journey does not add an approval workflow before filing.

Creator and modification information refer to the file's recorded accountability. A system-created file may show a system actor. A staff-profile synchronization can update the file, so its last-modified date is not necessarily the date of its newest document. The detailed meanings of the design's latest-record summary and retention labels are still being reconciled with the returned information.

Add a staff record¶

Before starting, confirm that you have authority to file the document, know which employee it belongs to and have the correct final main document. A mistaken selection cannot be corrected through an edit or delete action on this screen.

1. From the personnel-file list or the selected file, choose Add staff record.
2. Select the Staff member. Recheck the person's identity even when you started from their file; the preview does not reliably carry that selection forward.
3. Choose the Record type that describes the document. Read its description rather than choosing by retention duration alone.
4. Enter a clear Subject, up to 300 characters.
5. Enter a Description, up to 4,000 characters. Description is required by the current backend, despite the design presenting it as optional context.
6. Supply exactly one Main document and check its name and readiness. The intended form includes Change main document before submission, but the inspected preview does not implement file selection or upload. Detailed upload-picker, size-limit and recovery instructions await verification of the connected document journey.
7. Review the employee, record type, subject, description and document, then choose Add staff record once the connected experience is available. Cancel is the intended way to leave this form before submission.
8. Check the returned official record number, personnel-file reference and Filed result. Reopen the correct file and confirm the record appears. A sample filename, a Ready label or a click on the preview button does not prove a save.

If a personnel file does not yet exist, the create operation can create it for the selected staff member. Adding another record reuses that person's existing file. The operation does not create a new employee, change their employment state or assign a WorkOS role.

Choose a record type and understand retention¶

The authoring choices currently describe these defaults:

These are product defaults, not a statement of your organization's legal obligations or a promised deletion date. The active classification plan determines the retention code actually assigned during filing; it can differ from the default description shown in the form. Confirm the saved record's retention code with your records administrator when retention matters to a decision.

Closing and archiving are different from deleting. This personnel journey does not establish when a retention clock begins, prove that an automatic disposition has run, or authorize changing or deleting a filed record. Those lifecycle operations require their own verified rules and authority. Adding an HR case document also does not create or resolve an HR case.

Personnel files and the assistant¶

The personnel-assistant connection still needs verification in the connected application. The following explains the available backend capabilities and their limits; it does not establish that your organization's assistant already offers the complete journey. Use the personnel-file steps above when that is the available supported route.

With personnel-file read permission, the assistant can request record-type suggestions, find personnel files by staff search, and summarize a selected file or a staff member's file. General Records access is not enough. The summaries can include work email, employment state, file reference, record count and saved record metadata such as subject, filing information and main filename. They do not contain the document's contents or provide a download link. Treat personnel summaries as confidential information and share them only through authorized channels.

Results can be incomplete. A file summary uses one result slot for the file itself, so a short result may omit some or all of its linked records. The assistant may warn that more records exist, but this personnel read does not provide a next-page action or a way to filter records within that file. Use the authorized personnel-file view to check the complete returned file information. For searches across people, a more specific staff search can help. A missing file result does not prove that the person has no employment documents elsewhere.

Record-type suggestions show catalog defaults. They do not establish the active classification plan or the retention rule saved on a particular record. Likewise, a summary's retrieval time does not prove that staff information has just synchronized from People. Use the saved personnel record and the rules above when these details affect a decision.

Adding a record through an assistant handoff requires personnel-record management permission and the applicable assistant capability. The intended handoff opens protected personnel intake for the selected person; the document upload and save happen there. Preparation does not create a record. The handoff expires after ten minutes, and permission or staff/file changes can prevent it from continuing. Keep document files, upload credentials and temporary viewing links out of ordinary prompts.

If intake succeeds but the assistant cannot confirm the return, check the person's file and the saved official reference before starting again. An expired or rejected return does not undo a saved document. Ask authorized support to reconcile the original attempt when the result is uncertain. Managers and administrators should verify the saved record, rather than treating an assistant message as proof that filing or a case process completed.

Problems and recovery¶

For support, provide the workspace, affected file or record reference, approximate time, visible error and whether a success result was received. Use the approved confidential channel for sensitive details; ordinary screenshots or tickets should not contain employee documents unnecessarily.

Return to the People overview or directory and role guide.