--- title: "HR document management on M-Files · Solution Management" url: "https://solutionmanagement.eu/solutions/hr-document-management/" language: "en" description: "HR documents on M-Files: one file per employee, open only to the employee, their manager and HR, and deleted by rule once the leaving date has passed." dateModified: "2026-10-22" --- HR document management on M‑Files # The whole employee file in one place The employment contract is in a locked cabinet, the appraisal notes in the manager's OneDrive, the certificates in someone's inbox. On M‑Files each employee has one file, open to HR and the line manager only, and deleted on schedule after the person leaves. [Book a demo](https://solutionmanagement.eu/book-a-demo/) ![The M-Files web client with one employee opened to her HR documents beside her metadata card with department, job title and manager](https://solutionmanagement.eu/img/oCElCCtFqO-200.webp) The employee file ## What an employee file holds HR document management keeps every document about an employee in one file, records what each one is, and applies rules for who may open it and when it is deleted. In M‑Files the file is built from metadata: each document carries the employee, its type and its dates. Which kinds you keep is your decision; these are the usual ones. ### Employment contract The signed contract and every later amendment, kept as one document with its versions, so the terms that applied on a given date can be looked up. ### Application and CV What the person applied with, kept with the employee once they are hired and open to HR alone. ### Appraisal notes The notes from each appraisal, open to the employee, their manager and HR, and closed to everyone else. ### Certificates and training Certificates with an expiry date, and the training the role requires, so a renewal task can go to the manager in time. ### Letters and emails Changes to pay or hours, and the emails around them, filed from Outlook under the employee. ### Dates that drive the rules Start date, leaving date and the dates on certificates. Reminders count forward from them, and the deletion rule counts from the leaving date. From first day to last ## Onboarding and offboarding as a workflow A workflow in M‑Files can be set up to carry an employee from the signed contract to the day the file is deleted. Each state assigns tasks, sends reminders before their deadline, and changes who has access. 1. ### Hired HR The employee is created, the contract is filed, and the onboarding tasks go to HR, IT and the manager, each with a deadline. If the contract is signed with DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign, with your own subscription, the signed copy returns to M‑Files by itself. 2. ### Employed HR and the manager Appraisal notes, certificates and changes to the contract are filed under the employee as they arrive. Who may open each one follows what kind of document it is. 3. ### Leaving HR The leaving date is set, the offboarding tasks go out, and when the file moves to its leaving state the workflow can narrow who has access to it. 4. ### Deleted by rule A retention rule counts from the leaving date and deletes the personal documents after the period you set. HR can be told before that happens, or asked to review first. Personal data ## HR knows where it is and who can see it GDPR asks you to know where personal data is, who can see it and when it is deleted. With one file per employee, those are things you can look up. - Filed as what it is — Applications, employment contracts and appraisal notes are each filed as their own kind of document. The kind decides which details are recorded and who may open it. - Open to the right people only — Some documents are for the employee and HR. Others are for the employee, their manager and HR. The rule holds in every view. - Deleted on schedule — Each employee has a start date and a leaving date. A deletion rule counts from the leaving date and deletes the personal documents automatically. - A warning before it goes — HR can be told before a deletion happens, or follow the ones coming up in a view. - One search per access request — When an employee asks what you hold on them, one search finds every document about that person. Export them in their original format or as PDF. - Stored encrypted — File data and the database can be encrypted, and communication with M‑Files can run over a secure connection. ![The same employee file seen twice in M-Files: HR sees her documents and emails, a colleague in Sales sees only her proof of employment](https://solutionmanagement.eu/img/9Iw4jzw_9I-200.webp) Integrations ## Works with the systems HR already has The list of employees lives in your HR or payroll system, the contract is written in Word and the paperwork arrives by email. Each of them connects to M‑Files. ### HR and payroll system Lists such as employees and departments can be kept in sync with an external database, so an employee is created once and spelled one way. ### Word templates An employment contract written from your template has the name, the title and the start date filled in from the employee's details, and the fields are updated when the document is opened in Office. ### Outlook Emails about an employee are filed from Outlook with their metadata, so they land in the employee file instead of an inbox. ### Sign-in with Microsoft Entra ID Users can sign in through Microsoft Entra ID, so single sign-on and multi-factor authentication follow your Microsoft set-up. ### The paper in the cabinet Old personnel files are scanned once, and M‑Files OCR makes them searchable PDFs filed under the employee. ### M‑Files Cloud An ISO/IEC 27001 certification covers M‑Files Cloud, Hubshare and Aino, and M‑Files acts as a data processor under GDPR with a data processing agreement. Next step ## Walk through one employee's file with us In a demo we open one employee's file and show who can see what, and what happens after the leaving date. Tell us where your HR documents are kept today, and we answer the same working day. [Book a demo](https://solutionmanagement.eu/book-a-demo/) [GDPR and document management](https://solutionmanagement.eu/resources/gdpr-document-management/) Questions ## Questions from HR and from IT How is access to the documents decided? Each kind of HR document is a document class of its own in M‑Files, with the metadata and the access rules that class needs. Rights are set per class, for example the employee and HR, or the employee, their manager and HR, and they apply in every view. How does the deletion rule work? The employee carries a start date and a leaving date, and the rule counts from the leaving date. In M‑Files such a rule is configured as a workflow, which can notify HR or ask for a review before a document is deleted. M‑Files first hides a deleted document from users, and destroying it permanently is a separate step. How long each kind of document is kept is your decision. Can the list of employees come from our HR or payroll system? M‑Files can keep a list such as employees in sync with an external database. Whether that suits your HR or payroll system is something we look at when we scope the project with you. Does this make us GDPR compliant? No system does that for you. What you keep, for how long and on what legal basis are still your decisions. M‑Files gives HR one place for the documents, access rules that apply in every view and deletion that runs by rule, so the decisions you make are carried out. How do we answer a subject access request? Under GDPR, a subject access request must normally be answered within one month. Every document about a person carries that person as metadata, so one search finds them all, and they export in their original format or as PDF. [GDPR and document management](https://solutionmanagement.eu/resources/gdpr-document-management/) covers the rest of the request. What does the log record? The M‑Files event log records every change, download, upload and deletion, and each workflow step, with the time and the user. It can be filtered and exported, and with M‑Files' advanced logging module it also records each time a file is opened. Can the employment contract be signed electronically? With the DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign integration and your own subscription to that service, the signed contract returns to M‑Files automatically and is filed in the employee file. Otherwise HR adds the signed copy. Does it run in the cloud or on our own servers? Either, or a hybrid of the two. M‑Files Cloud runs on Microsoft Azure, where your data is encrypted both in storage and on its way over the internet, and the file encryption keys can be kept in your own Azure Key Vault. [Security, permissions and the event log](https://solutionmanagement.eu/m-files/security-compliance/) has the detail, and [pricing and editions](https://solutionmanagement.eu/pricing/) what a quote contains.