EmpowerHR 2026.2 release notes (DRAFT)

We are pleased to present EmpowerHR 2026.2 – Release Notes (DRAFT)

This release is delayed. We expect it to be available in October.

	Heads up: this release changes some database tables. If you report over the EmpowerHR database, check Database table changes by release so your reports keep working. It's in the password-protected Technical User Guides, so use your existing password or request one through iHelp.

What's new

Taking care of carer's leave

Sick and carer's leave has a new setup path, tighter checks, and clearer messages. You can now base carer's leave entitlement on an employee's award rather than their work pattern, and the checks that used to run only in Desktop now run in Employee Self Service as well.

Carer's leave, by award

Set a carer's leave entitlement against an award, or against a specific award-and-classification combination, without building separate work patterns for each one. Go to Tasks > Classifications > Awards Configuration > Leave management and enter the annual figure in Carer's Leave Hrs/Year. Leave Classification Code blank to apply the entitlement to every classification under the award, or enter a code to override it for one. If there's no award or classification entitlement, EmpowerHR falls back to the employee's work pattern.

Part-time, pro rata

The figure you enter at award or classification level is the full-time equivalent. EmpowerHR reduces it by the employee's FTE when they submit a request, so an 80-hour award entitlement gives a 0.8-FTE employee 64 hours. Work pattern entitlements keep the existing convention: you enter the actual hours for that pattern.

Self Service catches up on certificates

The sick and carer's leave checks that ran in Desktop now run in Employee Self Service as well, covering yearly certificate limits, consecutive days without a certificate, overlapping bookings, and leave balance. Set each one to Error, Warning, or Ignore in Administration > Screen Management > Field Error Validation. Desktop and Self Service severities are independent, so you can block a request in one and warn in the other. Where a request exceeds a yearly certificate limit, the message now appears against the certificate field it relates to.

Tell them which certificate to pick

Employees choose Medical, Paramedical, Carer's, or None on a sick leave request, and that choice decides which entitlement their request is checked against. To guide the choice, add a message to the Description field on your sick leave rule. It appears beneath the Leave Type field in Self Service when the employee picks that leave type, rather than in a browser pop-up.

Pay By Exception, now in Self Service

Self Service blocks a leave request covering days where the employee's Pay By Exception is set to No. Set the severity on the Position field in Field Error Validation.

Ticket: EMP-11190 | Requested by: Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP)

Class dismissed, leave dismissed

If you bulk-book school staff onto Non-Attendance leave over the term breaks, Self Service can now stop those employees also requesting personal leave for the same days. Two new screens under Tasks > Classifications > Leave request validation define who counts as an educator, by award or by position, and which leave the check applies to.

When an educator's request includes a day in a term break, Self Service rejects the whole request and asks them to book term-time days only. A request that spans a term break needs to be split into two bookings. Term Dates can also hold an earlier Term 1 start for 42-week positions.

Ticket: EMP-11889 | Requested by: Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP)

Rates that know what day it is

Relief and Payments now tells the difference between a Saturday, a Sunday and a public holiday.

A rate for each day

Other payment categories can hold a separate rate for Saturday, Sunday and public holidays, in place of the single weekend rate. Set them against the new Day field on the Other Payment Categories screen in Desktop. EmpowerHR then applies the rate for the day the work was done, paying the public holiday rate even when a public holiday falls on a weekend.

Overnight shifts no longer stuck at Save

The end-time-before-start-time check on Relief and Additional Hours requests can now warn instead of block, set in Field Error Validation. As a warning, the request still saves, so a shift that finishes after midnight goes through.

iHelp: 0612859 | Ticket: EMP-11368 | Requested by: Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP)

Have the final say on STP termination timing

In Installation Options, you can now use Set employees as final in STP on termination to control when terminated employees become tax ready (final) with the ATO.

Select y to set employees as final when they're terminated. This is the default, so nothing changes unless you switch it.
Select n to set them as final during the end-of-year STP run instead. Enter y in All Employees Y/N on that run to include employees terminated earlier in the year.

iHelp: 478058 | Ticket: EMP-9948 | Requested by: Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPAC)

Leave it to the manager

When an employee is marked absent and no leave request follows within the number of days you set, the Automatic Leave Without Pay background job creates a Leave Without Pay (LWOP) request on their behalf and sends it to payroll. In Installation Options, you can now use Automatic Leave Without Pay requests require manager approval to decide whether that request goes to the employee's manager first.

Select y to send the request to the employee's manager at the first workflow step. The manager can then reject it and follow up the missing leave request.
Select n to create the request already approved. This is the default.

iHelp: 553480 | Ticket: EMP-11704 | Requested by: Catholic Education Diocese of Bathurst (CEDB)

Filling in the blanks on temporary movements

When you set up a temporary movement, like higher duties, acting, or a secondment, EmpowerHR now carries the employee's substantive employment type through to the position record. It used to leave that detail blank. So if you send this data to a rostering or time system like Timefiler, it now reads the right value and applies the correct business rules from the day the movement starts.

iHelp: 500989 | Ticket: EMP-9868 | Requested by: Metropolitan Cemeteries Board (MCB)

Absent, but accounted for

Developed specifically for Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong. The Automatic Leave Without Pay background job now runs in Self Service. It creates a Leave Without Pay (LWOP) request for any absence in the Staff Absence Calendar that still has no leave request or booking after the number of days set in ablw in Installation Settings. Public holidays and non-working days are skipped, and each run emails you a report.

iHelp: 578184 | Ticket: EMP-11665 | Requested by: Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong (CEDOW)

CDMN's Tech One interface

Developed specifically for CDMN. Find the interfaces under Background Jobs > Payroll Processing > Interfaces:

Tech One Trial produces the general ledger for a trial pay
Tech One Finished produces the general ledger for a finished pay

Ticket: EMP-11303 | Requested by: Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle (CDMN)

What's fixed
Employees with a future-dated position movement now stay in their current position on the Self Service organisation chart until the movement takes effect.
iHelp: 528018 | Ticket: EMP-11755 | Reported by: Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES)

In Self Service, the Time and Claims reports and exports now show the correct work date, hours, dollars, reason code and cost centre for each paid claim line, along with the correct total hours.
iHelp: 584569 | Ticket: EMP-11292 | Reported by: Catholic Education Diocese of Bathurst (CEDB)

Super and on-costs now split across cost centres by earnings rather than work-pattern hours when a cost centre change takes effect part-way through a pay cycle. Totals were always correct.
iHelp: 576444 | Ticket: EMP-11783 | Reported by: The Kids Research Institute Australia (TKRI)

The Employee Information window now opens promptly, resolving the delay payroll users experienced when opening employee records after upgrading.
iHelp: 579547 | Ticket: EMP-11275 | Reported by: Australian Rail Track Corp (ARTC)

The Work From Home toggle on the FWA Request Form is now disabled on weekdays where no daily hours are entered, preventing WFH from being saved against non-working days.
Ticket: EMP-11178 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

FWA Request Form check box title updated from "Change working hours" to "Reduce / change working hours"
Ticket: EMP-11295 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

FWA Request Form Change Start/Finish Times applications now submit correctly regardless of the time format entered
Ticket: EMP-11299 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

FWA Request Form total hours now calculate correctly when start and finish times are entered using a full stop as the time separator (e.g. 8.30 instead of 8:30)
Ticket: EMP-11297 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

FWA Request Form now correctly validates hours and blocks submission when the entered hours do not match the target total, even if the form has not been saved first
Ticket: EMP-11296 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

The Finish time AM/PM selector on the FWA Request Form now defaults to PM when completing the Change start/finish times section.
Ticket: EMP-11300 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

FWA requests with non-standard break times now submit correctly in Self Service.
Ticket: EMP-11294 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

FWA Request Form now correctly flags an hours mismatch when all three request options are selected.
Ticket: EMP-11298 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

Higher Duty Allowance calculations now produce correct amounts for part-time employees.
Ticket: EMP-9554 | Reported by: Fusion5 (internal)

The FWA Request Form now recovers correctly after a server-side error, with the Current Position section, work pattern calendar, and options list all repopulating on the reloaded page.
Ticket: EMP-11302 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

The Lunch Break field on the FWA Request Form now shows a clearer format hint of "(h:mm or hh:mm)" to help staff enter the value correctly.
Ticket: EMP-11339 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

Processing retrospective leave or payment arrears for a prior financial year no longer generates an incorrect PAYG tax refund. Prior-year transactions with no change to gross now adjust hours only, with no tax or monetary movement, leaving previously reported tax for that year unchanged.
iHelp: 621904 | Ticket: EMP-11506 | Reported by: Department of Fire & Emergency Services (DFES)

The "Add Development Plan" link on the Development Needs/Plan tab in the MSS Performance Management workflow is now fully visible and accessible.
iHelp: 624644 | Ticket: EMP-11348 | Reported by: Department of Fire & Emergency Services (DFES)

Retrospective leave entered for a pay period before the September 2025 STSL tax table changes no longer triggers an incorrect Student Loan (STSL) refund when the leave results in zero taxable gross.
iHelp: 608192 | Ticket: EMP-10678 | Reported by: Catholic Schools Office Lismore Diocese

Pay Calc and Adhoc Calc no longer intermittently stall on large payrolls.
iHelp: 611971 | Ticket: EMP-10800 | Reported by: Department of Premier & Cabinet (DPAC)

The DECYP SAFT interface now includes terminated employees with superannuation contributions.
iHelp: 580497 | Ticket: EMP-11279 | Reported by: Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP)

The STP Checking Report now reports Qualified Earnings for pay periods on or after 1 July 2026, with the amount shown in a column headed Qualified Earnings instead of OTE Amount.
iHelp: 624684 | Ticket: EMP-11367 | Reported by: The Fourth Force (Drakes)

The qmvecost view in Query Manager returns all position and cost history records for each employee.
Ticket: EMP-11542 | Reported by: David Jones

School Term 1 ordinary hours now appear on the correct payslip in Employee Self Service.
iHelp: 583249 | Ticket: EMP-10868 | Reported by: Fusion5 (internal)

Leave processed through the alerter now saves the correct percent one day value on the booking.
iHelp: 544311 | Ticket: EMP-11562 | Reported by: Parliament of Victoria

EmpowerHR now calculates tax correctly on negative gross adjustments. A negative adjustment in the current financial year reverses the tax instead of calculating zero, a negative adjustment for a previous financial year calculates zero tax with a warning in the Pay Calcs Incident Messages, and a retrospective leave adjustment that doesn't change gross calculates zero tax.
Ticket: EMP-11565 | Reported by: Fusion5 (internal)

When the ESS sign-on type is configured as 'empl', a failed login attempt incorrectly redirected users to the Surname/Given Name login form instead of returning them to the Employee Code form. This has been resolved by correcting the failure forward paths so that failed credentials consistently return employees to the correct login page.
iHelp: 584392 | Ticket: EMP-11179 | Reported by: David Jones

Payslips now display correctly in ESS on iPhone, in both Safari and Chrome.
iHelp: 617393 | Ticket: EMP-11543 | Reported by: R M Williams

Class Update now matches only the exact combination of Class Codes and Level you enter, so entering Level 1 no longer selects levels like P1.
iHelp: 606171 | Ticket: EMP-10755 | Reported by: Catholic Archdiocese Canberra Goulburn Education (CECG)

The Pay Certification preprocess now picks up the correct previous position for employees who have no current position when you run it, so every detail record matches a header record.
iHelp: 615952 | Ticket: EMP-11538 | Reported by: Department of Communities (DoC)

The Help screen no longer shows the unused Infusion Knowledge Base button.
Ticket: EMP-11695 | Reported by: Fusion5 (internal)

Paid claims on the Time and Claims report now show the payment code the claim was paid under, including where it was changed in Pay Data Entry after the claim was raised.
iHelp: 584569 | Ticket: EMP-11737 | Reported by: Catholic Education Diocese of Bathurst (CEDB)

Qualifying Earnings now report actual earnings for members of a Defined Benefit super fund. These employees reported 0.00 in Single Touch Payroll from 1 July 2026. Super liability correctly remains zero for them.
Ticket: EMP-11593 | Reported by: Fusion5 (internal)

In Manager Self Service, the Skills Summary screen opened from the info icon in Skill and Competency search now shows the employee's correct gender.
iHelp: 479431 | Ticket: EMP-8942 | Reported by: Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES)

The advanced search on the Skill and Competency search screen in Manager Self Service now returns only the employees the manager has access to.
iHelp: 479431 | Ticket: EMP-8942 | Reported by: Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES)

When the jpal installation setting is set to 'a', EmpowerHR now sends password reset and access emails to whichever address the employee has on file, including the new starter email carrying the password or PIN.
iHelp: 623404 | Ticket: EMP-11290, EMP-11820 | Reported by: R.M. Williams, David Jones

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EmpowerHR 2026.1.06 hotfix release notes