For people and training teams

If your job is looking after the people at a plant — hiring and record-keeping, time off, shift cover, the org chart, and keeping everyone's training and certifications current — this page is your home base. Bulk is a Manufacturing Execution System (MES): the shared software your organization uses to run day-to-day work on the shop floor and in the offices around it. Two of its areas are built for you: People and Training. This guide explains what each area covers, who can open it, and links to the step-by-step article for every task, so you can read it top to bottom or jump straight to what you need.

A quick note on words used throughout Bulk. A plant (Bulk also calls these sites or entities) is a single site you operate — a factory, workshop, or fabrication plant — and each plant is its own workspace with its own employees, absences, and training. Your role is the set of permissions an administrator gives you; it decides which areas you can open and what you can change.

What the People and Training areas cover

In the navigation sidebar, People and Training are two separate areas that sit next to each other. Together they give a workforce or training team one place to manage everyone at the plant and everything they need to be qualified for the work.

• People handles the workforce itself — who works at the plant, how they are organized, and when they are away. Its sidebar holds Home (the People Dashboard), News, Employees, Org Structure, Absences, and Absence Calendar. Department, job-title, shift, and absence-type setup live in Settings.
• Training handles skills, certifications, and compliance — what each person is trained for and what is due to expire. Its sidebar holds Home (the training dashboard), Records, Matrix, and Catalog.

The two areas are close companions: you create a person once in People, and their training then follows them in Training.

Before you begin

To use the People and Training areas you need to be:

• Signed in and working in a plant. After you sign in, Bulk opens your plant or asks you to choose one. See Navigate Bulk for how to move around the workspace.
• Given the right role. You see the People and Training areas when your role grants People or Training permissions. Bulk ships two ready-made roles for this: People — "Manage employees, job titles, working hours, and training operations" — which covers both areas, and Training — "Full training permissions" — for training-only specialists. Manager and administrator roles include these permissions too. An administrator assigns your role; you cannot grant it to yourself.

What you can do in People

The People area opens on the People Dashboard, an overview of employees, departments, and absences with a workforce summary, an absences summary, a headcount forecast, and a list of recent absences. From there you work with:

• Employees — the record for each person at the plant. Add a new starter, review someone's details, and keep records current. See Create an employee and Review an employee record.
• Departments and Job Titles — the groups and roles you sort people into. See Manage departments and Manage job titles.
• Org Structure — the reporting lines between people, shown as an organization chart. See View the organization structure.
• Absences and the Absence Calendar — record time off, approve requests, and see who is away at a glance. See Record an absence and Use the absence calendar.
• Shifts — the working patterns people are assigned to. See Manage shifts.
• News — plant-wide announcements you publish for everyone. See Publish company news.

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What you can do in Training

The Training area opens on a dashboard summarizing training compliance and certifications, with widgets for expiring trainings, department compliance, and program gaps. From there you work with:

• Records — each person's training assignments and their status. See Review training records and Assign training.
• Catalog — the library of training programs and the categories that organize them. Build a program, set what must be completed first, and browse what is available. See Browse the training catalog, Create a training program, Manage training categories, and Set training prerequisites.
• Matrix — a grid of people against trainings, titled the Versatility Matrix, that shows at a glance who is qualified for what and where your coverage is thin. You can save named layouts of specific people and trainings. See Use the training matrix and Save a training matrix layout.
• Completion and renewal — record that someone finished a training, attach evidence, and renew certifications before they expire. See Record training completion and evidence and Renew expiring training.

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A day at Granite Peak Manufacturing

Suppose you are Priya, the people and training coordinator at the Leeds Fabrication Plant, part of Granite Peak Manufacturing, a UK precision-fabrication company. A new welder, Sam, starts on Monday.

1. In People → Employees you create Sam's employee record, set his job title to Welder, and add him to the Fabrication department.
2. You assign Sam to the early shift so he shows up correctly on the rota and the Absence Calendar.
3. In Training → Records you assign Sam the site induction and the coded-welding certification from the Catalog, which enforces the prerequisites you set on those programs.
4. Later you open the Versatility Matrix and see that only two welders hold the pressure-vessel qualification. You raise it with the shift manager and schedule training to close the gap before a big order lands.
5. When a welding certificate is a month from lapsing, the Training dashboard's Expiring trainings widget flags it, and you renew it so the plant stays compliant.

In one place you have brought a new starter onto the plant, made sure the floor has the skills it needs, and kept certifications from lapsing.

Setup that lives in administration

A few things the People and Training areas depend on are configured once, in Settings, usually by an administrator:

• Configure departments and job titles
• Configure absence types — the kinds of leave people can book
• Configure shifts — the working patterns you assign people to

See People configuration for the full setup overview. If you have a People or administrator role you may be able to manage some of this yourself; a training-only role will not.

Expected result

Once you are set up you can:

• keep an accurate record of everyone at the plant, organized into departments, job titles, and reporting lines;
• record and approve time off, and see plant coverage on the Absence Calendar;
• assign, track, and complete training, and keep certifications current before they expire; and
• read the Versatility Matrix to spot where skills coverage is thin.

Feature state and what to expect

The People and Training areas are generally available — they are standard, supported parts of Bulk, and neither carries a Beta label. Two things are worth knowing:

• What you see depends on your access. People and Training permissions are granted separately, so a training specialist may see Training but not People, and vice versa. This is by design.
• Your plant's data drives every view. The dashboards, matrix, and calendars reflect the employees, absences, and training records that exist in your plant, so a new or lightly used plant will look sparse until records are added.

Related guidance

• People and training (product reference) — the full reference for both areas
• People — every People task in detail
• Training — every Training task in detail
• People and training (workflows) and Manage workforce readiness — end-to-end processes that string these tasks together
• People configuration — administrator setup for departments, job titles, absence types, and shifts
• Browse by role — guides for other roles
• Navigate Bulk — find your way around the workspace