This article is about Justworks PEO and Payroll. What product am I using?
What are custom fields?
In addition to the categories that automatically appear in an employee's profile, employers can now add new, custom information to an employee's profile through custom fields. Information related to your physical office and company culture, or details that track employees’ career development and performance at your company can be captured through the use of custom fields. Only admins can edit and view custom fields and notes, so no other members will be able to see the information entered.
You can use custom fields to capture short structured data, such as T-shirt size or desk location, to track information across your entire team or specific user groups, and to record information that you want to be able to pull in a report.
How do I create a custom field?
STEP 1. BUILD THE FIELD
From your dashboard, look for “Custom fields” under Company on the left navigation bar. Next, click “Add Custom Field.” Name your custom field and choose from a variety of answer types, including free-form and single/multi select (you define the list of options). The answer type is not editable once it has been selected and the custom field is created. You can use helper text to guide other admins in answering custom fields, as needed.
STEP 2. CHOOSE APPLICATIONS
Decide where a custom field lives within an employee's profile. This could be in Personal Information, Job Information, or Other Information (a new tab created specifically for custom fields). You can also determine which user groups a particular custom field applies to:
- Employees (e.g., full-time, part-time, paid interns)
- Non-employees (e.g., 3rd party administrators and contractors)
- Everyone (all employees and non-employees)
STEP 3. CHOOSE PERMISSIONS
Finally, set permissions to define who can do what. Right now this tool is only visible to admins. That means no other members will be able to see the information entered into a custom field.
- To create, edit, and remove custom fields, you must have the “Update Company Settings” permission
- To view and answer custom fields, you must have the “Manage employees” permission
- To view only you must have the “View all employee info” permission
- To export all of the answers from custom fields in your company census report, you must have the “View invoices and reporting” permission
How do I create a note?
All notes are housed in the "Notes" tab within an employee's profile
- Admins with “Manage employees” permission can create, edit, and delete notes
- Admins with “View all employee info” can only view notes
- To get started, click “Create a new note
- Fill in title and body copy, they are specific to each note
- Choose from one of four categories to organize and easily filter notes over time
- General
- Performance
- Compensation
- Training/Development
- Notes appear chronologically and can be edited or deleted at anytime.
All information contained in custom fields and notes is for your internal reference only. Changes made in custom fields and notes will not impact anything else in the Justworks platform or the services Justworks provides to your company. So, for example, payroll, benefits eligibility, permissions, member type are not affected by any information you add or change in custom fields or notes.
Remain compliant!
Custom fields and notes are a great way to track information that enhances the employee experience and makes your life easier. However, even with the best intentions, seemingly harmless data can expose a company to legal and compliance risks. Custom fields and notes should not be used to record medical or confidential information, non-factual information or commentary, or information that would run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. We've created some helpful best practices to get you started.
Disclaimer
This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, legal or tax advice. If you have any legal or tax questions regarding this content or related issues, then you should consult with your professional legal or tax advisor.