Who is close to overtime, and which leaver still has access?

People data is where “who is asking” matters most. A line manager may see their team’s attendance and not their salaries. An employee may see their own leave and nobody else’s. A recruiter may make an offer and never read the salary back. Any assistant that reads people records has to honour every one of those lines — and the only reliable way to do that is not to draw them a second time.

“Who is close to overtime, and are we short on Saturday?”

A shift supervisor on Thursday. The assistant reads who is approaching overtime, where the rota is short, and — for the Saturday shift nobody has taken — who could work it:

GET /wf-overtime/projection
GET /wf-coverage/gaps?from={saturday}&to={saturday}
GET /wf-shift-instances/{shift}/eligible

The projection answers in hours: how far each person is from the threshold, and how many rostered days are left to run into it. It deliberately does not price anything. Overtime is priced by the payroll engine from the employee’s own rule, then the branch’s, then the company’s; a second price computed anywhere else would be a second answer, and the one that disagreed with the payslip would be the wrong one. It also says what it assumed, so a supervisor is not planning against a rule nobody configured.

The gaps are counted in qualified people. “Two first-aiders on the floor at nine” is answered by the people who hold a current first-aid certificate, not by the headcount. And the eligibility call answers the half that matters: for everybody who cannot work the shift, why not — on leave, already working, a licence that has lapsed.

“Which leavers still have access?”

An HR manager on Monday morning. The assistant reads every access revocation still outstanding, the detail of any that disagree, and what each leaver has not handed back:

GET /hr-checklists/revocations
GET /hr-checklists/{checklist}/outstanding
GET /as-assets/outstanding?employee={employee}

The row that matters is the contradicted one: a leaver whose access was recorded as revoked and is still live. The detail puts what a person asserted beside what the systems actually show, with a verdict — still present, clear, or unverifiable — and “unverifiable” is its own answer rather than being folded into “clear”. The answer the manager gets leads with the contradictions, then the laptops and phones nobody has collected.

“How much leave do I have left?”

An employee on their phone. The assistant reads their leave balance, which is a running sum over every accrual and deduction rather than a number somebody typed, and their own requests:

GET /wf-entitlements/balance
GET /hr-leave-requests/my-requests

Now ask “how is attendance looking?” three times. The People dashboard call is open to everybody, and the server decides its scope: HR gets the organization, a line manager gets their reports, an employee gets themselves. The same call returns three different-sized pictures, and the assistant, asking as each person, passes on exactly the one they are entitled to. Nothing in the assistant decides that. The server already did.

GET /hr-employees/dashboard

“Why is this month’s pay bill higher?”

A payroll manager before sign-off. The assistant reads the payslip summary, the approved and locked hours that payroll reads, and the pay review cycle — its budget against the rises approved so far:

GET /pay-payslips/summary
GET /wf-timesheets/hours?from={start}&to={end}
GET /pay-comp-cycles/{cycle}/summary

The answer separates the causes a payroll manager needs separated: more approved hours, and the rises from this cycle’s review. It does not approve anything, and it does not run anything.

What stays withheld, stays withheld

Some figures are protected by the product rather than by a role. An offer in Recruit comes back from every read with the salary removed and marked as withheld: the number is written through to Payroll and is not readable back by a recruiter. The assistant reads offers through the same call, so it sees “withheld” too. There is no clever question that retrieves it, because there is no call that returns it.

Where it hands back to a person

• Running or approving payroll. Paying people is the change where a wrong number reaches somebody’s bank account. It is on the short list of things Rutba Assistant will never be allowed to do.
• Changing who may do what. Roles and permissions are what every other limit rests on, and they are never delegated to it.
• Deciding for people. Approving leave, a timesheet or a shift swap is a manager’s decision. The assistant can put the facts in front of them; the click is theirs.