This article explains how to publish company policies on the Comms and docs > Company policies screen and how employees read them. Policies are managed by the company admin and by users with the Policy Management Permission or the Communication Module Administrator Permission. Every employee reads the published policies of their own audience.
Before you start
To let someone who does not publish announcements, such as the occupational safety, quality or personal data officer, manage policies only, give them the Policy Management Permission on Configuration > Internal communication > Responsibilities (Responsibility management).
To publish a policy to selected branches, departments or positions, employees must be assigned to a position.
A PDF can be at most 10 MB. Other file types are not accepted.
Step by step: adding and publishing a policy
In the left menu, go to Comms and docs > Company policies and click New policy. The Published, Draft and Archive tabs at the top show the number of policies in each.
Fill in Title (required, at most 200 characters) and Category (required). Categories: Occupational health and safety, Environment, Human resources, Information security, Personal data protection, Quality, Ethics and Other.
Optionally write a Short summary. It appears above the text in the policy detail.
Write the policy text in Content or upload a PDF in PDF file. At least one of them is required; you can use both.
Optionally enter a Version label, an Effective date and a Review date. Without a version label the list shows the version number, such as "Rev. 01".
Under Audience, select All employees or Selected units. With Selected units, select Branches first and narrow with Departments and Positions if needed. Selecting a department of a branch includes only the selected departments of that branch; a branch or department without a narrower selection is included as a whole. A summary of the selection appears below the fields.
With Notify employees ticked, the audience gets an in-app notification and, by their preference, a phone notification when the policy is published. No e-mail or SMS is sent.
Click Publish. To publish later, click Save draft; employees do not see drafts.
Creating drafts with the quick policy set
The Quick policy set lets AI write a set of policies that fit your company in one go. The policies are created as Drafts; you review and edit them, then publish them. The company admin and users with the Policy Management Permission or the Communication Module Administrator Permission see this button.
On the Company Policies screen, click Quick policy set. In the Your company step the facts are filled in; correct anything that is wrong:
Company name: appears in the policy texts.
Sector: taken from the activity code of your SGK workplace record, else from the sector you chose in the setup wizard, else guessed from the company name. The source of the guess is written below the field. Changing the sector changes the recommendations.
Active employees: sets the Company size. The size is ticked on the four-step scale under the field: Micro (1-9 employees), Small (10-49 employees), Medium (50-249 employees), Large (250+ employees). To change the size, correct the employee count.
Branches, Departments (at most 30 names; remove any with the cross) and Hazard class (estimated from the SGK record; leave it empty if unknown).
Click Next. In the Recommended policies step the policies recommended for your size and sector are ticked. Every company gets occupational health and safety, personal data, information security, code of ethics, anti-harassment and leave policies; medium and large companies also get conflict of interest, anti-bribery, remote work, expense, disciplinary and training policies; large companies also get whistleblowing and business continuity. Depending on the sector, environmental, quality, IT acceptable use, social media, customer relations or patient privacy policies are recommended too.
Add or remove policies. You can select up to 12. If your company already has a policy with the same name, its row says Already exists and it is not ticked.
Click Create and click Continue in the Credit use window. Every policy is written with its own AI request, so the price is per policy (by default 1 credit per policy); the badge next to the button shows the most it can cost for your selection and the window shows the selection summary and your balance. Credit is spent only for the policies AI wrote; policies made from the template are free. If your credit covers only part of the selection, the "Your credit covers part of it" window opens: Create with … AI + … template lets AI write as many policies as the balance covers and makes the rest from the ready template; Buy credit lets you load credit first. With no credit the run does not start and the Not enough credit window opens. The policies are written in the background, up to three at the same time, and the window shows the progress (for example "4/9 ready"). You can close the window: the strip at the top of the screen keeps showing the progress and finished policies appear in the Draft tab. When all are ready you get an in-app notification.
Open the new policies in the Draft tab. The list and the policy window show the label AI draft, review before publishing. If the AI could not be reached or its answer could not be used, the policy is created from the built-in template and the label says Draft from the template. The drafts are for all employees, without read acknowledgement, with a review date one year later.
Review the text, edit it if needed and click Save draft or Publish. The label goes away on the first save or when you publish.
Drafts are not legal advice; check that they fit the legislation and your company. Only company-level facts (name, sector, employee and branch counts, department names, hazard class) are sent to the AI; personal data such as employee names, e-mail addresses and identity numbers is never sent. The text is written in the company language (Turkish or English); it is short and plain for a micro company and more detailed for a large one.
Sorting, editing, new versions and the archive
Search and filter: Search with the Search title or summary box in the row above the list; the Category filter next to it shows one category. The cross next to a set filter, or Clear all, removes it. The right end of the row shows how many policies were found; with many policies, change pages at the bottom of the list.
Sorting: On the Published or Draft tab, drag rows by the handle on the left. The order is saved; the Policies card on the home page shows the first policies in this order (as many as fit the card). To see the list by title, category, effective date or version for a while, use the Sort menu at the right end of the row (ascending, descending); Remove sorting goes back to your saved order. Dragging is off while a search, a category or Sort is set.
Editing: Click the pencil icon on the row. A change to a published policy is saved as a correction; the version number and publish date stay the same.
New version: While editing a published policy, tick Publish as a new version and click Save. The version number goes up by one (such as Rev. 02) and the publish date is renewed. With Notify employees ticked, the audience gets a "... has been updated" notification.
Archiving and republishing: Choose Archive in the row's More actions menu and confirm. Employees do not see archived policies; publish it again from the Archive tab with Publish.
Deleting: Only drafts are deleted: More actions > Delete. A published or archived policy is archived, not deleted.
Publishing, archiving and deleting several policies at once
You can publish several policies together, such as the drafts of a quick policy set, without opening them one by one. The company admin and users with the Policy Management Permission or the Communication Module Administrator Permission see the selection boxes on the rows.
On the Draft, Published or Archive tab, tick the boxes on the left of the policies. Select all above the list selects every policy that passes the search and category filter. The selection box is separate from the drag handle; you still change the order by dragging the handle.
A bar such as "3 policies selected" opens at the bottom of the list. Its action depends on the tab: Publish and Delete on Draft, Archive on Published, Publish again on Archive. The cross on the right of the bar clears the selection.
Click Publish. The window lists the selected policies in the list order with their audience (All employees or Selected units) and whether a read acknowledgement is required. The policies are published in this order; their order on the Published tab does not change.
If the selection holds AI or template drafts that have not been reviewed, the window warns "2 AI drafts have not been reviewed". Tick I have reviewed them, publish anyway to publish.
With Notify employees ticked, the window shows how many people will be notified. Everyone gets one notification: a person in the audience of only one policy gets the same notification as a single publish, a person in the audience of several gets one summary such as "3 new policies were published". If some ask for a read acknowledgement, the summary says how many. Policies published again from the archive send no notification.
Click the confirm button. When it finishes, the counts and the list refresh. If some policies could not be published (for example someone else published or deleted them meanwhile), the window shows a summary such as "12 published, 2 could not be published." with the reason for each; the ones that failed stay selected in the list.
Archive, Publish again and Delete are confirmed in the same window. Delete removes drafts only, for good, and cannot be undone.
Asking for read acknowledgement and following it up
For policies such as occupational safety or personal data you can ask employees to confirm that they have read them. The employee confirms with the I have read and understood button; the date and time, the version, the channel (web or mobile app) and the IP address are kept. This click-through acknowledgement is enough for internal policies. Use Document Approval for documents that need a signature.
Asking for acknowledgement
In the policy window, turn on Ask for read acknowledgement.
Optionally enter a number of days between 1 and 365 in Acknowledgement deadline (days). The days count from the day acknowledgement is asked for. For an employee who joins the audience after the policy is published (hire, branch, department or position change), they count from the day the employee joined. Leave it empty for no deadline.
Click Publish, or Save on a published policy. If Notify employees is ticked, the audience gets a "Please read and acknowledge" notification.
Every version released with Publish as a new version asks everybody again. Acknowledgements of the earlier version are not deleted; the report shows them with their version.
How employees acknowledge
A policy waiting for acknowledgement appears on the employee's home page as a Acknowledgement row in the inbox (Your tasks), and on the Policies card with the Awaiting acknowledgement label. The Company Policies list shows the same badge.
The employee opens the policy. The deadline and the I have read and understood button are at the bottom of the window. If the policy has a PDF, the button turns on after the PDF has opened in the window.
After the click the window shows You acknowledged on date and the policy leaves the inbox on the home page. Acknowledging the same version again does not add a record. The mobile app uses the same button; the channel is saved as Mobile app.
Following up, reminders and Excel
The report is available to the company admin and to users with the Policy Management Permission or the Communication Module Administrator Permission.
On the Company Policies screen, open the Read acknowledgements tab. For every published policy that asks for acknowledgement it shows how many of the audience acknowledged, a progress bar and the number pending. The audience is the active employees the policy is published for.
Click a policy. The Read acknowledgement report window shows Audience, Acknowledged, Pending and Acknowledgement rate. You can also open it from More actions > Read acknowledgement report on the policy row.
The Pending tab lists the name, branch, position and deadline of everybody who has not acknowledged yet; overdue deadlines are marked red. Earlier acknowledgement is filled for employees who acknowledged an earlier version. The Acknowledged tab shows the acknowledgement time and channel. Pick an older version in the version selector to see its acknowledgements.
Click Remind and confirm. Only the pending employees get an in-app notification and, depending on their settings, a phone notification. A reminder can be sent once a day per policy.
Download Excel downloads every row of the open tab: only the pending employees on the Pending tab, only those who acknowledged on the Acknowledged tab.
On a policy with a deadline, pending employees get an automatic reminder 3 days before the deadline and on the day.
How employees read policies
The employee opens Comms and docs > Company policies in the left menu. The published policies of their audience are listed by category; the search box and the Category filter above narrow the list. Each row shows the version, the effective date and a PDF mark when there is a file; a policy published in the last 14 days has the New badge.
Clicking a row opens the detail window with the summary, the text and the PDF shown in the page. On the web, Download saves the PDF; in the mobile app the PDF opens inside the app.
The Policies card on the home page shows the first policies, as many as fit the card; See all opens this screen (Using the home page). An employee coming from a notification sees the detail of that policy directly.
Result
A published policy is visible to the active employees of its audience in the menu, on the home page card and in notifications. The audience is worked out at every read: a later hire or an employee who moves to another unit sees the policy without any change.
For a published policy with a review date, the company admin and the users with the Policy Management Permission get a reminder notification 14 days before the date and on the day.
On a policy that asks for acknowledgement, each employee's acknowledgement is kept once per version. A new version puts everybody back to Awaiting acknowledgement.
When the Internal Communication module is turned off for the company, the menu, the screen, the home page card and the read acknowledgement rows in the inbox are hidden.
Common problems
Symptom: When publishing several policies, the confirm button of the window stays disabled.
Cause: The selection holds AI drafts that have not been reviewed.
Solution: Review the drafts, or tick I have reviewed them, publish anyway in the window.
Symptom: Clicking Publish shows "Write the content or upload a PDF file."
Cause: The content is empty and no PDF is uploaded.
Fix: Write the text or upload a PDF.
Symptom: My file does not upload.
Cause: The file is not a PDF or is larger than 10 MB.
Fix: Save the document as PDF and reduce its size.
Symptom: An employee cannot see a policy.
Cause: The policy is a draft or archived, or the employee is not in the selected branch, department or position.
Fix: Check that the policy is on the Published tab and check its audience; review the employee's position assignment.
Symptom: I cannot click I have read and understood.
Cause: The policy has a PDF that has not opened yet.
Fix: Wait for the PDF to load in the window; the button turns on when the pages appear.
Symptom: Remind is greyed out in the report.
Cause: A reminder for this policy was already sent today, or nobody is waiting to acknowledge.
Fix: Send it again the next day. If a deadline is set, the automatic reminders go out as well.
Symptom: Clicking Create shows "A quick policy set is already being prepared for your company".
Cause: Only one quick policy set is prepared per company at a time.
Fix: The window shows the progress of the running set; start a new one when it is done.
Symptom: "You can start at most 3 quick policy sets an hour" appears.
Cause: A company can start at most 3 sets an hour.
Fix: Try again a little later.
Symptom: The top of the screen says "The quick policy set could not be finished".
Cause: The server restarted while the set was being prepared. If the server stopped unexpectedly, the strip can show "preparing" for a few minutes before it turns into this warning.
Fix: The drafts created so far are in the Draft tab. Click Start again on the strip; the created ones are marked Already exists. You can close the strip with the cross.
Symptom: There is no Policies card on the home page.
Cause: No policy is published for you, or you removed the card from your home page. Managers see an Add your first policy link on the card while there is none.
Fix: The card appears once a policy is published. If you removed it, add it again with Edit (Editing your home page).