Employee groups and rule priority in the salary bridge

Salary bridge rules have gained two new additions: employee groups and rule priority.

Employee groups — you can now organise employees into groups (for example “Trainees” or “Summer staff”) and have a rule apply only to employees in a specific group.
Rule priority — when more than one rule matches the same worked time, the number in the Priority field decides which rule wins. A higher number means higher priority.

Previously, applying a rule to only part of the workforce meant creating one rule per employee. Now you put the employees in a group and point the rule at the group.

Assigning employees to groups

Groups are assigned on the employee itself:

Payroll / File maintenance / Employees

Click the employee's row to open it for editing.
In the Employee groups field, start typing a group name.
- If the group already exists, suggestions appear as you type — pick one from the list.
- If the group doesn't exist yet, type the name and press Enter — the new group is created when the employee is saved. A new group shows with a dashed border until saved.
Each employee can belong to none, one, or several groups.
To remove an employee from a group, click the × on the group tag and save.

Notes:

Groups are shared within the company — a group created on one employee is available for all others.
Matching is case-insensitive: if “Trainees” exists and you type “trainees”, the employee is linked to the existing group — no duplicate is created.
Removing an employee from a group does not delete the group itself.

Linking a rule to an employee group

Work accounting / Registration and maintenance / Salary bridge rules

Open the rule for editing.
In the Employee group field, start typing and pick a group from the suggestion list. Only existing groups can be chosen here — if you type a name without selecting it from the list, saving is blocked with an “Employee group not found” error.
Each rule can reference at most one group. If the field is left empty, the rule applies regardless of groups, as before.

The group filter works together with the rule's other conditions (employee, project, trade union) — all active conditions must match for the rule to apply. An employee who belongs to several groups matches a rule targeting any one of them.

Rule priority

When more than one rule matches the same employee and the same time segment, the rule's Priority field decides:

The higher number wins — a rule with priority 10 beats a rule with priority 5.
The default value is 0, so existing rules behave unchanged until a priority is set.
If two matching rules share the same priority, the previous ordering (by salary item) still applies as a tiebreaker.

Example: A general overtime rule applies to everyone, but trainees should get a different salary item. Link the trainee rule to the “Trainees” group and give it priority 10 against the general rule's 0 — the trainee rule wins for trainees, the general rule applies to everyone else.

The rule list

The rule list now shows two new sortable columns, Employee group and Priority. The list's text search also searches employee group names.

Limitations in this release

There is no dedicated management page for employee groups yet (rename, delete, or overview). Groups are created through the employee edit page. A management page is planned.
A group that a rule references cannot be deleted — this is a safeguard so a rule doesn't silently break.
Each rule can reference only one group.
Bulk assignment of employees to groups (many at once) is not available; groups are assigned per employee.