The employee project is the foundation of Frank. Understanding how it works helps you get the most out of the system and build on it with your own automations and workflows.
Employees as work items
Frank models employees as Jira work items. This might seem unusual at first, but it's a deliberate design choice that opens up powerful capabilities. Each employee is an issue in a dedicated Jira project. Issue fields store employee data like name, department, start date, and any custom information you need. Workflows define lifecycle stages. Automations can trigger on any status change or field update.
This architecture means you get all of Jira's capabilities for free: workflows, automations, permissions, JQL queries, and integrations with other projects and tools.
Setting up the project
During the installation wizard, Frank sets up the employee project automatically. It creates the employee issue type, configures the screens and workflows, and applies the right permissions. You can view the details of what Frank creates by clicking "View set up details" during the wizard.
If you need to modify the setup later, go to Frank settings. Under the Jira section, you'll see "Set up your HR workspace" with the status of your configuration. You can also customize employee profiles by clicking "Configure template" to edit the Jira screen that defines which fields appear on employee records.
Default lifecycle stages
Frank sets up these workflow statuses by default:
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Hired: Initial status for new employee records. Use this when someone has accepted an offer but hasn't started yet.
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Onboarding: Triggers onboarding automation. When an employee moves to this status, Frank creates their onboarding document in Confluence.
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Active: Standard working status for employees who have completed onboarding.
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Offboarding: For employees who are leaving. Use this to trigger offboarding processes like equipment collection and access revocation.
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Alumni: Final status after departure. Keeps the record for historical reference.
You can customize these stages to match your organization's terminology. Add stages for probation periods, extended leave, internal transfers, or any other states that matter to your processes.
Why this architecture matters
Because employees are Jira issues, you can build on everything Jira offers:
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Automations: Create rules that trigger when employee status changes, when dates approach, or when fields are updated.
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JQL queries: Search and filter employees using Jira Query Language. Find everyone in a specific department, everyone who started in the last month, or everyone whose probation ends soon.
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Integrations: Connect employee records to other Jira projects. Link to IT service requests for equipment provisioning, facilities requests for workspace setup, or training projects for learning assignments.
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Reporting: Use Jira's built-in reporting or connect to external tools that work with Jira data.
The more you configure now, the more Frank can do for you later.