Workforce management - quick start guide

Your service desk handles onboarding tickets, offboarding checklists, and "who has this laptop?" queries every day. But the data behind those requests lives in spreadsheets, HRIS exports, and someone's head. The Workforce Management schema brings it all into Assets: people, their skills, their equipment, and their access, linked together so a single query answers what used to take three emails.

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When to use this schema

Deploy Workforce Management when your organisation needs structured people data driving IT service management workflows.

This schema is the right choice if you need:

• JML automation (Joiner-Mover-Leaver) where onboarding triggers asset provisioning and offboarding triggers access revocation

• IT asset assignment tracking with complete recovery at termination

• Software access governance with periodic reviews and automated revocation

• Skills inventory and gap analysis across departments

• Certification compliance tracking with expiry alerting

• Contractor lifecycle management with firm end dates

Choose a different schema if:

• You already have a mature HRIS handling all people management and only need IT asset tracking: use Standard CMDB or Software Asset Management

• You need to track IT infrastructure (servers, networks, applications) rather than people: use Core Schema or Standard CMDB

• You need security-focused tracking with vulnerability management: use Cybersecurity

tip

Pro tip: Workforce Management pairs well with Standard CMDB. Use Workforce for people and their assigned resources; use Standard CMDB for the infrastructure those people support. Connect them through the Employee and Application object types.

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Schema overview

Workforce Management follows a person-centric design. Employee and Contractor are the central entities. Everything else either describes organisational context (Department, Location, Role) or represents resources assigned to people (IT Asset, Software Access, Skills, Certifications, Emergency Contact).

Tier	Object Types	Purpose
Organisational structure	Department, Location, Role	Where people work, what positions exist
Competency definitions	Skill, Certification	What capabilities and credentials are tracked
People	Employee, Contractor	The individuals themselves
Person-specific records	Employee Skill, Employee Certification, IT Asset, Software Access, Emergency Contact	What each person knows, holds, and has been assigned

Four custom reference types connect everything: Works In (blue, organisational belonging), Reports To (green, management hierarchy), Has Skill (purple, competency assignments), and Assigned To (orange, resource allocation).

Schema architecture

┌────────────┐
                    │ Department │
                    └─────┬──────┘
           Works In ──────┤
                    ┌─────┴──────┐       ┌──────────┐
                    │  Employee  │◄──────│ Location  │
                    └──┬──┬──┬───┘       └──────────┘
                       │  │  │
          ┌────────────┘  │  └────────────┐
          │               │               │
    Has Skill        Assigned To     Assigned To
          │               │               │
   ┌──────┴──────┐  ┌────┴─────┐   ┌─────┴──────────┐
   │ Emp. Skill  │  │ IT Asset │   │ Software Access │
   └──────┬──────┘  └──────────┘   └────────────────┘
          │
     ┌────┴────┐
     │  Skill  │
     └─────────┘

   ┌─────────────┐        ┌───────────────┐
   │ Emp. Cert.  │───────▶│ Certification │
   └──────┬──────┘        └───────────────┘
          │
     Has Skill
          │
   ┌──────┴──────┐        ┌────────────┐
   │  Employee   │        │    Role     │
   └──────┬──────┘        └────────────┘
          │
     Assigned To
          │
   ┌──────┴──────────┐
   │Emergency Contact│
   └─────────────────┘

   ┌────────────┐
   │ Contractor │──── Works In ────▶ Department
   └────────────┘

Screenshot coming soon

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Documentation

This guide is split across three focused pages:

Page	What it covers	Reading time
Organisation and people	Department, Location, Role, Employee, Contractor: attribute tables, naming conventions, HRIS integration, status workflows	~8 min
Skills, assets, and access	Skill, Certification, Employee Skill, Employee Certification, IT Asset, Software Access, Emergency Contact: attribute tables, proficiency levels, compliance tracking, GDPR	~10 min
Deployment and operations	Deployment steps, population sequence, onboarding/offboarding workflows, skills gap analysis, certification compliance, AQL queries, troubleshooting, FAQ	~10 min

Related documentation

• Workforce Management - Governance Playbook: review cadence, data quality rules, lifecycle management

• Workforce Management - Forms Specification: onboarding, offboarding, access request, and asset assignment forms

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