Setting the General Preferences

General preferences cover miscellaneous settings relating to functions scattered throughout the system.

  1. From the Navigator go to Security | System preferences.
    The System Preferences screen opens, with General displayed by default.
  2. Complete the following information as required:
Field Explanation
General (system)
Backup History Limit This sets the number of days that backups are retained on your system. On exit from HR3pay, backup files older than the specified limit will be removed from the backup folder. The default limit is 60 days. This function only applies if backup files are stored on your local drive. If backup files are stored on the server, they will only be deleted if you run on the server. Files are deleted automatically when you exit from the program.
Keep Processed Leave Requests for This determines the number of days that processed leave requests are kept on file. The default of 0 means that they are never deleted. You can enter any value between 0 and 99999.
Default sort order for reports Choose between sorting reports based on Employee Numbers or Employee Names.
Data Explorer and Grids - sorting For results displayed in Data Explorer or Grids, choose between sorting based on the use of upper and lower case text.
Document Store - max document size If necessary raise or lower the default maximum document file size accepted within Document Store. By default this is 10Mb (10240Kb).
Document Store - max image size If necessary raise or lower the default maximum image file size accepted within Document Store. By default this is 1Mb (1024Kb).
General (per user)
Tree sub node limit This value will limit the number of branches that appear in the left hand pane when viewing a file. The default is 60. There is no maximum limit. However, as the number of branches is increased, this may affect the performance of the workstation due to memory availability.
Address History Limit This specifies how many entries will be saved in the address bar. The default is 100.
Batch Print Limits When printing your ATO Payment Summaries, this setting will split the printout into ‘batches’ to reduce the possibility of paper jams and so that the printer does not run out of paper. The default is 200.
Reports – show ‘Continuous Scrolling’ option This is ticked by default. It ensures there are additional scrolling buttons available within displayed reports.
Data Explorer and Grids - Excel export format:
This applies to all grids, including those generated in Data Explorer and Report Explorer. This specifies the format that will be applied to the grid data if it is exported to Excel.
Native: permits further manipulation in Excel This is the default setting. It means that once the grid data is exported to Excel, you may manipulate it as you would any other Excel spreadsheet, for example to calculate totals and averages, etc.
Note that Excel will interpret numeric data as it sees fit. This may mean that fields will be formatted differently to how you may expect. For example, numbers may contain the dollar sign (e.g. on number of hours worked), or have the leading zeros removed (e.g. on Employee Numbers), or reconfigure the data as exponential numbers (e.g. a Tax File Number of 123-456-109 may be written as 1.23456*109'). You will need to reformat the spreadsheet accordingly.
Non native: This option means that when you export the grid data, Excel will attempt to replicate the look of the grid (e.g. a report) as closely as possible. None of the data is considered to be 'numeric' and therefore no calculations can be applied to the data.
Global Employee No's
Enabled

Select this checkbox to activate this option. New Employee Numbers will be assigned automatically by incrementing by the next sequential number, and this applies to new employees globally (i.e. across all companies).

However, first the system will perform some checks/steps associated with this function:

  • Before it is activated it will check for duplicate numbers across the databases. If duplicates are found it will not proceed unless/until these duplicates are amended so that employee numbers are unique.
  • It will also check that all Employee Numbers are numerical only, i.e. do not use letters. In order to activate the global option, you would need to amend any Employee Numbers if they have letters.
  • Once successfully activated it will disable any existing company-specific increment setting (Company Preferences Tab: Increment).
Increment next sequential employee (EmpNo) from Having activated this function by clicking Enable, this field is autofilled with the next sequential Employee Number (using the next number after the highest number found across all companies within the database).
  1. Once you have entered all the required information, click Apply.
  2. Click on the other tabs (File Locations, Appearance, Enquiries, Email, Payrun, Security, Search, Human Resources, OHS, Alerts) and make further changes, as required.