PeopleDesk

PeopleDesk is a full-stack Employee Management System built with React, Express, MongoDB Atlas, JWT auth, and role-based access (Admin / HR / Employee).

For step-by-step help with diagrams (new users, testers, developers), see USER_GUIDE.md or open User Guide in the app menu.

Features

• Authentication with JWT + bcrypt
• Role-based access control
• Employee and department management
• Attendance check-in/out with duplicate prevention and monthly reports
• Leave apply / cancel / approve / reject with balances
• Payroll generation and downloadable PDF payslips
• Performance reviews
• Dashboard analytics and in-app notifications

Project structure

people-desk/
├── people-desk-fe/   # Vite + React frontend
├── people-desk-be/   # Express + MongoDB API
├── .env              # secrets (gitignored)
└── README.md

Setup

1. Environment

Copy Atlas credentials into root .env (already prepared if you used atlas-credentials.env):

PORT=5000
JWT_SECRET=your_secret
MONGODB_URI=mongodb+srv://USER:PASS@cluster0.xxx.mongodb.net/ems?retryWrites=true&w=majority
CLIENT_URL=http://localhost:5173

2. Install dependencies

cd people-desk-be
npm install

cd ../people-desk-fe
npm install

3. Seed demo data

cd people-desk-be
npm run seed

Demo accounts:

Role	Email	Password
Admin	admin@ems.com	Admin@123
HR	hr@ems.com	Hr@12345
Employee	john@ems.com	Employee@123

4. Run

Terminal 1 — API:

cd people-desk-be
npm run dev

Terminal 2 — UI:

cd people-desk-fe
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173

The Vite dev server proxies /api to http://localhost:5000.

Main API routes

• POST /api/auth/register
• POST /api/auth/login
• GET /api/auth/me
• CRUD /api/employees
• CRUD /api/departments
• POST /api/attendance/check-in|check-out
• GET /api/attendance · GET /api/attendance/report/monthly
• POST /api/leaves · PUT /api/leaves/:id/cancel · PUT /api/leaves/:id/review
• POST /api/payroll/generate · GET /api/payroll/:id/payslip
• CRUD /api/performance
• GET /api/dashboard/stats
• GET /api/notifications

Roles

• Admin — full access including departments
• HR — employees, leave approvals, payroll, performance
• Employee — self attendance, leave, payroll view, profile

Notes

• Never commit .env or atlas-credentials.env
• Payroll net salary = basic + allowances + bonuses − deductions − tax
• One attendance record per employee per day
• On some Windows networks, MongoDB SRV DNS can fail; the backend forces Google/Cloudflare DNS resolvers before connecting