SunFish HR Q1 2026 Product Updates: Strengthening the Foundation of Everyday HR

At DataOn, every quarter is a chance to reshape what HR technology can do, not just for HR teams, but for the employees, managers, and leaders who depend on them.

Our Q1 2026 release is one of our most layered yet, with updates spanning enterprise-grade security, mobile-first workflows, AI-assisted productivity, and deeper compliance support across Southeast Asia.

Across the platform, we’ve refined core workflows, strengthened system foundations, and introduced targeted enhancements that reduce friction in daily operations, whether you’re managing payroll compliance, approving requests on mobile, or coordinating training across teams.

Here’s what’s new and why it matters

1. Strengthening the Foundations: Security, Performance, and System Control

As organizations grow and HR systems hold increasingly sensitive data, the underlying system becomes just as important as the features themselves. This release brings several security improvements to how SunFish performs, scales, and protects data

• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). 

Users can now enable 2FA via Time-based One-Time Passwords using mobile authenticator apps such as Google Authenticator. An optional “Automated Login” toggle lets trusted devices skip re-authentication once verified.

• Mobile-Only Access Restriction. 

Administrators can now designate accounts that are only accessible via the SunFish Mobile app. Attempts to log in via desktop are blocked with a clear “Access Restricted” message and direct links to download the app — useful for field staff or contractors who shouldn’t have desktop privileges.

Behind the scenes, performance has also been strengthened through selective migration of system endpoints to Golang, improving speed and scalability in high-usage environments.

At the same time, administrators gain better control through:

• Structured patch monitoring with clear status visibility (Applied, Pending, Incoming)
• Enhanced configuration tools for managing multi-entity environments
• Improved secure link validation for Inbox attachments, Avatars, and other user assets.

2. Mobile & Frontline Experience: Faster Decisions, Less Friction

HR decisions often happen outside the office, on mobile devices, in real time, and under pressure. This is where most managers and frontline employees actually use SunFish and Q1 brings significant productivity gains for both; particularly around approvals and external attendance.

Here is what is redesigned and improved — not just to be cleaner but to handle high volume more efficiently:

• Redesigned Request Inbox. 

The mobile inbox now offers tab-based filtering across Inbox, Completed, and Awaiting statuses. For deeper queries, an advanced filter and full-text search let approvers quickly find requests by number, requester, type, date, or organization unit.

• Claim Group Approval. 

Reimbursement claims submitted as a group are now reviewable as a group. Approvers can view items by Item, Date, or Balance, drill into any individual claim’s details, and approve, revise, or reject each one before submitting the batch decision in a single action.

• Dynamic QR Scan for External Employees. 

Until now, only registered employees could clock attendance through the SunFish PORT Dynamic QR. External attendees — contractors, event guests, partners — can now record attendance simply by scanning the QR code from the login screen, without needing a SunFish account. The flow handles both pre-registered and unregistered users automatically, with face capture for verification.

3. Document and Reporting Capabilities: From Storage to Workflow

HR documents are rarely static—they are created, reviewed, approved, and referenced continuously. Knowing this, we began integrating Document Management into SunFish in Q1 2025, and kept expanding it throughout the year. However, in Q1 2026 we focused on making it genuinely enterprise-grade. The focus this quarter is on structured document creation, governed approvals, and visibility into how storage is being used.

• Create From Template. Users can now generate documents from pre-built templates with placeholders for employee data, dates, and document numbers — useful for things like passcode requests, IT change forms, or onboarding letters.
• Document Approval Workflow. A new “Request for Approval” action on any document lets users send it through a designated approval formula, with notes attached. Approvers see the request in their inbox and can approve or reject from one place.
• Smart Watermarks for Reports. Reports can now carry dynamic watermarks — both image-based (e.g., a “Confidential” stamp) and text-based using variables like [EMP_NAME] and the generation timestamp. Every downloaded report is traceable back to who pulled it.
• Other DMS enhancements:
  • Folder rename in Projects directory without disturbing contents
  • Document upload via URL (Google Docs and external links)
  • Payroll Report Document Management — upload, rename, and bulk-delete inside payroll groups
  • Edit and full activity logging for payroll documents
  • “My Document” storage information showing total files and used capacity

What ties these changes together is a shift in perspective: documents and reports are no longer outputs—they are part of the process itself.

4. SunFish PORT, System Flexibility & Integration:
Configurable by Design

Every organization operates differently, and HR systems must adapt without becoming complex to manage. This release introduces several enhancements that improve configurability and integration.

SunFish PORT — the on-premise device for attendance and dynamic QR — continues to expand as a bridge between physical activity and digital tracking and now has a dedicated place in the Utilities menu. The new home consolidates everything operations teams need in three tabs: Device, Activity, and External Employee.

• Device tab lets administrators enable PORT, configure access limits, set the identification method (ID Card or Face Detection), tune the face-detection threshold, and synchronize employee base data to the device.
• Activity tab displays all Dynamic QR activities — meals, training sessions, events — with start and end times, schedules, and registered devices.
• External Employee tab maintains the list of non-employees authorized to use the Dynamic QR feature, including company affiliation and contact details.

At the same time, new capabilities like gamification configuration introduce a different layer of engagement in a fun and structured way. Administrators can now define gamification periods, missions, levels, categories, and badges to drive engagement on attendance and other KPIs.

Even smaller improvements, like enhanced form customization, play an important role. Through updates such as:

• Clearer field structure and icons
• Grouped attributes for easier configuration
• Ability to apply customization to standard fields

the system becomes easier to adapt without requiring technical intervention.

5. Reimbursement Reimagined

The reimbursement balance experience — for both employees and HR — has been completely redesigned this quarter to address two long-standing issues: slow load times and unclear separation between employee and family balances.

• Balances are now grouped by Family and Employee, with clear validity periods and remaining-balance bars per group.
• Active balances load by default, and the data is masked until the user enters their login password — preventing shoulder-surfing in shared workspaces.
• New filters by Balance Status (Active/Inactive/All) and Balance Period make it easy to audit historical entitlements.
• Underlying performance has been substantially optimized — both page rendering and backend response time.

Behind the scenes, Reimbursement Settings have migrated to the new Settings SF7 framework with a cleaner interface; so it aligns with the platform’s future configuration direction. The old menu will be retired in a future release.

6. Employee Lifecycle & HR Governance

As HR operations mature, complexity often comes from edge cases. Offboarding scenarios differ between companies. Reporting access needs to be controlled across entities. Organizational structures don’t always follow simple hierarchies. This release introduces improvements that align the system more closely with those realities.

Offboarding processes are now more flexible:

• Companies can enable or disable severance handling based on policy
• Outstanding approvals are handled more cleanly to reduce confusion and administrative overhead

Organizational data is also better structured, with new capabilities to:

• Store position data by organizational level
• Improve reporting accuracy and hierarchy mapping

Access control has been strengthened as well. Reports such as headcount and turnover now:

• Respect user authorization boundaries
• Prevent unintended cross-company data visibility

Workforce policies are rarely simple—and time management systems must reflect that complexity. This release introduces:

• Singapore Update: Support for multi-level leave structures, allowing parent-child relationships across leave types
• New options for leave entitlement calculation based on full join date, improving policy accuracy

These are not headline features—but they are the types of changes that prevent daily operational issues.

7. Continuous Compliance: Localization That Keeps Payroll Reliable

Tax and payroll regulations don’t slow down for software release cycles, so neither do we. Q1 2026 brings major compliance work for Indonesia and Vietnam alongside structural improvements to payroll history.

Enhancements across Indonesia and Vietnam ensure that statutory calculations, tax reporting, and payroll processes remain aligned with current regulations. From updated tax forms to improved handling of contributions and exemptions, these changes reduce the need for manual adjustments.

• Indonesia: 
  • Coretax Integration. SunFish now produces and uploads Coretax-compliant filings directly. 
  • Users can download tax forms in BPMP, BP21, BP26, and BPA1 formats as XML, Excel, or PDF, broken down by tax location (KPP).
• Vietnam: 
  • PIT Final Declaration & Statutory Data. 
  • A new PIT Final Declaration tab supports forms 05 QTT TNCN, 05-1 BK QTT TNCN, 05-2 BK QTT TNCN, and 05-3 BK QTT TNCN, with customizable form layouts. 
  • Employee Statutory Data and Employee Union management have been added to capture tax type, social security type, SHUI region, and union membership — all required by current Vietnamese reporting standards.
  • Statutory Reports for Labor Department. New 01/PLI and 07/PLI report formats are now available with configurable variable mapping for qualifications, allowances, social insurance, and unemployment insurance.
  • Payroll History — Generate YTD by Month. Administrators can now regenerate year-to-date payroll snapshots for any selected month and employee group — invaluable for handling mid-year corrections or tax audits.
  • Tax Exemption with Backpay. Tax-exempt allowances such as meal stipends now support backpay reference codes, so retroactive adjustments flow through to the correct period.
  • Payroll Component formulas now expose new variables for UNIONCONTRIBUTIONEMPLOYEE, UNIONCONTRIBUTIONEMPLOYER, and SHUIBASEWAGES for cleaner Vietnam union calculations.

8. Supporting Growth: From Task Management to Learning and Development

HR is increasingly connected to execution—how work gets done, tracked, and improved. Project and task management, learning and development are core features of SunFish, and this release strengthens the workflows organizations use to manage talent performance and growth.

Project management tools have been refined to better reflect real workflows, with clearer task structures and filtering:

• Tasks can now be linked to epics
• Status updates are more flexible
• Filtering supports multi-category views
• Projects can include visual identifiers like logos

Training & Learning continues to evolve from a support function into a strategic capability—and this release strengthens both delivery and management. Key improvements include:

• Bulk attendance upload, reducing manual tracking
• Adaptive video streaming for smoother learning experiences
• Improved quiz formats and readability
• CC Recipients on training emails, and supervisor visibility in training reminders

• Training Course Information now appears in the Request Inbox, giving approvers full context.
• E-Learning skip control, in alignment with compliance training requirements.

At the same time, AI capabilities are being introduced in a practical, targeted way. Rather than replacing workflows, they assist with them—helping users refine inputs, generate content, and improve communication.

This is particularly visible in training, where AI can now generate presentation-ready content, while other enhancements improve how training is delivered, tracked, and evaluated.

9. Smarter Recruitment & Career Development

Both recruitment and career development are an integral part of the SunFish enterprise suite, and Q1 2026 brings sharper tools for shortlisting candidates and planning their growth once they’re hired.

Hiring is often a high-volume, high-pressure process—and small improvements can significantly reduce effort:

• Pre-Screening Filter: A new advanced filter on the recruitment overview lets recruiters narrow applicants by Job Fit Score, work-experience line of business, minimum experience period, age, and education — with the option to show only applicants meeting the configured Job Fit threshold.
• Compare Applicants: Recruiters can now select two or more applicants from any stage and compare them side-by-side — current step, match percentage, skills, education, work history, and language proficiency — without leaving the screen.
• Embedded AI-assisted writing tools now support :
  • Job descriptions
  • Recruitment requests
  • Candidate notes

Career planning is now more directly integrated into employee profiles, making development tracking part of everyday HR processes.

• Career plans can be created and managed directly within an employee’s profile section, including readiness, competency match, and impact-of-leaving assessments
• Data interface integration enables more dynamic performance tracking
• AI-assisted text refinement helps improve clarity in evaluations and inputs

10. AI Inside the Workflow: Practical, Not Theoretical

Across the SunFish platform, one pattern becomes clearer: artificial intelligence continues to move deeper into everyday workflows. Rather than existing as a separate capability, AI is being extended into the modules where HR teams already operate—supporting content creation, refinement, and decision-making without changing how users work. In this release, that expansion reaches training and recruitment: 

• AI-Generated Training Content. Trainers and L&D teams can now generate full presentation decks for a Training Course directly inside SunFish. Upload a reference document, write a short description (in any supported language, including Bahasa Indonesia), choose a style — Professional, Creative, or Modern — pick the number of slides, and SunFish produces a ready-to-edit deck. Each generation pulls from a shared AI credit pool with full transparency on usage.
• AI Text Paraphrasing across Recruitment. A new “Improve” button now appears across recruitment forms — Manpower Plan remarks, recruitment request descriptions, applicant notes, video interview feedback. One click rewrites the text more clearly and professionally while keeping the original meaning. Useful for non-native English writers and for keeping internal language consistent across hundreds of requisitions.

Closing: A Quarter of Quiet Force-Multipliers

The Q1 2026 update is not defined by a single major feature—but by how it improves the system as a whole. It’s a layered release where each update makes the next one more valuable. AI in training and recruitment is more impactful when the underlying platform is faster and more secure. Mobile productivity gains pay off more when reimbursement and PORT are also faster. And localization for Indonesia and Vietnam means little without the framework upgrades that make those features performant.

These are the kinds of improvements that don’t always stand out individually, but together, they make a meaningful difference in how HR teams work every day.

We continue to be guided by what our clients tell us matters most: less time on administration, more time on people. Every line of this release reflects feedback from the HR and leadership teams we work with, and we’re already working on what comes next.

Thank you for trusting us to grow with you. Together, we’re building not just better HR software, but better workplaces where people thrive.