Employment contract, records, photos: documents in Zeitflex

Four folders, no free-form filing

The Documents menu item has four fixed folders. New folders cannot be created — on purpose. Each folder has its own deletion period and its own visibility. In a filing structure that grows freely, after half a year an employment contract would end up under “Miscellaneous”, and no one could say any more when it may be deleted.

The menu item appears when the Documents module is switched on; photo documentation is a separate module and a separate tab on the same page. Both are available on every plan.

Uploading a file

1. Open Documents on the left, Files tab.
2. Drag the file onto the area or click Choose files. Several files at once are possible.
3. Under File in, choose the target folder. Directly below it you see the retention period that applies to this folder.

JPG, PNG and PDF up to 10 MB are allowed. Zeitflex does not check the file extension, but the content of the file: a renamed file with different content is rejected, as is a file whose content does not match the stated type. The message then reads “Only JPG, PNG or PDF files are allowed” or “File content and stated file type do not match”.

The Sick note folder is deliberately missing from this selection. Doctor's certificates are uploaded via the sick note under Absences, because the additional protection rules for health data apply there — see Recording a sick note.

Employees only upload for themselves. Owners and management can assign a document to another person, for example the employment contract when someone joins.

Who sees what?

The server decides visibility for every single row, including in lists and in search. What someone may not see does not appear — not even as a file name, and the number next to the folder only counts what that person may see.

Every retrieval of a doctor's certificate of incapacity for work is logged. What is held about you and who has viewed it is shown under Settings → Data & deletion in the Access to my documents section, and in the app under My data.

There is currently no way in the interface to restrict or extend the visibility of an individual document further. The table above applies as fixed.

Photo documentation: the proof for the job

Photos are attached to the project or the shift, not to the person who took them. The gallery filters by project, not by person. An analysis of “who took how many photos” does not exist in Zeitflex — it would be monitoring of behaviour and, in businesses with a works council, subject to co-determination (§ 87 (1) no. 6 BetrVG (German Works Constitution Act)). This note is shown visibly above the gallery.

On your phone, take the photo under More → Photo for the job directly with the camera, choose the project and add a short description if needed. The location is only sent along if three things come together: the business has switched on location recording, you explicitly choose it for this photo, and the device allows access. If any one of these is missing, the photo is still uploaded — without coordinates. A stored location is a snapshot, not a trail.

How hours are assigned to projects is explained under Assigning hours to projects or construction sites.

Renaming, moving, removing

Clicking a document opens the preview. Images are displayed; PDF files are, for security reasons, not displayed in the browser but downloaded. Below that you see the person, uploader, date and Retained until.

• Renaming is allowed for whoever uploaded the file, and also for owners and management. The name is for display only.
• Moving to another folder, assigning a project or adding a description is only allowed for owners and management. A doctor's certificate cannot be moved in either direction: it would lose its protection, and an arbitrary document must not suddenly count as health data. If the folder changes, the period is recalculated — but never shortened.
• Removing is allowed for the person concerned, the uploader, and owners and management.

When is something deleted?

Every document gets its deletion date from the folder when it is uploaded; the starting point is the day of upload, not the date on the paper or the day the photo was taken. Only for the doctor's certificate is the date subsequently set to the end of the absence. The daily deletion run removes the file as soon as the date is reached. If you need a document for longer, download it beforehand.

These periods are fixed. There is currently no setting in Zeitflex that lets your business extend or shorten them — this also applies to the doctor's certificate. If a period expires within the next 60 days, a warning card appears at the top of the page with the number of files affected; at most five are listed. Each person only sees there what they may also see in the file storage. The complete table of periods is under Retention periods.

Still stuck?

Support helps with questions about file storage; the doctor's certificate is described under Recording a sick note, all deletion periods under Retention periods.