Software Documentation · Client Deliverable
Tanzania HRMS
Features & User Guide
A complete functional reference covering every administrator capability, every role-based feature, and the step-by-step workflows that make up the Human Resource Management System.
Table of Contents
Executive Overview
Tanzania HRMS is a web-based Human Resource Management System that runs the complete employee lifecycle for the organisation, from onboarding through payroll to performance review. Everyone signs in to a single system, and the menu each person sees reflects what their role is responsible for.
What the system does
The platform manages employee records, branch and department structure, leave entitlement and approval, monthly payroll, performance appraisal, statutory and management reporting, a shared document library, and system backup — all from a single browser-based interface, with no separate mobile application.
Why it exists
The system is built around a small number of rules specific to the organisation:
Two employee populations
Local and international staff follow different leave entitlements, payroll components, payslip formats and tax treatment, so the system tailors every calculation to the employee's employment type.
Leave accrues monthly
Entitlement is not granted all at once each year — it builds up month by month, with rules and limits specific to each leave type.
Configurable pay components
Salary is built from a flexible set of components (allowances, deductions, contributions), several of which the system calculates automatically from other records such as leave, loans and overtime.
Structured appraisal
Performance is reviewed through a formal, multi-stage process: a self-assessment, followed by scoring from two levels of authority.
Who uses the platform
Employees
Maintain their own profile, apply for leave, request leave encashment, complete their self-appraisal, and view their payslip and documents.
Branch Heads & Managers
Approve leave for their team, provide appraisal feedback as reporting authority, and view their branch's records.
Human Resources
Maintain the employee master, manage leave settings and balances, run imports, and produce HR reports.
Payroll & Finance
Maintain pay structures and tax settings, generate monthly salary, approve reimbursements, and produce payroll reports.
Senior Management
Give final appraisal sign-off, hold top-level approval authority, and see the full organisation.
System Administrator
Configure roles and permissions, maintain master data, and manage backups.
Platform at a glance
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Access | Web browser, single sign-in, no separate mobile app |
| Data | All records held in one central database |
| Structure | One organisation, one set of branches, departments and designations |
| Access model | Every screen and menu item is controlled by role-based permissions |
| Reporting | Statutory and management reports generated on demand, filtered to what each role is allowed to see |
User Roles
Access in the system is entirely role-driven. A person's role decides which menus they see, which records they can view, and which actions they can take. The roles below describe the practical audiences the system is built around.
System Administrator
- Overview
- Holds unrestricted access to every module and every record.
- Responsibilities
- Configure roles and permissions, maintain master data, manage system backups, and act as the final escalation point for access issues.
- Permissions
- All permissions in the system, by default.
- Main activities
- Create/edit roles · attach permissions · manage user accounts · configure masters · take backups.
Human Resources
- Overview
- Owns the accuracy of every employee record and the organisation's HR calendar.
- Responsibilities
- Add and maintain employee records, manage leave settings and opening balances, import employees and leave data, assign documents, and run HR reports.
- Permissions
- Full employee lifecycle access; leave configuration; document management; reporting. Does not configure payroll structures or system backups.
- Main activities
- Onboard employees · correct leave balances · import data · assign documents · run reports.
Payroll & Finance
- Overview
- Responsible for turning each employee's standing pay structure into a monthly, payable salary.
- Responsibilities
- Maintain pay components and pay structures, generate monthly salary, review tax settings, approve reimbursement claims, and produce payroll and statutory reports.
- Permissions
- Payroll configuration and generation; salary and tax reporting; reimbursement approval.
- Main activities
- Build payscales · generate salary · approve claims · print payslips · export reports.
Branch Head / Approver
- Overview
- Holds approval authority over the employees in their branch or reporting line.
- Responsibilities
- Review and approve or reject leave applications, and provide reporting-authority feedback on performance appraisals for their team.
- Permissions
- View of their branch's employees and leave activity; leave approval; appraisal feedback for direct reports.
- Main activities
- Approve/reject leave · score appraisals as reporting authority · view branch records.
Employee
- Overview
- The default role held by every staff member for managing their own information.
- Responsibilities
- Keep personal information current, apply for leave, request leave encashment, complete the annual self-assessment, and view their own payslip and assigned documents.
- Permissions
- Access limited to their own records; no visibility into other employees' data.
- Main activities
- Update profile · apply for leave · complete appraisal · view payslip · view documents.
Senior Management
- Overview
- Sits at the top of the approval chain for appraisals and holds full organisational visibility.
- Responsibilities
- Provide final-authority appraisal feedback, hold top-level approval rights, and review organisation-wide reports.
- Permissions
- Full visibility across employees, leave, appraisals and reports.
- Main activities
- Final appraisal sign-off · top-level approvals · organisation-wide reporting.
Access is controlled by what each role's permissions allow the menu to display. A person who knows the exact web address of a screen may still be able to open it even if it is not shown on their menu. Role and permission assignments should be reviewed periodically to confirm they match each person's actual responsibilities.
Administrator Features
The features below are available to the System Administrator, and in most cases to Human Resources for the areas they own.
Roles & Permissions
Role & Permission Management
- Purpose
- Define who can do what across the whole system.
- Description
- Roles are named bundles of permissions. Every user is assigned one role, and that role determines their menu and access.
- Available actions
- Create a role · edit a role · attach or change a role's permissions · view the list of roles · grant an individual permission directly to a specific user.
- Workflow
- Create the role → open Attach Permission → select the relevant permissions, grouped by module → save.
- Result
- Everyone holding that role sees the matching menus from their next page load onward.
- Notes
- Permissions control menu visibility, not direct address access — see the Important Note above. After initial setup, confirm every role that should have access actually shows the expected menu.
Employee Records
Employee Record Administration
- Purpose
- Maintain the single authoritative record for every person in the organisation.
- Description
- Every other module — leave, payroll, appraisal — reads from this record, so its accuracy underpins the rest of the system.
- Available actions
- Add an employee · edit employment, salary and personal details · record addresses, qualifications, medical insurance, department history and loan history · set opening leave balances · activate or deactivate an employee · transfer an employee between branches or departments · import employees in bulk from a spreadsheet.
- Workflow
- Adding an employee is a guided, multi-step sequence: login & personal details → employment details → salary history → opening leave balances → supporting sections (address, qualifications, etc.) in any order.
- Result
- A complete employee record ready for leave, payroll and appraisal.
- Notes
- The employment type recorded for each employee is the single most influential field in the system — it should be entered consistently across all records.
Leave Configuration
Leave Type & Rule Configuration
- Purpose
- Define the leave types available in the organisation and the rules that govern each one.
- Description
- Each leave type carries its own annual entitlement, maximum days per application, accrual behaviour, salary-deduction rate, and whether a supporting certificate is required.
- Available actions
- Add, edit or deactivate a leave type · correct an individual employee's leave balance through a credit or adjustment.
- Workflow
- Open Leave Settings → Add or Edit → complete every rule field → save.
- Result
- The type becomes available on the employee application form for the employment types it applies to.
- Notes
- Leave entitlement accrues month by month rather than being granted in full at the start of the year; this monthly accrual is an administrator-run task rather than an automatic background process.
Payroll Configuration
Pay Components (Payroll Heads)
- Purpose
- Define every allowance, deduction and contribution that can appear on a payslip.
- Available actions
- Add, edit and deactivate pay components; assign each to local staff, international staff, or both.
- Notes
- Several components — including overtime, loan instalments and reimbursements — are calculated automatically from other records rather than entered by hand.
Employee Pay Structure (Payscale)
- Purpose
- Set each employee's standing salary structure.
- Available actions
- Build a payscale from an employee's active salary history and applicable pay components; recalculate tax live while building it.
- Notes
- A payscale must exist, dated on or before the pay month, before salary can be generated.
Income Tax Bands
- Purpose
- Define the income bands used to calculate tax.
- Available actions
- Add and edit tax bands, each with a rate and a fixed addition.
- Notes
- Bands must run continuously with no gap between one band's upper limit and the next band's lower limit, or a salary landing in a gap cannot be processed.
Salary Increments & Reimbursement Types
- Purpose
- Configure salary increase schedules and the categories of reimbursable expense.
- Available actions
- Add an increment (percentage, effective dates, financial year); define reimbursement categories.
- Notes
- Increments generate back-pay (arrears) automatically for the months they apply to.
Performance Configuration
Appraisal Attributes
- Purpose
- Define the scored attributes every appraisal is measured against.
- Available actions
- Add, edit, deactivate or remove an attribute, each with a description and a maximum score.
- Notes
- Attributes scored out of 10 form the basis of the appraisal total; keep standard attributes at that scale for the totals to remain meaningful.
Document Management
Document Types & Library
- Purpose
- Distribute policies, forms and circulars to specific employees.
- Available actions
- Create document categories; upload a document (image or PDF); assign it to selected employees; remove an assignment.
- Notes
- Uploaded files keep their original file name, so two uploads with the same name will replace one another — use distinctive file names.
Master Data
| Master | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Branches | Office locations; decide which employees a branch head can see |
| Departments & Designations | Organisational structure; designation also affects appraisal scoring |
| Holidays | Non-working days used in leave and payroll calculations |
| Currency Settings | Exchange rates used for international staff pay and allowances |
| Ledger Accounts | Accounts used when posting salary components to the general ledger |
| Countries, Union Memberships, Medical Card Types | Supporting reference lists used on employee records |
System Administration
Database Backup
- Purpose
- Produce a downloadable copy of the entire system database.
- Workflow
- Open Backup → Create → wait for confirmation.
- Result
- A dated backup file is listed with a download link.
- Notes
- Backup files should be downloaded and stored securely, and older files removed from the server once no longer needed, since a backup contains the complete database.
User Account Management
- Purpose
- Manage the login accounts that sit behind every employee record.
- Available actions
- Create, edit or deactivate a login account; assign its role.
- Notes
- Deactivating a login blocks sign-in; deactivating the underlying employee record separately removes them from leave, payroll and appraisal dropdowns. Password resets are self-service — an administrator does not set a user's password directly.
Role-Based Features
The features below are grouped by the role that primarily uses them.
Employee Self-Service
Profile & Personal Information
Update name, email, and photo; maintain contact details, address, family details and identity documents.
Leave
View leave balance by type, apply for leave, edit reason/remark/approver, request leave encashment, and request maternity leave.
Performance Appraisal
Complete the annual or mid-term self-assessment and view completed appraisal results.
Payroll & Documents
View and print their own payslip, and open documents that HR has assigned to them.
Branch Head / Approver Team Authority
Leave Approval
Review and approve or reject leave applications from their team, with visibility of the applicant's balance and any overlapping approved leave.
Appraisal Feedback
Score direct reports against the appraisal attributes as reporting authority.
Human Resources Employee Lifecycle
Employee Management
Add and maintain employee records end to end, including bulk import from a spreadsheet.
Leave Administration
Set opening leave balances, correct balances, import historical leave data, and run leave reports.
Documents & Reporting
Assign documents to employees and produce HR reports, including branch and leave reports.
Payroll & Finance Compensation
Salary Generation
Build payscales, generate monthly salary for every employee, and print payslips.
Claims & Reporting
Approve reimbursement claims, review tax and increment reports, and export the salary posting file.
Senior Management Final Authority
Final Approvals
Provide final-authority appraisal scoring and hold top-level leave approval rights.
Organisation-Wide Visibility
View employees, leave and reports across every branch, without the branch-level restriction applied to other approvers.
Detailed User Guide
Step-by-step instructions for the workflows every user relies on.
Signing In
- 1Open the system's web address in a browser.
- 2Enter your email address and password.
- 3Select Login.
An incorrect email or password returns a message that the credentials do not match. A deactivated account returns a message that the account has been switched off, and only an administrator can reactivate it. A forgotten password can be reset by email; the reset link remains valid for 15 minutes.
Applying for Leave
- 1Open Leave → Leave Apply/Modify and select Add.
- 2Choose the leave type — your remaining balance for that type is shown immediately.
- 3Enter the start and end dates and the number of days.
- 4Select an approval authority and enter a reason.
- 5Attach a supporting document if the leave type requires one.
- 6Select Submit.
The system rejects an application whose dates overlap an existing application, that starts before the employee's joining date, or that requests more days than the remaining balance allows. A missing required supporting document is also rejected.
Note: applying does not reduce the leave balance — only approval does. Maternity leave is requested through its own screen rather than this form.
Approving or Rejecting Leave
- 1Open the leave list and select the Status action on the application.
- 2Review the applicant's balance and any overlapping approved leave shown in the window.
- 3Choose Approved or Reject and enter mandatory remarks.
- 4Select Submit.
Requesting Leave Encashment
- 1Open Leave → Leave Encashment and select Add.
- 2Choose the leave type — only eligible types are offered — and enter the number of days to encash.
- 3Enter a description and submit.
An employee becomes eligible to encash leave again three years after their last approved encashment (two years for international staff). Only specific leave types can be encashed.
Completing a Performance Appraisal
- 1Open Performance → My Appraisal and select Add.
- 2Choose the appraisal type and period, and enter your department and designation.
- 3Answer all nine self-assessment questions.
- 4Select Submit.
All nine questions, the appraisal period, department and designation are required. Reporting and review authority feedback can each only be submitted by the specific person named on the employee's record.
Uploading & Assigning a Document
- 1Open Documents → Documents and select Add.
- 2Enter a name, choose a document type, and select the file (image or PDF).
- 3Save, then open Assign and select the employees who should receive it.
Generating Monthly Salary
- 1Open Payroll → Salary and select Add.
- 2Choose the employee and the pay month.
- 3Review the auto-calculated figures — payable days, leave taken, holidays — and each pay component.
- 4Adjust any component that needs a manual entry, then save.
Salary cannot be generated for an employee with no active payscale dated on or before the pay period. Any leave still pending a decision at the time of generation is treated as unpaid.
Printing a Payslip
Open Payroll → Salary, locate the record, and select Print. The layout automatically matches the employee's employment type.
Adding a New Employee
- 1Open Employees → Employees and select Add.
- 2Complete login and personal details, then save to move to the next step.
- 3Complete employment details, including employment type, start date and reporting/review authority.
- 4Enter salary history — basic salary and its effective date.
- 5Set opening leave balances for each applicable leave type.
- 6Complete the remaining sections (address, qualifications, medical insurance, etc.) in any order.
Running a Report
- 1Open the relevant report under the Report or Master menu.
- 2Choose the required filters — typically an employee, branch and/or financial year.
- 3Select Submit.
Different reports use different financial-year conventions — for example the Annual Pay Report runs April to March, while the Annual Tax report runs July to June. Confirm the reporting period before comparing figures across reports.
Workflow Diagrams
A visual summary of how the system's core processes move from request to result.
Leave Application & Approval
Monthly Salary Generation
Performance Appraisal Cycle
Employee Onboarding
Feature Summary
A consolidated view of the platform's modules and who uses each one.
| Module | Feature | User Role | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Sign-in & password management | All roles | Sign in, first-time password change, self-service reset | Available |
| Roles | Role & permission management | Administrator | Create roles and control menu access | Available |
| Employees | Employee record administration | HR, Administrator | Full employee lifecycle management | Available |
| Employees | Bulk import | HR | Add or update employees from a spreadsheet | Available |
| Employees | Employee transfer | HR, Administrator | Move an employee between branches/departments | Available (direct link) |
| Leave | Leave settings | Administrator | Define leave types and their rules | Available |
| Leave | Apply / edit / delete leave | Employee | Self-service leave request | Available |
| Leave | Approve / reject leave | Branch Head, HR, Management | Team-level leave decisions | Available |
| Leave | Maternity leave request | Employee, Approver | Dedicated request and approval flow | Available |
| Leave | Leave encashment | Employee, Approver | Cash in unused eligible leave | Available |
| Leave | Bulk leave import | HR | Load historical leave from a spreadsheet | Available |
| Leave | Monthly accrual | Administrator | Credits entitlement for the month | Manual task |
| Payroll | Pay components & payscale | Payroll/Finance | Define and assign salary structure | Available |
| Payroll | Monthly salary generation | Payroll/Finance | Produce payable salary for the period | Available |
| Payroll | Payslip printing | Employee, Payroll/Finance | Print/view a generated payslip | Available |
| Payroll | Tax slabs | Administrator | Income tax band configuration | Available |
| Payroll | Reimbursements | Employee, Payroll/Finance | Claim and approve expense reimbursement | Available |
| Payroll | Employee loans | Payroll/Finance | Loan applications and EMI schedule | Available (direct link) |
| Payroll | Salary posting export (TTUM) | Payroll/Finance | Export salary components to the general ledger | Not currently active |
| Performance | Appraisal attributes | Administrator | Define scored appraisal criteria | Available |
| Performance | Self-assessment | Employee | Annual/mid-term self-review | Available |
| Performance | Reporting & final authority feedback | Approver, Management | Two-stage appraisal scoring | Available |
| Performance | Appraisal PDF export | Employee | Download appraisal as a PDF | Not currently active |
| Documents | Document library | HR, Employee | Upload, assign and view documents | Available |
| Reports | Pay, tax, leave and branch reports | HR, Payroll/Finance, Management | Statutory and management reporting | Available |
| System | Database backup | Administrator | Create and download a full system backup | Available |
Important Notes & FAQ
Important Notes
Annual Pay Report runs April–March; Annual Tax report runs July–June; the leave report runs the calendar year. Confirm the period in use before comparing figures between reports.
The TTUM ledger export screen is available, but the step that populates it during monthly salary generation is not currently switched on. Confirm with the administrator before relying on it for ledger posting.
The Print option for a completed appraisal is fully functional. The separate PDF-download option is not currently active; the browser's own "Save as PDF" print option can be used in its place.
Employment type determines an employee's available leave types, payslip layout and tax treatment. It should be entered using one consistent, agreed value for each employment category across every employee record.
Leave entitlement is credited a month at a time by an administrator-run task rather than automatically, and should be run once, and only once, each month.
A database backup contains the full system, including all employee and salary data. Downloaded backups should be stored securely, and older copies removed from the server once they are no longer needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Access
How do I sign in?
What happens if I forget my password?
Why does my menu look different from a colleague's?
Leave
Does applying for leave reduce my balance?
Can I cancel an approved leave application?
What is leave encashment?
Payroll
How do I view my payslip?
Why is my pay lower than expected?
Performance
Who scores my appraisal?
Can I download my appraisal as a PDF?
Final Summary
Tanzania HRMS brings the complete employee lifecycle — records, leave, payroll and performance — into a single, role-based system.
Every user signs in to the same platform and sees exactly the tools their role requires: employees manage their own information and requests, branch heads and managers approve and review, HR maintains the organisation's records, payroll and finance turn those records into pay, and senior management holds final oversight. Configuration — roles, leave rules, pay components and master data — is centralised under administration, giving the organisation a single, consistent source of truth for its workforce.
| Capability | Delivered |
|---|---|
| Centralised employee records | ✓ |
| Role-based access across every module | ✓ |
| End-to-end leave lifecycle | ✓ |
| Configurable, structured payroll | ✓ |
| Multi-stage performance appraisal | ✓ |
| Document distribution | ✓ |
| Statutory & management reporting | ✓ |
| System backup & administration | ✓ |