The People section in Calamari is much more than an employee directory. It acts as a central source of information about the people in your organization.
It brings together employee profiles, organizational information, company-specific data, documents, collaboration preferences, and - when relevant modules are enabled - information related to time off and performance reviews.
At the same time, not everyone needs to see the same information. Calamari allows you to decide which employee data should be available to employees, managers, and administrators.
One place for employee information
Instead of keeping employee information across spreadsheets, documents, emails, and separate tools, you can use the People section as your company's central employee database.
An employee profile can contain information such as:
contact and organizational information,
position, teams, managers, and employment details,
company-specific information stored in custom fields,
documents,
Work With Me manual,
absence and entitlement information,
performance review information and historical review sessions.
The exact information available depends on the modules your organization uses and the user's access permissions.
Learn more: Core HR module overview & benefits
Customize employee profiles with Custom Fields
Every organization collects different information about its employees. Custom Fields allow you to adapt employee profiles to your company's needs instead of being limited to predefined system fields.
For example, you can store information about:
equipment and company assets,
skills and certifications,
training and medical examination dates,
benefits,
contract-related information,
office access,
additional employee details.
Custom fields can be organized into categories and groups, making even extensive employee profiles easy to navigate.
Decide who can see and edit employee data
Custom Fields also give you control over data visibility and editing permissions.
For each configurable field, you can determine who should be able to read or update the information based on their system role - for example, the employee themselves, their manager, selected managerial roles, or administrators.
This means employees, managers, and administrators can all use the same People database while seeing only the information relevant to their role.
Employees can also update selected information themselves when editing permissions are enabled, reducing the need for HR to maintain every detail manually.
Create Custom Views for the information you need
You don't have to browse employee profiles one by one.
In People, you can choose the columns you want to see, apply filters, and save the setup as a Custom View for future use.
For example, you can quickly create views showing:
employees whose contracts expire soon,
upcoming training or certificate expiration dates,
people with specific skills,
employees using a particular benefit,
members of a selected team, location, or organizational group.
Custom Views help turn your employee database into a practical tool for everyday HR work instead of simply a place where information is stored.
Users only see and filter information they have permission to access.
Learn more: Configuring custom data views in People section
Update employee data directly from the table
When you need to update information for several people, you don't have to open every employee's profile separately.
Administrators and managers can use Edit mode in the People table to update multiple employee records directly from the list—similar to working with a spreadsheet, but without moving employee data outside Calamari.
This can be useful when:
updating training or medical examination dates,
changing team or organizational assignments,
completing missing employee information,
updating Custom Fields for a selected group of employees.
You can first filter the employee list to the group you need and then update their information directly from the same view.
Access permissions still apply, so users can only edit information they are authorized to manage.
Turn employee data into reusable reports with the People Report
The People Report allows administrators and managers to create detailed reports using both system fields and information stored in Custom Fields.
You can select the data you want to include, apply filters, and save the configuration as a reusable report template. This makes it easier to prepare recurring reports without selecting the same fields and filters each time.
The People Report can be used to prepare reports covering, for example:
contracts that are due to expire,
upcoming work anniversaries,
training and certificate expiration dates,
company equipment assigned to employees,
skills and qualifications,
benefits,
employee data for a selected team or organizational group.
Saved templates retain the selected fields, applied filters, and template name, making recurring monthly or quarterly reporting faster and more consistent.
Reports can also be exported for further analysis or shared with other stakeholders.
Learn more: How to report employee data in Calamari?
Help coworkers understand each other with Work With Me
Employee profiles are not limited to administrative HR data.
The Work With Me section gives employees a space to share information about how they prefer to communicate and collaborate.
Employees can describe their working style, communication preferences, motivations, expectations, or other information that can help coworkers understand how to work with them more effectively.
This makes People useful not only for HR teams but also for employees looking for practical information about the people they work with.
Learn more: Core HR – Work With Me – explained
Keep Performance history connected to the employee
If your organization uses the Performance module, employee information can also be viewed together with their performance review history.
Historical review sessions for a specific employee make it easier to return to previous evaluation cycles and keep important performance context connected to the person rather than scattered across separate records.
This helps managers and HR teams build a more complete picture of an employee over time.
Learn more: Performance Reviews in Calamari
People for employees, managers, and administrators
The People section is designed to be useful across the organization.
Employees can find coworkers, check the information shared with them, explore organizational details, and learn more about colleagues through Work With Me.
Managers can access relevant information about their teams and, depending on permissions, maintain employee data directly from People.
Administrators manage the employee database, configure what information is collected, control access to individual fields, and maintain employee profiles across the organization.
The result is one shared employee database with different levels of access - rather than separate sources of information for HR, managers, and employees.
Learn more: Core HR module overview & benefits
People as your source of truth
With Custom Fields, permissions, Custom Views, table editing, Work With Me, and information from other Calamari modules brought into employee profiles, People can become the central source of truth about your organization.
You decide what information to collect, how to organize it, and who should have access to it, while employees and managers get a convenient place to find the information they need in their everyday work.