Simple HR Suite

A comprehensive WordPress HR management plugin built for small-to-medium businesses. Covers the full employee lifecycle — from hiring and onboarding through daily attendance, leave management, payroll, performance tracking, and end-of-service settlement.

Current Version: 1.8.3 Requires WordPress: 5.8+ Requires PHP: 7.4+ License: Proprietary Author: hdqah.com

Features at a Glance

Modules

Employees

• Full employee profile: personal info, contact, job details, contract dates, payroll data, immigration/visa, driving license
• Arabic name fields for bilingual environments
• Photo/avatar with initials fallback
• QR code generation (for kiosk attendance scanning)
• CSV import and export
• Auto-create WordPress user from employee record
• Employee profile tabs: Overview, Attendance, Leave, Loans, Documents, Assets, Resignation, Settlement, Performance

Departments

• Department CRUD with colour coding
• Manager and approver assignment per department
• Auto-role assignment on hire
• Department-scoped filtering across all modules

Attendance

• Shifts — Configurable start/end times, weekly schedule with per-day overrides (custom times or day off), calculation modes (shift times or total hours)
• Shift-level policies — Clock-in/out methods (self_web, kiosk, manual), geofence enforcement (in/out separately), selfie capture modes (in_only, in_out, all), target hours for total-hours mode. Falls back to role-based policies when not set on the shift
• Self-service widget — [sfs_hr_attendance_widget] shortcode: live clock, punch buttons with state machine (in → break_start → break_end → out), fullscreen selfie overlay, geofence validation, pre-flight policy checks
• Kiosk mode — [sfs_hr_kiosk] shortcode: immersive full-screen terminal with QR scanner, auto-punch by scan order, selfie capture from QR camera, device-level geo-lock. Supports offline punch queueing via IndexedDB + Background Sync
• Sessions — Daily session records with statuses: present, late, left_early, absent, incomplete, on_leave, holiday, day_off. Automatic recalculation with segment evaluation
• Early leave — Automatic detection, employee can submit early leave requests, manager approval, 72-hour auto-reject cron
• Devices — Kiosk device management with geo-lock, selfie requirements, suggest times, offline toggle
• Configurable period — Attendance period can start on any day of the month (not just the 1st)

Leave

• Configurable leave types with annual quotas, colour coding, gender restrictions, attachment requirements
• Leave balances: opening, accrued, used, carried over, closing (per year per type)
• Multi-level approval workflow with approval chain tracking
• Leave cancellation with manager re-approval
• Early return from leave
• Holiday calendar (single-day and multi-day with yearly repeat)
• Frontend: leave dashboard with KPI cards, request form, history
• Admin: request management with bulk actions, balance adjustments

Payroll

• Salary components: earnings, deductions, benefits — fixed, percentage, or formula-based
• Employee-level component overrides
• Payroll periods (monthly, bi-weekly, weekly)
• Payroll run workflow: draft → calculating → review → approved → paid
• Auto-calculation from attendance (absence deductions, late deductions, overtime)
• Loan installment deductions
• GOSI deductions (employee + employer share)
• Bank transfer file generation (IBAN)
• PDF payslip generation
• Employee self-service payslip viewing

Loans (Cash Advances)

• Employee loan request submission
• Two-level approval: GM → Finance
• GM can approve a different amount than requested
• Installment-based repayment schedule
• Payment tracking with skip capability
• Full audit history
• Integration with payroll for automatic deductions

Performance

• Attendance commitment scoring (percentage-based)
• Weighted performance score: 40% attendance, 35% goals, 25% reviews
• Goals and OKRs with progress tracking
• Performance reviews (self, manager, peer) with configurable cycles
• Threshold-based alerts (e.g. below 80% commitment)
• Monthly and weekly performance snapshots
• Department-level analytics
• Chart.js dashboards

Hiring

Candidates:

• Application tracking with multi-stage workflow: applied → screening → HR reviewed → department pending → department approved → GM pending → GM approved → hired/rejected
• Multi-level approval chain with notes at each stage
• Resume and cover letter uploads
• Conversion to employee with WordPress user creation

Trainees:

• Trainee onboarding program (3–6 months)
• University and education tracking
• Supervisor assignment, training period extension
• Conversion to candidate after completion

Employee Exit

Resignations:

• Submission with notice period and handover notes
• Approval workflow with multi-level chain
• Final exit tracking for foreign employees: government reference, expected/actual exit dates, ticket booking status, exit stamp

Settlements:

• End-of-service gratuity calculation (based on years of service)
• Leave encashment for unused balance
• Final salary adjustments
• Other allowances and deductions
• Clearance checklist

Assets

• Asset inventory: code, name, category, serial, model, purchase year, price, warranty
• QR code generation per asset
• Assignment workflow: pending employee approval → active → return requested → returned
• Selfie capture on employee acceptance
• Condition tracking: new, good, damaged, needs repair, lost
• Return request with photos

Documents

• Document type management (ID copies, certificates, contracts, etc.)
• Expiry date tracking with status alerts
• Upload by employee or HR
• Update request workflow (HR requests, employee fulfils)
• Required vs optional documents per employee

Shift Swap

• Employee-to-employee shift swap requests
• Two-step approval: target employee accepts → manager approves
• Request numbering (SS-YYYY-NNNN)
• Email notifications at each stage

Reminders

• Automatic birthday and work anniversary reminders
• Configurable lead time (0, 1, or 7 days before)
• Recipient selection: HR managers, department manager, or all HR staff

Workforce Status

• Real-time dashboard: present, absent, on leave, working counts
• Department-level breakdown
• Daily absent-employee notifications to department managers

PWA (Progressive Web App)

• Service worker with offline page caching
• Web App Manifest for "Add to Home Screen"
• Offline punch queueing (IndexedDB + Background Sync)
• Install prompt on attendance pages
• Online/offline status detection with auto-sync

Shortcodes

A full reference with copy-to-clipboard is available in HR Settings → Shortcodes.

REST API

All endpoints are under /wp-json/sfs-hr/v1/ and require authentication via X-WP-Nonce header.

Database

The plugin creates 30+ tables under the wp_sfs_hr_ prefix. All migrations are idempotent and version-gated via the sfs_hr_db_ver option. Tables use CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS, and columns are added with add_column_if_missing().

Key table groups:

• Core: employees, departments
• Attendance: attendance_shifts, attendance_sessions, attendance_punches, attendance_policies, attendance_policy_roles, attendance_devices, early_leave_requests
• Leave: leave_types, leave_requests, leave_balances, leave_cancellations, leave_request_history, holidays
• Payroll: salary_components, employee_components, payroll_periods, payroll_runs, payroll_items, payslips
• Loans: loans, loan_payments, loan_history
• Hiring: candidates, trainees
• Exit: resignations, settlements, exit_history
• Other: assets, asset_assignments, employee_documents, performance_snapshots, performance_goals, performance_reviews, performance_alerts, shift_swaps, audit_trail

Capabilities & Roles

Cron Jobs

Email Notifications

Centralised via Helpers::send_mail() with automatic HTML detection (skips wpautop() for pre-formatted HTML). Notifications are sent for:

• Leave request submission, approval, rejection, cancellation
• Loan request submission, GM approval, finance approval, rejection
• Resignation submission and approval
• Settlement finalisation
• Early leave requests and approvals
• Shift swap requests, acceptances, manager decisions
• Birthday and anniversary reminders
• Absent employee alerts
• Weekly/monthly performance digests

Security

• CSRF — wp_verify_nonce() / check_admin_referer() on all form handlers and REST endpoints
• XSS — esc_html(), esc_attr(), esc_js() on output; sfsEsc() helper for inline JS innerHTML
• SQL injection — All queries use $wpdb->prepare() with parameterised placeholders
• Capability checks — Every admin page and REST endpoint verifies user capabilities
• File uploads — MIME type validation, WordPress media library integration

Installation

1. Upload the hr-suite folder to /wp-content/plugins/
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
3. Navigate to HR → Dashboard to begin setup
4. Create departments, configure leave types, set up attendance shifts
5. Add employees (or import via CSV)
6. Place shortcodes on frontend pages for employee self-service

Automatic updates are supported via GitHub Updater — the plugin includes the required GitHub Plugin URI and Primary Branch headers.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.8 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• MySQL 5.7 / MariaDB 10.3 or higher
• HTTPS recommended (required for PWA, geofence, and camera features)

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a detailed version history.