Identification Type

An identification type is a kind of identity document: CNIC, passport, driving licence, EOBI number. This screen does more than name them. It sets the format each number must follow, whether it must be unique across the workforce, whether issue and expiry dates are required, and which one of them is the primary identification the rest of the product treats as the person's official number.

Where

People Directory › Setup › Identification Type

Who uses it

The implementation consultant, once at setup. It is rarely changed afterwards.

When

Before the first employee record is created

Needs first

Identification Authority

What it is for

The identity number is the one field on an employee record that absolutely must be right. It goes on the payroll bank file, on the statutory returns, and on anything the employee signs. A mistyped CNIC is found three months later by a bank rejection, and by then it is on six documents.

This screen is where you stop that happening, by describing each document well enough that the system can check it. Four kinds of rule are available:

• Format. Give the document a mask and the number must match it. A CNIC entered without its dashes, or with twelve digits instead of thirteen, is refused at the point of typing rather than at the bank.
• Uniqueness. Say whether the number must be unique across the whole workforce, or only among people currently employed. When a clash happens the message names the employee who already has that number, which is usually the whole investigation.
• Dates. Say whether the date of issue and the date of expiry must be captured, and whether an expiry in the past should be refused.
• Primary. Exactly one type can be the primary identification, the number the product treats as the person's official identity.

The primary identification carries one more protection worth telling the client about: once payroll has been run for an employee, their primary identification number cannot be changed. The number is on paid payroll, so changing it would make the payroll record disagree with the employee record. If the number was genuinely wrong, that has to be handled as a correction with payroll in the room, not by quietly editing the field.

Every field, in plain words

Identification Type

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Identification Type	The short code for the document.	CNIC	Required. Must be unique.
Name	The document written out.	CNIC - National Identity Card	Required. This name appears in every message the screen produces, so write it the way you want a validation message to read. Translations are kept per language.
Required Unique in All Employees	The number must not be held by any employee, including people who have left.	Tick it for a CNIC.	A national identity number belongs to one human being for life, so a resigned employee's number should never appear on a new one. This and the next box are mutually exclusive.
Required Unique in Active Employee	The number must not be held by any employee who is currently employed.	Tick it instead of the box above when a resigned employee's number may legitimately be used again.	Active means still employed and not past the last working day.
Primary Identification	This is the person's official identity number.	Tick it on the CNIC.	Only one identification type in the whole system can be primary. If another type already is, the screen says which one, and you must untick that one first.
Required Date of Issuance	The date the document was issued must be captured.	Tick it where the issue date matters.
Required Date of Expiry	The date the document expires must be captured.	Tick it on a passport, a visa and a licence. Leave it clear on a lifetime CNIC.
Validate Expiry Date	Refuses an expiry date that is not in the future.	Tick it on documents that must be current, such as a driving licence for a driver.	It is checked when a new identification is entered and when an expiry date is changed, so an employee whose old document has since expired does not block every later save of their record.
Format Validation	Restricts what characters the number may contain.	NO - Number Only, for an EOBI number	Pick one of the two values below, or leave it blank to allow anything.
Masking	The exact shape the number must take.	#####-#######-#	See the mask characters below. The screen shows a live example of your mask underneath the field as you type it, which is the fastest way to check you have it right.
Identification Authority	Who issues this document.	NADRA	Pick it from the list. See Identification Authority.

Format Validation - which characters are allowed:

• NO Number Only - the number may contain digits only. Use it for an EOBI or social security number.
• NL Number and Letter - digits and letters are both allowed. Use it for a passport number.
• Leave it blank when the document has no such restriction.

Masking - the shape of the number. Build the mask from these characters:

• # one digit
• A one letter
• * one letter or one digit
• anything else, such as a dash or a space, is kept exactly as written

Worked examples:

Document	Mask	Accepts
CNIC	#####-#######-#	42101-1234567-9
Pakistani passport	AA#######	AB1234567
Emirates ID	784-####-#######-#	784-1985-1234567-1

When a number does not match, the message names the document and shows the mask it expected, so the person typing can see immediately what they got wrong.

How to configure it

1. Create the issuing bodies first on Identification Authority, at minimum NADRA and the passport office.
2. Start with the CNIC, because it is the one that will be primary. Code CNIC, name CNIC - National Identity Card.
3. Tick Required Unique in All Employees. Do not also tick the active-only box, the screen allows one or the other.
4. Tick Primary Identification. Do this before anybody else sets it on a different type, since only one type can hold it.
5. Enter #####-#######-# in Masking and check the example shown underneath reads like a real CNIC.
6. Pick NADRA as the Identification Authority and save.
7. Now add the rest. A passport gets NL format validation, a mask if the client wants one, Required Date of Expiry ticked and Validate Expiry Date ticked.
8. Add any statutory numbers the client holds, such as EOBI, with NO format validation and uniqueness across all employees.
9. Test with one employee before the data load. Type a deliberately wrong CNIC and confirm it is refused, then type a correct one. Finding out that a mask is wrong after loading five hundred records is an expensive afternoon.

Scenarios

Somebody entered the same CNIC on two employees

With Required Unique in All Employees ticked, that cannot happen. The second save is refused and the message names the employee who already holds the number. Nine times out of ten the cause is a duplicate record for the same person, created because the first one could not be found. Merge the record rather than changing the number.

A contract worker left two years ago and has come back

If the CNIC is unique across all employees, their old record still holds the number and a new record will be refused. The right answer is to reactivate or reuse the existing employee record, which is what you want anyway, since their history should follow them. If a client genuinely needs to re-enter a resigned employee's number on a new record, use Required Unique in Active Employee instead, and accept that the workforce history will show the number twice.

The CNIC on an employee is wrong and payroll has already run

The screen will not let the primary identification number be changed, and it names the employee in the refusal. This is deliberate. The old number is on paid payroll, bank files and statutory returns. Raise it as a correction with payroll and finance, decide what has to be amended downstream, and change it as part of that exercise.

Our drivers must hold a current licence

Create a driving licence type with Required Date of Expiry and Validate Expiry Date ticked. An expired licence then cannot be entered. For the existing licences that quietly expire next month, the expiry check will not nag you, since it only fires when an identification is added or its expiry is changed. Use a report over the expiry dates to chase those.

We do not know the mask for a document

Leave Masking blank. A blank mask accepts anything, which is better than a wrong mask that refuses valid numbers. You can add the mask later once the client confirms the format, and from that point new entries are checked.

What it is connected to

• Needs Identification Authority to exist first.
• Employee Identification records the actual documents per employee, and the identification lines on Employee Basic Information do the same thing on the main employee record. The rules you set here are applied by both, identically.
• The primary identification is the number the product treats as the person's official identity, which is why it is protected once payroll has run.
• Payroll reads the employee's identification when it produces bank files and statutory output, which is the real reason the format and uniqueness rules matter.

If something looks wrong

• "It says to pick either unique in all employees or unique in active employees, not both" - exactly that. Tick one. All employees is the stricter of the two and the right choice for a national identity number.
• "It says the primary identification is already set on another type" - only one type can be primary. The message names the one that holds it. Untick it there first.
• "It says the number does not match the format" - the number does not fit the mask, and the message shows the mask. Either the number is wrong or the mask is. Check the live example under the Masking field.
• "It says the number must contain numbers only" - the type has Number Only format validation and a letter was typed.
• "It says the number is already assigned to another employee" - the uniqueness rule has caught a clash, and the message names the employee. Look for a duplicate record before you look for a typing error.
• "It will not let us change a CNIC" - payroll has been run for that employee and the primary identification is locked. Handle it as a correction, not an edit.
• "Nobody is being asked for an expiry date" - Required Date of Expiry is not ticked on that identification type.