Grouping Data

As the volume of data grows in your payroll, you can organise your data into groups for greater efficiency. For example, when filtering reports you can group your payruns by month. Then to run a monthly report you need only click on the required month. Grouping is available at several points in the system and can be accessed by: 

• Clicking the Group Panel button wherever it appears in a file.
• By using a right click menu in a list of records.

Some of the more common areas where you might use Group Panels include:

Report Filters:

When running historical reports, you can include a group of payruns in a report. For example, at month end you may want to include all payruns processed in that month. The group panel provides an easy way of selecting these reports:

1. Open Report Explorer and browse to the Historical folder.
2. In one of the sub-folders, double click any report to access the report filter.
3. On the report filter click the run number box.
   A list of payruns opens on screen. Note the column headers Run No, Fin Year, Week No etc.
4. Right click on the list of payruns and select the group panel option. A grey area appears above the list of payruns.
5. Click and hold on the column header you wish to group by, for example if you wish to group your payruns by financial year, click and hold the Fin Year column header.
   
6. Without releasing the mouse, drag the column header into the group panel area. You should see a small white page attached to the mouse.
7. Release the mouse button over the group panel to move the column header.
   Your data will rearrange itself into groups based on the financial year.
   
8. You can further group by month. Select the month column header, then drag and drop it on the group panel. Your data will rearrange itself into groups of financial year, then month.
   
9. To select all payruns from a month, you can simply click on that group.
   All contained payruns should automatically select.
   

To save your changes for future reports, right click on the window and choose save settings. 

Payrun Filters:

You may wish to group your employees in the payrun to make selection easier. You can group by any column header, for example pay method, pay period, department and so on. In this example we will group the Employee Pool by department.

1. On the payrun entry screen select the Employee Pool or Employees to Pay
2. In the right hand pane click the Group Panel button.
   
3. Click and drag the department column header into the Group Panel.
   You will see a small white page attached to your mouse pointer.
4. Release the mouse to group your employees by department. Right click on the pool and select Save Settings from the menu to save your changes for future payruns.
   
5. Now click on the required department to select all its employees.
   
6. Click Add to Payrun to add only the selected employees to the payrun.

Electronic remittance

When generating an electronic remittance file, you can only select one type of pay item per transaction, so for convenience you can group all transactions by Pay Item.

1. In the Electronic Remittance File switch on the Group Panel using the Group Panel button.
2. Click and hold on the Pay Items column header.
3. Without releasing the mouse, drag the column header into the group panel area. 
   You should see a small white page attached to the mouse.
4. Release the mouse button over the group panel to move the column header.
   Your data will rearrange itself into groups of pay items.
   
5. Right click on the list of transactions and select Save Settings.
6. Now you can just click on one of the groups of pay items to select all transactions in that group.
   

Employee file

Grouping is available at various points around the employee file. For example, with leave requests you may wish to group requests by Status. This procedure can be used in many screens throughout the employee file.

1. Open an employee file using F3 search.
2. On the left hand side select the Leave Requests Node.
3. On the right, click the Group Panel button.
   
4. Click on the status column header.
5. Without releasing the mouse, drag it up to the group panel.
   You will see a white page attached to the mouse.
   
6. Release the mouse button.
   Your data will regroup itself into the requested order.
   
7. Right click in the leave request area and choose Save Settings from the pop-up menu.
   

Ungrouping Data:

To ungroup data, do the following:

1. Ensure that the group panel is displayed.
2. Click and hold on the grouped item in the group panel.
3. Drag the grouped item back onto the column header line.
   You will see a white page attached to the mouse. Release the mouse at the position you wish the column to display.
4. Release the mouse at the point where you want the column to display.
   
5. Right click on the list of transactions and select Save Settings.

For more information on customisation, see Customising the Grid.