Inviting employees

A business where only the boss clocks in is an expensive calculator. The leap only happens when the workforce clocks in themselves. This article shows you how to get there.

Two ways into the business

There are two ways to add a person to Zeitflex. You will find both under Employees:

• Invite access — you enter email addresses, and Zeitflex sends an invitation link. The person enters their name there and sets their own password; only then is their account created. You then add master data such as pay and weekly hours via Edit.
• Add employee — you create the person with all their master data. The account is created without a password. Without an email address, the person clocks in with their PIN at the wall terminal; with an address, they get their password via the sign-in page (see below).

Which route fits: if you want to get a team started quickly with the mobile app, use the invitation. If you have to record the master data anyway (mini-job, hourly wage, weekly hours for the month-end close), create the person directly.

How to invite someone by link

1. Open Employees on the left.
2. Scroll to the Invite access card.
3. Enter the email addresses — one per line. Below, Zeitflex shows how many addresses are usable.
4. Click Send invitations.
5. The invited person clicks the link in the email, enters their name, sets a password and is in.
6. Then open Edit in the employee list and add the personnel number, start date, employment type, hourly wage, working-time model and vacation entitlement.

The result: the person appears in the employee list, can sign in and clock in straight away — in the browser and in the app. On the wall tablet as well, once you have stored a PIN.

Every invitation goes out with the role Employee. If someone is to become a manager, change the role via Edit after they first sign in.

How to create someone directly

1. Open Employees on the left.
2. Click Add employee.
3. Enter the first and last name. The email address is optional — each address may only appear once in the business.
4. Add what you already know: personnel number, start date, employment type (Full-time, Part-time, Mini-job, Midi-job, Working student, Short-term, Apprentice), hourly wage or monthly salary, weekly hours, vacation entitlement, role. All of this can be added later.
5. Save.

The account is created without a password. Zeitflex does not send an invitation email at this point. This is how the person still gets in:

• Without an email address: set a PIN (next section). The person clocks in at the wall terminal. The app and browser remain closed to them — just right for temporary staff, seasonal workers and anyone without their own mailbox.
• With an email address: the person opens the sign-in page, chooses Forgot password and enters their address. Zeitflex sends them a link with which they set a password. After that they sign in in the browser and in the app.

Why not simply enter the address under Invite access? Because Zeitflex skips addresses there for which an account already exists. The “Forgot password” route is therefore the right one for a person who has already been added.

Without an email address: PIN for the tablet

Not everyone in the workforce has an email address. That is what the tablet PIN is for:

1. Create the person as above and leave the email field empty.
2. Open Settings, Terminal tab, Terminal PINs section.
3. Enter a 6-digit PIN for the person and click Set.
4. The person clocks in at the wall tablet by tapping their tile and entering the PIN.

The PIN is stored encrypted and can no longer be viewed once set — anyone who forgets it gets a new one via Change. Older 4-digit PINs from existing records keep working, but Zeitflex asks for them to be renewed. Everything about the terminal is in Clocking in/out: all methods.

Which role for whom?

Assign Manager sparingly. Anyone allowed to correct other people’s times has access to working-time data for the whole business — that is personal information, not a convenience. There is exactly one owner; their role cannot be changed in the form and they cannot be marked as having left.

Date of birth — when it makes sense

The form has a Date of birth (optional) field. It has exactly one purpose: youth employment protection. Zeitflex does not need the date for pay, time tracking or the mini-job monitor.

This is how Zeitflex behaves:

• With a date of birth, the working-time check applies the JArbSchG limits instead of the ArbZG limits for every day on which the person was not yet 18. From their 18th birthday, the ArbZG applies again.
• Without a date of birth, Zeitflex only checks the Working Hours Act. It then does not claim that everything is in order, but names under Working-time check the people for whom youth employment protection was not checked. In addition, the employees page shows a card “… people have no date of birth” with an Add for … button for each person.
• The date must be in the past and less than 100 years ago — otherwise a transposed digit in the year would silently trigger the wrong check.

When to enter it: for apprentices, school students and temporary staff under 18 — always. If your workforce is entirely of age, you may ignore the notice; the information remains voluntary, and data minimisation (Art. 5(1)(c) GDPR) then argues against collecting it. What the check reports in detail is in Apprentice under 18: youth employment protection.

If the invitation does not arrive

In this order:

1. Have them check the spam folder. By far the most common case.
2. Check the address in the invitation list. A typo is quicker to make than to find. If the address is wrong: Withdraw and enter it again correctly.
3. Enter the address again. In the Invite access card, send the same address once more — Zeitflex renews the link and deadline; no second entry is created.
4. Open the link on the phone. The invitation link works in any browser.

If Zeitflex reports “This email address already belongs to another business”, the person already has an account with this address at another Zeitflex business. An address can only belong to one business — the person then needs a different address or the terminal PIN route.

If someone leaves the business

In the employee list, click Offboard instead of deleting the person. Two reasons:

• Their recorded times must be retained (see Retention periods).
• People who have left no longer count as active employees. You only pay for active people.

When someone is offboarded, their sign-in ends immediately; clocking in is no longer possible. The final anonymisation is handled automatically by the daily deletion run once the statutory period has expired. It can also be undone: set the view to All (including those who have left) and click Reactivate next to the person — as long as the account has not yet been anonymised. In detail in An employee leaves the business.

Frequently asked questions

I have two construction helpers without email. Do I have to make up addresses?

No. Leave the email field empty and set a 6-digit PIN for each of them under Settings → Terminal. The two clock in at the wall tablet. If one of them later does get a mailbox, add the address via Edit; they then get their password via Forgot password on the sign-in page.

The invitation has been accepted, but the person is in the list without pay and weekly hours. Did something go wrong?

No, that is the normal route with an invitation: the account is created with name, address and the Employee role — Zeitflex knows nothing more at that point. Open Edit and add the employment type, pay and weekly hours before the first month-end close is due.

I am a manager and wanted to invite a second manager. Why does that not work?

Invitations always go out with the Employee role. Only the owner may assign the Manager role — otherwise a manager could bring in as many colleagues of equal rank as they liked. Ask the owner to set the role via Edit after the person first signs in.

I have fifteen people from an Excel list. Do I have to create each one individually?

No. The Importing data route accepts a CSV or Excel list and creates all people at once — with or without an email address. The import also checks the plan limit; anything above it is not created.

Still stuck?

If you have ten or more people to add, the Importing data route is worthwhile — an Excel list is enough. For everything else, Support can help; the first clock-in is described in First clock-in.