A Group is a list of employees. Microkeeper uses Groups to decide who can be rostered at a Location, to filter reports and lists to some of your staff, and to decide who your pay rules apply to and who each pay run pays. This guide explains what each kind of Group does, how to create one and how to put staff in it.

Required plan	All plans
Required access	Group Config

What a Group is

A Group is a named list of employees, such as "Melbourne Staff" or "Kitchen Staff". An employee can be in as many Groups as you need, apart from pay cycle Groups and Contracted Hours Groups, where they can only be in one of each.

A Group doesn't hold settings of its own. Other parts of Microkeeper point at it: a pay cycle, a Location, a Shift Rule. When you change who is in the Group, everything that points at it follows.

Navigate to Menu > Manage > Groups. The Group Configuration page has your Groups list and, beside it, Employee Allocation, where you put staff in them. You need Group access to open it; see Managers and Access.

What uses a Group

Location and Role Groups decide who can be rostered

Each Location has a Group of staff who can be rostered and managed there, chosen in Group on the Location's Access tab. All Staff, the default, lets everyone work there. See Locations.

A Role can have a Group too, such as a "Chefs" Group for a Kitchen Role. Then only staff in both the Location's Group and the Role's Group can be rostered in that Role. See Roles.

Groups filter what you see

Sometimes you only want to see one set of staff, such as one venue's wages or the kitchen's leave. Pages that list staff have a Group filter that narrows them to one Group's staff:

Reports: choose a Group in Group before you open a report, and the report only includes that Group's staff.
Employees, Onboarding Review, Super and the Payslips in a pay run.
Timesheets and Leave Review, for managers with Location - All access.

A Group you only use as a filter, such as "Casuals" or "Head Office", doesn't change anyone's pay or rostering, so you can make as many as you need.

Groups decide who pay rules apply to

Shift Rules, Extra Rules, Break Rules, Public Holiday Rules and Deductions can each be limited to a Group. To apply the same rules to everyone an award covers, put those staff in one Group, such as "Award - Restaurant", and choose that Group in each rule. See Set Up Your Pay Rules.

An allowance paid to one kind of worker, such as a tool allowance for cooks, needs its own Group of those staff, such as "RIA Cooks". Keep it up to date by hand as staff start, leave or change jobs.

Pay cycle Groups decide who each pay run pays

With one pay cycle, every employee is paid in it. As soon as you have two or more, Microkeeper creates a Group for each pay cycle, named after it, with the Access Pay Cycle. A pay run only pays the staff in its pay cycle's Group, and the new Groups start empty.

An employee can only be in one pay cycle Group: adding them to one takes them out of the others. Renaming a pay cycle renames its Group. Pay cycle Groups only appear in the Groups list while you have more than one active pay cycle.

The Staff column on ABN and Pay Cycles shows how many staff each pay cycle has. Click the number to open Employee Allocation for that pay cycle's Group. See ABNs and Pay Cycles.

Contracted Hours Groups

Contracted hours decide how many hours are paid while an employee is on leave or has an unworked public holiday. Staff whose contracted hours are set to Group Template take them from the template for their Contracted Hours Group. An employee can only be in one Contracted Hours Group. See Leave and Public Holidays.

See what uses each Group

In the Groups list, the Allocations column shows what points at each Group: Payroll for pay rules and Contracted Hours, Roster for Locations and Roles, and HR for Skills. Hover over a pill to see the list.

Choose a Group's Access

A Group's Access says what the Group is for.

Access	Use it for
All	Groups used everywhere, such as a Location's staff. The usual choice for a small business.
Payroll	Groups used by payroll, such as the Groups your pay rules apply to.
Rosters	Groups used outside payroll, such as rostering.
Contracted Hours	Contracted Hours Groups. Staff can only be in one.
Self Managed	Staff can't choose their own Groups, so don't use this option.
Pay Cycle	Set by Microkeeper on each pay cycle's Group. You can't choose it.

All, Payroll and Rosters Groups can all be chosen on Locations, Roles, pay rules and reports. The difference is on employee profiles: a manager with Roster or HR access, but not Payroll access, can only tick Rosters Groups in an employee's Group Allocation.

Create a Group

Navigate to Menu > Manage > Groups.

Click Add Group.
Enter the Group Name, for example "Melbourne Staff". It can be up to 30 characters and must be different from your other Groups.
In Auto Add, choose Auto Add if new employees usually belong in this Group, or leave it Off.
Choose the Access.
Click Add Group.

The page shows Group Added and the Group appears in the list. It's empty until you add staff.

When you add an employee with Add Employee, Auto Add Groups are already chosen under Group Allocation. One pay cycle Group can also have Auto Add: that pay cycle is then already chosen in Pay Cycle Allocation. Click the pencil button next to the pay cycle's Group to set it.

Add employees to a Group with Employee Allocation

Navigate to Menu > Manage > Groups.

In the Groups list, tick the Group you want to fill. Tick more than one to work on several Groups at once.
Under Employee Allocation, leave the filters on Active, All Staff and All Groups, or narrow them: Paused or Terminated staff, one employee, or only the members of another Group.
Click Display. Each employee is listed with a box for each Group you ticked.
Tick the box for each employee who belongs in the Group. Each tick saves straight away and Added appears at the top right. Untick a box to take the employee out.

With more than one Group ticked, the columns are numbered in the order the Groups appear in the list. Hover over a box to see which Group it is. To see how many staff are in a Group, hover over the i at the top of its column.

Add everyone from another Group with Change All

For example, to add a venue's staff to the Group your pay rules apply to:

In the Groups list, tick only the Group you're filling, for example "Award - Restaurant".
In the filter that shows All Groups, choose the Group whose staff you want, for example "Melbourne Staff".
Click Display.
Click Change All, then Add All Staff. Everyone the filters show is added.
Untick anyone who doesn't belong, such as a manager paid above the award.

Employee Allocation: the group filter set to Melbourne Staff (2), the Display button (3), and the Change All menu (4) open with Remove All Staff and Add All Staff

Change All works on one Group at a time, and not on pay cycle Groups. It only changes staff with the status in the first filter, so run it again with Paused if you need those staff too. Remove All Staff takes everyone the filters show out of the Group.

Choose Groups on an employee's profile

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee. Tick their Groups under Group Allocation; each tick saves straight away. Their pay cycle is chosen in Pay Cycle under Payment and Employment, not in Group Allocation.

Change many Groups at once with a spreadsheet

Display the Groups on Employee Allocation, then click CSV Transfer > Export CSV. In the file, put "1" under each Group an employee belongs to and "0" or nothing where they don't. Then click CSV Transfer > Import CSV, choose the file and click Confirm import.

Employees left out of the file aren't changed. Adding someone to a pay cycle or Contracted Hours Group this way takes them out of the others of the same kind.

Find a Group's ID for a staff import

The staff CSV import puts staff in Groups by ID number, not by name. To find an ID, navigate to Menu > Manage > Groups and hover over the number in the ID column next to the Group. A popup shows Group ID and the number to use. The number in the column itself is only the row number.

To get every ID at once, click CSV Export above the list. The GID column holds each Group's ID.

In your staff spreadsheet, add a column headed "bulk_GID" and list each employee's Group IDs separated by #, for example "58745#58751" for a pay cycle Group and a Location Group. See Add Your Staff.

Warning

The staff import doesn't stop you putting an employee in two pay cycle Groups. List only one pay cycle Group ID for each employee.

Edit, delete or restore a Group

Click the pencil button next to the Group. In Update Group, change the details and click Update Group.

To delete a Group, click the bin button in Update Group. Check the Allocations column first, and move any pay rules, Locations or Roles that use the Group to another one. To bring a deleted Group back, click Show Deleted below the list, click the pencil button next to the Group, then click Restore.

Pay cycle and Contracted Hours Groups have no bin button. On a pay cycle Group you can only change Auto Add; to rename it, rename the pay cycle.

Common mistakes with Groups

Why is nobody in my pay run?

With more than one pay cycle, a pay run only pays the staff in that pay cycle's Group, and new pay cycle Groups start empty. Microkeeper may say "There are no active staff in this Pay Cycle". Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click ABN and Pay Cycles, then click the number in the pay cycle's Staff column and tick its staff.

Why did Groups appear that I didn't make?

When you have more than one pay cycle, Microkeeper creates a Group for each one, named after the pay cycle, with the Access Pay Cycle. These Groups decide who each pay cycle pays. Put each employee in the Group for the pay cycle they're paid on.

Why is an employee in two pay runs?

They're in two pay cycle Groups, which can happen when a staff import lists two pay cycle Group IDs. On Employee Allocation, tick both pay cycle Groups, click Display and untick the pay cycle the employee isn't paid on.

Why isn't a new employee getting their penalty rates?

Pay rules only apply to the Group they're limited to, and new staff aren't added to it unless the Group has Auto Add. Add new hires to that Group, and to any allowance Groups such as cooks, when you add them to Microkeeper. To catch up, fill the Group again with Change All > Add All Staff, using the venue's Group as the filter.

Why can't I roster an employee at a Location?

Only staff in the Location's Group can be rostered there, and with a Role Group, only staff in both. Add the employee to the Location's Group, or check which Group is chosen on the Location's Access tab.

Why does Change All say it can't be used?

Change All only works with a single Group displayed, and never on a pay cycle Group. Tick only one Group in the list and click Display again. For a pay cycle Group, tick each employee's box, or use CSV Transfer.

Guides

Groups