HR cases

An HR case is an employee question, request, or life event routed to HR for fulfillment. Unlike an IT incident, an HR case has no “Resolved” state — it closes directly, either Complete or Incomplete — and it carries a confidential distinction that IT cases don’t need: who the case is about versus who opened it.

Opened for vs. subject person

Every HR case carries both Opened for (who initiated or requested the case) and Subject person (who the case is about). Most of the time these are the same person — an employee opening their own case. They diverge when a manager opens a case on a direct report’s behalf: the manager is Opened for, the report is Subject person. That distinction is what a case’s visibility and confidentiality follow, so it’s worth getting right at intake rather than defaulting both fields to whoever is logged in.

Centers of Excellence

Every case belongs to one Center of Excellence (COE) — the functional discipline that owns it and constrains which HR Service can be selected on it. The available COEs are: HR (Human Resources), Payroll, Benefits, Total Rewards, Compensation, Workforce Administration, HRIT / HR Operations, Talent Management, Global Mobility, Corporate Communications, Employee Relations (ER), and Lifecycle Events (ELE). A case’s Topic category and dependent Topic detail (for example, Onboarding → Equipment & Access, or Leave → Parental Leave) further classify it within its COE.

States

State	What it means	Typical next action
Draft	Intake captured but not yet routed into the working queue.	Accept
New	Routed and ready to work.	Move to In Progress
In Progress	An HR agent is actively working the case.	Resolve, Close Incomplete, or Request info if you need something from the employee
Awaiting Info	Paused, waiting on the employee or a third party. Requires a suspend reason (and optionally a resume date).	Resume once the wait is over
Closed Complete	Terminal, successful. The case was fully resolved.	Reopen if it needs to come back, or Rescind (manager-gated)
Closed Incomplete	Terminal, unsuccessful. Closed without full resolution.	Reopen if it needs to come back
Cancelled	Terminal. Withdrawn or logged in error.	—

Two secondary states support gates within the main flow: Awaiting Approval (the case is blocked on a Request Approval action pending a decision) and Awaiting Acceptance. A Rescind action (available only to an HR manager) can pull a closed case back through Rescind in Progress to Rescinded when a closure needs to be formally undone.

Actions

• Assign to me — claim the case, available in every active state.
• Accept — Draft → New.
• Move to In Progress — New → In Progress.
• Request info — New or In Progress → Awaiting Info; asks for a suspend reason, an optional resume date, and a comment.
• Resume — Awaiting Info → In Progress.
• Request Approval — In Progress → Awaiting Approval; asks for the pending approval action and a comment.
• Resolve — In Progress or Awaiting Info → Closed Complete; asks for work notes and a comment. This is HR’s equivalent of closing successfully — there’s no separate “Resolved” stop first.
• Close Incomplete — In Progress or Awaiting Info → Closed Incomplete; asks for work notes.
• Cancel — any active state → Cancelled; asks for a comment.
• Reopen — from either closed state or Cancelled, back to In Progress; asks for a comment.
• Rescind — from either closed state, manager-gated, back through the Rescind sub-flow.
• Create Knowledge and Generate PII report (admin-gated) are also available once a case is closed, without changing its state.

Assignment and routing

A case routes to an Assignment group (the COE’s fulfillment team) and then to an individual Assigned to. Skills can be attached to flag what expertise the case needs, and a Watch list keeps interested parties notified without making them the assignee.