01 — The problem
When the HR inbox becomes the request system
Requests arrive as emails, PDFs and chat messages, nobody can see their status, and managers approve by replying "OK". Someone then re-keys the outcome into the HR or payroll system.
Packaged portals often come bundled with a larger HR suite and assume one approval chain. Your rules may differ by location, employee type or request: warehouse staff without desks, office staff with different benefits, and requests that must skip the line manager entirely.
02 — What to build
Screens and rules for an employee self service portal
Request types such as time off, equipment and personal details changes, each with its own fields.
Routing rules by request type, location and employee group, such as manager first, then HR or IT.
A "My requests" page with status and history, so nobody has to email to ask.
Onboarding checklists with tasks owned by HR, IT and the hiring manager.
Documents and policies filtered by department and location.
A people directory with team, location and manager.
An HR queue of open requests by type, age and owner.
Roles to plan for: employee, manager, HR partner, IT and admin.
03 — How to build it
Building your employee portal step by step
Create a private project
Nothing reaches employees until you publish.
Add mock data
a fictional employee list, locations and sample requests that mirror your real columns. Never start with real personal data.
Connect a database for employees, requests and approvals.
Use Plan mode
The agent asks clarifying questions, such as who approves when a manager is out, and proposes a plan before anything is built.
Build, then pilot with one team
Adjust routing and forms with new prompts.
Publish with access tied to your company email domain and role-level permissions.
An example Plan-mode prompt:
Plan an employee self-service portal for office and warehouse staff.
Employees submit time-off, equipment and personal-details-change requests and track their status.
Time off goes to the employee's manager; equipment goes to IT after manager approval.
Personal-details changes go straight to HR and are never visible to managers.
Give HR a queue of open requests sorted by age, filterable by location and request type.Paste it into a private Henosia project in Plan mode. The agent asks questions and proposes a plan first.
04 — Before you go live
Deciding who sees what across HR, IT and managers
An employee portal handles personal data, so settle access before go-live. Who owns the employee data? Which fields can managers see? Who approves publishing?
Plan identity for everyone, including staff without a company email address, and confirm the setup with IT. Henosia describes access by company email domain plus more granular app-level access.
Start read-only toward your HR or payroll system and add write actions later. Scope each integration per system, data direction and access level. Pair it with a searchable knowledge base.
Start a private project in Henosia, map your most common request types, and plan the first version with HR and a few managers.
Start a private project05 — FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is an employee self service portal?
An employee self service portal lets staff handle routine HR and workplace tasks themselves: requesting time off, ordering equipment, updating personal details and finding documents. Requests are routed to the right approver automatically, and everyone can see the status without emailing HR or asking a manager directly.
Is an employee portal the same as an intranet app?
They overlap. An intranet app focuses on news, communication and finding information. An employee portal focuses on getting things done: requests, approvals and personal tasks. Many companies combine both, but planning around the workflows first keeps the portal useful instead of becoming another place people browse and ignore.
Do I need developers to build an employee portal?
Not to build a first version. HR and operations people can describe the portal in Henosia's Plan mode and build it without writing code themselves. Involve IT for identity, access to personal data and any integration with HR or payroll systems before you roll the portal out to the whole company.
How do you control access to employee data?
Define roles and field-level visibility in the app, so managers never see data meant only for HR. Henosia describes access based on your company email domain plus more granular app-level access. Confirm with IT how staff without company email are identified, and how leavers lose access on their last day.