> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ontime.hosai.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart for administrators

> Set up a new OnTime organization: profile, locations, departments, shifts, leave types, and your first employees.

This is the first hour in a new OnTime organization. Work through it in order — later steps depend on earlier ones. Locations must exist before employees can be assigned to them, and shift templates must exist before a roster can reference them.

Everything here happens in the admin console at `https://app.ontime.hosai.app`.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Accept your invite">
    Your organization is created for you, and the first administrator is invited by email link. Opening the link shows you which organization and which person the invite is for, then asks you to set a password. Accepting signs you straight in.

    Invite links are single-use and expire. If yours has lapsed, ask for a fresh one — a used or expired link cannot be revived.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set your organization profile">
    Go to **Settings → Organization**. Set the display name, legal name, country and currency, and the list of **off-site punch reasons** your employees may pick from when they clock in outside a geofence ("Client visit", "Site inspection", and so on).

    <Note>
      The financial-year start month is shown but not editable — payroll and compliance arithmetic assumes an April start.
    </Note>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add locations and departments">
    **Settings → Locations** is where the geofence lives. Each location carries a latitude, longitude and radius; a mobile punch is checked against the location the employee belongs to, and lands `Inside` or `Outside` accordingly. Get the coordinates right before anybody starts punching — a wrong pin turns every ordinary day into an off-site exception.

    **Settings → Departments** is a flat list used for filtering, reporting and roster grouping.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create shift templates">
    **Shifts & rosters → Templates**. A template is the policy a day is judged against: start and end time, unpaid break window, grace period before "late", half-day cutoff, weekly off days, and the overtime rules (when OT starts accruing, the daily cap, and the multipliers for weekdays versus holidays and rest days).

    Create at least one template — a general 9-to-6 is the usual starting point — and **publish** it. A draft template cannot be rostered.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Configure leave types">
    **Settings → Leave policies**. For each type set the annual quota, whether it accrues monthly or annually (and at what rate), the carry-forward cap, whether half-days are allowed, whether it is paid, and whether approving it needs an HR second step on top of the manager's.

    A typical starting set is Earned, Casual, Sick, Comp-off and Loss of Pay.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add your people">
    **Employees → + Add employee** creates one person at a time through a wizard: identity, work details (department, location, manager, shift), role, and an initial password.

    For a whole workforce, use **Bulk import**. Upload a CSV and OnTime shows you a row grid with per-row validation errors before anything is written.

    <Warning>
      **Imported employees cannot sign in until you give them a password.** The CSV import generates a random one that is never displayed, by design. Set a real password on each imported employee (**Employee → Edit**) and share it through your own channel. OnTime does not send an invite or welcome email to employees.
    </Warning>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Watch the live board">
    **Attendance → Live** shows every punch as it lands, with its source, its geofence result, and whether it is approved or waiting on a decision. This is the screen that tells you the setup is actually working.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What comes next

Assigning people to shifts (a **roster**), importing your holiday calendar, and reviewing who can do what are the next things worth doing — the go-live checklist walks through the full list. Payroll can wait until attendance is flowing correctly; it reads the day records, so it is only as good as they are.