Vital Portal Integration
The Vital Portal integration lets Garage Hive users who already run the Vital Portal HR system sync employee records and absences into Garage Hive. Once employees are linked to resources, approved leave and sickness block out time in the schedule automatically, so you are not booking work in for someone who is off.
Vital Portal sits alongside the existing Timetastic integration. You choose one or the other in the HR Platform field; Garage Hive does not sync from both at once.
Integrating Vital Portal With Garage Hive
Log into Vital Portal and open My Profile/Settings from your name in the top-right corner.
Select API Tokens , then choose New Token . Give the token a name that makes it obvious what it is for, such as Garage Hive .
Copy the token when it is generated. Vital Portal shows the full token only once.
Important: Treat the API token like a password. Anyone holding it can read your employee and absence data.
In Garage Hive, choose the search icon in the top-right corner, enter HR Integration Setup , and select the related link.
Set HR Platform to Vital Portal , then paste your token into the Vital Portal API Key field.
Set the Notes Resource Code. This is the fallback resource for employees who are not linked to a technician resource, such as Service Advisors.
Set Causes of Absence Nos. to the number series you want Garage Hive to use when it creates absence causes from your Vital Portal leave types.
In the Sync Task section, choose which records you want synced: Sync Causes of Absence, Sync Employees and Sync Absences.
Switch on HR Integration Is Enabled.
Syncing Employees and Linking Them to Resources
Absences only appear in the schedule for employees who are linked to a resource. An employee with no resource link will have their absences recorded in Garage Hive but they will not show anywhere in the schedule.
Choose the search icon in the top-right corner, enter Employees, and select the related link.
Under the Home menu, choose Get Employee Info from HR System . Employees from Vital Portal are created in Garage Hive with their External System ID filled in.
Open each employee's Employee Card scroll to the Administration FastTab, and set the Resource No. to their resource in Garage Hive.
For employees who do not have their own resource, such as a Service Advisor, switch on the Absence to Notes slider instead. The Notes Resource No. field appears; set it to the notes resource for that branch.
If you switch on Absence to Notes but leave Notes Resource No. blank, Garage Hive falls back to the central Notes Resource Code from HR Integration Setup. Setting it per employee is what you want in a multi-branch business, so each branch's absences land on that branch's notes row.
Syncing Causes of Absence
Your Vital Portal leave types (Annual Leave, Unpaid Leave, Sick Leave, Training, and so on) become Causes of Absence in Garage Hive.
Choose the search icon in the top-right corner, enter Causes of Absence, and select the related link.
Choose Get Info from HR System. Each leave type is created with its Vital Portal identifier in the External System ID column.
Set the Standard Event Code on each row. This tells the schedule what kind of event the absence is.
Leave the Import Absence Description column unticked. Vital Portal does not send absence descriptions or sickness reasons through its API, so ticking it has no effect.
Choose Update Registered Absences to apply your changes to absences that have already been synced.
Syncing Registered Absences
Choose the search icon in the top-right corner, enter Absence Registration, and select the related link.
Choose Get Absences from HR System.
Each synced line shows the employee, the dates, the cause, the number of days, and HR Source set to Vital Portal.
Absences for employees linked to a resource appear against that resource. Absences for employees with Absence to Notes enabled appear under the Notes & Reminders row.
To remove a synced absence from the schedule, choose Related in the schedule menu, then Resource Calendar Changes, and delete the lines for the resource you want to free up.
What Syncs and What Does Not
Approved leave request
Syncs on the next run
Leave request still awaiting approval
Does not sync until it is approved
Leave request amended after approval
The existing absence is updated to the new dates
Leave request cancelled
The absence is removed
Sickness recorded through the Sickness button
Syncs as an absence against your Sick Leave cause
The reason or notes attached to any absence
Does not sync
Bank holidays
Vital Portal does not allow leave to be booked on a bank holiday, so nothing reaches Garage Hive
Calculation of Schedule Available Hours
When an absence syncs in, the schedule recalculates its available hours. Two figures drive this:
- Default Capacity (Hours): the hours a technician is expected to work each day.
- Allowed Working Time (Hours): the maximum hours a technician can be booked for.
Garage Hive works out the available hours for a day by multiplying the number of technicians by their Default Capacity (Hours). Six technicians on 8 hours each gives 48 available hours.
A part-day absence is adjusted by a coefficient, which is Default Capacity ÷ Allowed Working Time. With a capacity of 8 and an allowed working time of 10, the coefficient is 0.8. An afternoon absence covering 6 hours is therefore counted as 6 × 0.8 = 4.8 hours, and the day's available hours drop from 48 to 43.2.
The hours vary with the start time of your working day, so a garage opening at 9:00 will see different figures to one opening at 8:00.
See Also
English (UK, IE, IM and IZ). To find documentation in other regions where Garage Hive operates, click here.
English (UK, IE, IM and IZ). To find documentation in other regions where Garage Hive operates, click here.