Cadence Platform
User Manual

1Before you begin — overview

What Cadence is, who this manual is for, and how to read it.

Cadence is an HR and operations platform: it connects your fingerprint devices to employee attendance automatically, manages leave and its approvals, stores employee documents and alerts you before they expire, and produces the reports you need — all in a fully bilingual Arabic/English interface.

Who this manual is for

This manual is written for the organization manager or HR administrator who will set up and operate the platform. No technical background is required — every step is explained in full.

How to read it

• Starting from scratch: follow chapters 2 through 13 in order — that is the complete setup journey, and each step builds on the previous one.
• Platform already set up: start at chapter 14 (daily operation).
• Looking for one topic: use the contents list above.

Conventions used

2The complete setup roadmap

This is the most important page in the manual. Follow this exact order — each step depends on the one before it, and skipping ahead leaves you with empty dropdowns later.

Why the order matters

When you add an employee, the platform asks you to pick a Company → City → Location → Department → Job title → Shift. If you have not created those first, the lists will be empty and you will not be able to complete the record. So we build the structure first, then add people.

3Signing in for the first time

How you sign in, and how your employees will sign in later.

Your sign-in (organization manager)

1. Open the platform in your browser at the address provided to you.
2. Enter your Email and Password, then press Sign in.
3. If a first-time setup screen appears, complete it: confirm your email or mobile, then set a permanent password.
4. You'll land on the Dashboard — your home screen.

Employee sign-in

Your employees don't need an email address. They sign in with:

• Company code — found in your organization settings; share it with your staff.
• Employee number — as entered in the platform.
• First password = the employee number itself — the platform then requires them to change it immediately.

4Step 1: Your organization details

First things first: tell the platform about your organization. These details appear on the reports and documents you produce.

1. Open Settings from the side menu.
2. In the Companies tab press Add company (or edit the existing one).
3. Fill in:
   • Company name (Arabic) and (English) — each shown per the user's language.
   • Commercial registration and VAT number — used on official documents.
   • Contact details — address, phone, email.
4. Save.

Logo and appearance

1. Go to Settings › Appearance & branding.
2. Upload your organization logo — it appears at the top of the platform and on printed reports.
3. Choose the theme (light or dark), the accent colour, and the display density.
4. Save — changes apply immediately for everyone in your organization.

HR policy

In Settings › HR policy you set rules that affect the whole platform:

5Step 2: Cities and locations

Cities first, then locations inside them — because every location must belong to a city.

Adding cities

1. Go to Settings › Cities and press Add city.
2. Enter the city name in Arabic and English (e.g. الرياض / Riyadh).
3. Repeat for every city your organization operates in.

Adding locations (branches and warehouses)

1. Go to Settings › Locations and press Add location.
2. Enter the Location name (e.g. North Warehouse, Olaya Branch).
3. Select the City it belongs to.
4. Save.

6Step 3: Departments and job titles

Departments define who supervises whom, and they feed the leave approval chains later.

Adding departments

1. Go to Settings › Departments and press Add department.
2. Enter the name in Arabic and English (e.g. العمليات / Operations).
3. Repeat for all your departments.

Arranging the org structure and assigning heads

1. Open the Org structure page.
2. Your departments appear as a tree. Drag and drop a department under another to nest it (e.g. “Maintenance” under “Operations”).
3. Click any department to open its panel, then assign:
   • Department head — the primary approver who receives requests.
   • Deputy head (optional) — a stand-in when the primary is away.

Job titles

1. Go to Settings › Job titles and press Add title.
2. Enter it in Arabic and English (e.g. سائق شاحنة / Truck Driver).

7Step 4: Subsidiary & contracted companies

If you run more than one entity, or you want to track the attendance of a contractor's staff.

When do you need this?

• Subsidiaries: you hold more than one commercial registration and want each entity's employees managed separately while you keep unified oversight.
• Contracted companies: you contract a company that supplies you with manpower, and you want to track their staff's attendance on your devices and keep their records with you.

How to add one

1. Go to Settings › Companies and press Add company.
2. Enter its details (name, commercial registration if any).
3. Save — it now appears as an option in the employee form under Company.
4. When adding one of their employees, pick their company in the Company field and complete the rest (location, department) as usual.

8Step 5: Shifts and rest days

A shift tells the platform when an employee's day starts and ends, and which days are their rest — and every attendance, lateness and absence calculation is built on it.

Creating a shift template

1. Open the Shifts page, then the Templates tab.
2. Press New template and fill in:
   • Shift name — e.g. “Morning” or “Night”.
   • Start time and End time — e.g. 07:00 to 16:00.
   • Break duration in minutes (optional).
   • Late tolerance — minutes before an employee counts as late. Default 15 minutes, the common practice; raise or lower it as you wish.
   • Early-leave tolerance — the same idea for the end of the day.
3. Set the Rest days for this shift (e.g. Friday and Saturday).
4. Save.

Flexible shifts

Some employees aren't tied to a fixed start time but to a number of hours. For them, enable “Flexible shift”:

• The start/end time fields disappear and are replaced by Required hours (e.g. 8.5).
• Their day is counted from their first punch.
• If they leave before completing their hours, the day is recorded as “Incomplete” and shows as such in reports.

Assigning shifts to employees

1. From the Assignment tab open the assignment wizard.
2. Duration: choose “Permanent” (most common) or “Until a specific date” (a temporary assignment that expires automatically).
3. Template: pick the shift — the platform suggests one automatically based on department or city if you've set scope defaults.
4. Rest days: review or adjust them for this group.
5. Employees: select who receives the shift (filter by department or location to make selection easier).
6. Press Notify & approve — the shift is assigned and employees are notified of their new schedule.

9Step 6: Adding employees — three ways

Pick the method that fits your situation. You can freely mix them.

Method 1: Manually (for small numbers)

1. Open the Employees page and press Add employee.
2. Enter the essentials:
   • Name (Arabic) and (English).
   • Employee number — critical: it must match the user number on the fingerprint device exactly.
   • Company → City → Location → Department — these cascade, so choosing the company determines the available cities, and so on.
   • Job title and Shift.
3. Complete the additional details if you have them: ID/iqama number, mobile, hire date, nationality, date of birth.
4. Save.

Method 2: Import from Excel (for large numbers)

The fastest way to load dozens or hundreds of employees at once.

1. Prepare an Excel file with your employee columns (name, employee number, department…). No particular order is required — you'll map the columns next.
2. Go to Employees › Import Excel and upload the file.
3. Map the columns: the platform shows your file's columns against its fields and suggests the mapping automatically. Review and correct as needed.
4. Smart processing: the platform helps clean names and match departments and job titles to what you created earlier.
5. Preview: every row is shown exactly as it will be inserted, with any issue highlighted. Review carefully.
6. Press Apply — everyone is added at once.

Method 3: From the fingerprint device

If you enrolled your employees on the device first, you can pull them in:

1. Make sure the device is connected and activated (chapter 10).
2. From the Attendance devices page open the device and choose Import device users.
3. The platform lists the users registered on the device with their numbers.
4. Select who to add, and complete their missing details (department, location, shift).

After adding: the employee profile

Click any employee's name to open their profile, which has these tabs:

Bulk actions

To save time, tick several employees then choose an action: Move to another department or location · Set a field value for all of them (such as the shift) · Suspend · Terminate · Delete. Every action asks for confirmation first.

10Step 7: Fingerprint devices

Connect the device once, and every punch arrives automatically and instantly — no manual downloads, no USB sticks.

Connecting the device

1. Open the Attendance devices page and copy the server address shown at the top.
2. On the device: go to Menu → Comm → Cloud Server Setting.
3. Enable Domain name, paste the address, set port 443, and enable HTTPS if offered.
4. Make sure the device has internet access (wired, or WiFi from the Comm menu).
5. Save and restart the device.
6. Within a minute the device appears in the platform as “Pending activation”.
7. Press Activate, then assign the device to its location.

Enrolling employee fingerprints

1. On the device: Menu → User Mgt. → New User.
2. Enter User ID = the employee number, and type the employee's name.
3. Choose Enroll fingerprint and have the employee place their finger three times until the device confirms.
4. Enroll a second backup finger (index finger of each hand is recommended) — it saves a lot of trouble later.
5. Save, and repeat for each employee.

Managing devices

For each device you'll find: connection status · today's punch count · punch health · instant or scheduled restart · import punch log · push employees to the device · link pending punches.

The Enrollment coverage tab shows a table of who is enrolled on which device — and lets you enroll an employee on more than one device so they can punch at any of them.

Mobile punching (optional)

1. From the Geofencing page draw a circle around the worksite and set its radius.
2. The employee opens their portal on their phone and presses Punch.
3. The phone captures a selfie + GPS location, and the platform verifies they are inside the geofence before accepting the punch.

11Step 8: Documents & smart reading

The biggest time-saver: upload a photo of the document, and the platform reads it and fills in the employee's data automatically.

How smart reading works

1. From the Documents page press Upload document (or do it from the employee's profile).
2. Choose the employee, then drop in a photo of the document or a PDF.
3. Smart reading starts automatically the moment the file is placed — you don't need to press anything.
4. The fields fill in by themselves: document type, number, issue date, expiry date, issuer, and the employee details visible on it.
5. Review the fields, correct anything that's wrong, and save.

What gets carried into the employee record?

On save, the extracted data flows into the employee's record — into empty fields only, so nothing you entered yourself is overwritten:

When values differ

If the document carries a value that differs from the employee's record (a different name, say, or a different ID number), a resolution dialog opens showing both side by side:

• Currently on the platform — the value on record now.
• From the uploaded document — what the platform read.

You choose per field which one to keep. The default is to keep the platform's value, and nothing is replaced without your explicit choice.

Expiry alerts

Once an expiry date is saved, the platform takes over: the document appears under its status card (Valid / Expiring soon / Expired), and you're alerted ahead of expiry by the number of days you set in HR policy (chapter 4).

Your own document types

1. From the Documents page open Manage document types.
2. Add any type you need (e.g. “Port entry permit”, “Training certificate”).
3. Mark whether the type requires an expiry date so it joins the alerting.

Template library

Upload your blank forms (letters, declarations, request forms) into the Template library so your team can find and download them instead of passing them around by message.

12Step 9: Leave types and balances

Set up leave types, policy and employee balances once — then the system runs itself.

First: leave types

1. Open Leave › Types.
2. Review the ready-made types (annual, sick, emergency, unpaid, hourly excuse) and edit them or add your own.
3. For each type set:
   • Name in Arabic and English.
   • Annual days — for types with a balance.
   • Paid / unpaid.
   • Attendance code — the symbol shown in the attendance grid during this leave.
   • Colour — to distinguish it visually in the grid.

Second: leave policy

In Leave › Policy you set the general rules:

Third: initialising balances

1. Open Leave › Balances.
2. Use Bulk initialise to grant every employee their annual balance at once.
3. Or edit an individual's balance manually — useful for someone who joined mid-year or carries a prior balance.

13Step 10: Users and permissions

Who signs in, what they see, and what they're allowed to do.

Enabling an employee's portal account

1. Open the Users page and select the employee.
2. In the Account tab press Prepare employee account.
3. They can now sign in to their portal with the company code and their employee number.

Granting administrative access

1. Select the person from the Users page to open their control centre.
2. Permissions tab: apply a ready template (fastest), or toggle grants manually from the matrix (resource × action: view / add / edit / delete).
3. Data scope tab: define what they see — all employees / a specific company / city / location / department / themselves only — with an “can edit” option.
4. Visible pages tab: hide pages they don't need to simplify their view.
5. Save.

14Daily operation: attendance

Once setup is complete, this is your day-to-day screen.

The monthly attendance grid

Open the Attendance page to see a grid: employees in rows, days of the month in columns. Each day's status is derived automatically from the employee's punches:

Hover over any cell to see that day's actual punch times.

Editing a single cell

1. Turn on Edit mode at the top of the page.
2. Click the cell you want to change and pick the correct status.
3. To return a cell to automatic calculation from punches, choose “Revert to automatic”.

Importing attendance

If you have an external attendance record, import it with the Import attendance button in three ways: smart reading of a file or image · a CSV file · pulling directly from the device log. Any import can be undone instantly.

Exporting

Export the monthly grid to Excel or PDF from the top of the page — respecting whatever filters you've applied.

15Leave: requests and approvals

Submitting on behalf of an employee

1. From Leave press Request leave.
2. Choose the Employee and Leave type.
3. Set From date and To date.
4. The platform shows an instant preview: the working days that will be charged, the available balance, and the approval path the request will follow.
5. Press Submit.

Hourly excuses

If you pick an hourly type (such as “Excuse”), the form changes automatically to a single date + From time + To time, and the duration is calculated for you.

Acting on requests

Open a pending request and choose:

• Approve — moves to the next step or completes the approval.
• Request changes — returns it to the employee to amend and resubmit.
• Send back — return it to an earlier approver for review.
• Reject — with a written reason.

Cancelling an approved leave

If a leave was approved and then cancelled, press Cancel on the approved request — the balance is refunded automatically and the employee is notified.

16Warnings and termination

Recording a warning

1. From Warnings press New warning.
2. Choose the employee, the warning type (verbal / written / final), the date, and write the reason.
3. The warning is raised into an approval chain ending with management approval.
4. If changes are requested from you, open it and press Edit & resubmit.

Termination

1. From Termination press New termination.
2. Choose the employee, the last working day, and the termination type (resignation / dismissal / contract end).
3. The platform shows an end-of-service calculator computed per labour law — review the figures.
4. Press Approve the calculation then Save — the employee's status becomes “Terminated”.

17Reports

More than twenty ready reports, categorised and searchable.

1. Open the Reports page.
2. Browse the cards by category: workforce · attendance · leave · overtime · discipline · turnover — or search by name.
3. Pin the reports you use often to Favourites.
4. Open a report and set its filters: Period · Company · Department.
5. Review the KPIs, chart and table, then export to Excel, PDF or CSV.

18The employee portal

What your employee sees when they sign in — and how it reduces the daily questions you field.

Employees see only their own portal, which contains:

19Dashboard and notifications

Dashboard

Your home screen: live indicators (present today, absences, pending requests, expiring documents…) that refresh automatically. Press Edit dashboard to drag widgets, resize them and hide what doesn't matter to you, or open the Widget catalogue to add more.

The notification bell

Collects everything that needs your attention: requests awaiting you, documents nearing expiry, device alerts. You can mark all as read, or mute types that don't concern you.

Phone notifications

1. Open the notification bell and press Enable device notifications.
2. Allow your browser to send notifications.
3. Alerts will reach your phone or computer even when the platform isn't open.

Support

The floating Help & Support button is available on every page. Open it, describe your question or issue, and the reply reaches you inside the platform — a red badge appears on the button when a new reply arrives.

20Troubleshooting & FAQ