Position history in Octal HR is a chronological record of an employee's key career events — starting from their hire. It gives HR a verifiable timeline of promotions, transfers, and other changes during an employee's tenure.

What is Position History

The position-history timeline on each employee profile holds a dated log of career events. Think of it as the official internal career record — more detailed than a CV.

This timeline gives you:

  • Service record: A clear view of when the employee joined and how their role changed over time
  • Promotion & transfer history: A dated trail of designation, department, and employment-type changes
  • Audit clarity: Evidence of HR process for role changes and terminations

The Hire Event

Octal HR records one event automatically: when you create an employee, a Hire entry is added to their position history as the starting point of the timeline. Every other event is entered manually using the Record Position Change form (see below).

Event TypeHow it is created
HireAdded automatically when the employee record is created
PromotionEntered manually via Record Position Change
TransferEntered manually via Record Position Change
DemotionEntered manually via Record Position Change
Type ChangeEntered manually via Record Position Change
TerminationEntered manually via Record Position Change

Timeline View

The History tab displays all events in a chronological timeline. Here is an example of a 3-year career timeline:

1 May 2022
Hire — Joined as Accounts Officer
Dept: Finance | Type: Permanent
1 Jun 2023
Transfer — Moved to Corporate Finance
Dept: Finance → Corporate Finance
15 Jan 2024
Promotion — Accounts Officer → Senior Accounts Officer
Salary: PKR 52,000 → PKR 65,000

Recording a Position Change

Every event after the initial hire is entered by HR using the Record Position Change form. Use it for promotions, demotions, transfers, employment-type changes, and terminations.

1
Open the employee profile and go to the position-history area, then click Record Position Change.
2
Select the Change Type: Promotion, Demotion, Transfer, Type Change, or Termination.
3
Set the Effective Date (required; can be backdated for historical records).
4
Set the new Department, Designation, and/or Employment Type as applicable.
5
Optionally enter the previous and new salary and any remarks.
6
Save. The event is added to the timeline, and the employee's current department, designation, and type are updated to match the change.

Recording a change captures the employee's previous department and designation automatically, so each timeline entry shows what changed and when.

Backdating & Corrections

When implementing Octal HR for an existing workforce, you may need to enter historical events that occurred before the system go-live date. Position changes support backdated effective dates.

Best practices for backdating:

  1. Enter events in chronological order — earliest first — to keep the timeline readable
  2. Use the Remarks field to note the source (e.g., "Backloaded from previous HRMS — data verified by HR Manager") for future audit clarity
  3. Take care when backdating changes to a period for which payroll has already been processed, as current-role fields feed later payroll runs