Amela
CASE STUDY / HR Tech Japan Co., Ltd.
Launch demo
HR Tech Japan Co., Ltd. — new platform launch story

For confidentiality, company names, project names and system images have been replaced with pseudonyms and mock-ups.

The HR master, multi-step approval and SSO — united on one platform. Enterprise HR platform

HitoFlow is an enterprise HR platform binding together an HR master database for around 10,000 employees, the departmental org tree, multi-step and parallel approval workflows, payroll and allowance requests, a SAML2 SSO IdP and a transfer simulator. It carries everything from request through approval and tallying to the accounting hand-off.

The story of launching a new platform, built in-house from scratch in about 12 months, for HR work that had been scattered across paper and Excel and internal systems that each ran on their own login.

-75%
Approval lead time
1 ID
SSO integration
10,000+
HR data scale
Paperless
Request processing gone electronic
hitoflow.example.jp / pending approvals
Approval dashboard
5 unprocessed
Expense claim #REQ-1042Awaiting second approval
Housing allowance #REQ-1039Approval complete
Trip request #REQ-1051Awaiting first approval
12
Submitted today
28
Approved
4.2h
Average handling
01
CLIENT

About the client

HR Tech Japan Co., Ltd. is a growing company with several divisions and offices nationwide. As headcount grew, unifying the HR master and digitising request-and-approval work became management priorities. This project built, in-house and from scratch, an HR platform that HR, general affairs, accounting and IT could all use together.

10,000+
Employee records
120+
Divisions & organisational units
3,000+ a month
Volume of requests raised
BUSINESS FLOW
Request
Employees raise expense, allowance and trip requests
Multi-step approval
Manager, division and accounting approve in turn
Tallying
Approved items reconciled and tallied automatically
Accounting hand-off
Journal data handed to the accounting system
02
CHALLENGE

The design problems to solve

Building from scratch, we defined four design problems around one question: how should this be designed so HR work flows smoothly?

Paper and Excel requests stall

Define the approval route clearly and it becomes visible whose desk a request is sitting on, shortening lead time.

Master data scattered

Bring the HR master into a single source of truth and organisation, requests and SSO all read the same information.

A separate login each time

Build the SAML2 IdP in-house and one login covers every internal system, with access revoked the moment someone leaves.

Errors from manual tallying

Tally approved data automatically and the hand-off to accounting becomes mechanical, bringing transcription errors close to zero.

03
ARCHITECTURE

The architecture we built together

The platform is made of four areas. For each, here is the problem and how it was solved.

Workflow engine
ChallengeExpress multi-step and parallel approval flexibly
SolutionRoute definitions made data-driven, with withdraw and send-back implemented
HR master database
ChallengeUnify the source of truth for employees, organisation and departments
SolutionA normalised master as the single reference for every feature
SSO / IdP
ChallengeOne login across every internal system
SolutionA SAML2 IdP built in-house, with permissions centralised through RBAC
Org simulator
ChallengeEstimate the impact of transfers and reorganisations in advance
SolutionClone the master and preview how headcount would shift
TECH STACK
Frontend
Nuxt
Backend
Laravel
Infra & Auth
SAML2 SSO Redis AWS S3
04
IMPACT

The value the platform creates

A foundation that makes approval visible

Where a request has stalled is visible at a glance.

A foundation for managing HR data in one place

Organisation, requests and authentication all read the same master.

A foundation crossed with one login

SSO lets internal systems be used across, safely.

A foundation for estimating transfers in advance

The headcount impact of a reorganisation can be simulated.

Employees
TypicallyPaper requests go out and sit there, progress unknown
At HR Tech Japan, Submit from a phone and watch the approval status in real time
Business impactLess stress in submitting, fewer send-back round trips
HR & general affairs
TypicallyMaster updates applied to each system by hand
At HR Tech Japan, Update the single master and every feature reflects it at once
Business impactLess operating effort, data consistency assured
Management
TypicallyRequest status and cost are hard to see
At HR Tech Japan, Approval lead time and cost read off a dashboard
Business impactFaster decisions, stronger governance
IT systems
TypicallyA separate login and permission set per system
At HR Tech Japan, Permissions centralised and revoked instantly through SSO and RBAC
Business impactStronger security, lower risk when people leave
05
DEMO

Three scenarios

Each role's experience is reproduced interactively. Launch a scenario and try it.

FLAGSHIP

The requester's view

Raise an expense claim, housing allowance or trip request and submit it while previewing the multi-step approval route live.

Launch demo

The approver's view

Review the pending list in a multi-step stepper and approve, send back or withdraw.

Launch demo

The HR administrator's view

Search the employee master, browse the org tree and estimate headcount shifts with the transfer simulator.

Launch demo