Access Levels FAQ and Troubleshooting Tips
Purpose: This help guide will walk you through frequently asked questions about access levels in BambooHR. Each question will provide you with an explanation and resource for how to troubleshoot in your account.
Table of Contents
- An employee is unable to log in. When they select Forgot Password, the email doesn’t send.
- Some of my employees are missing part of the home screen. Others have all the widgets.
- I have some employees missing the Reports tab, but I need to share access to reports.
- I have new employees who can’t see the Onboarding tab. How are they able to complete their assigned onboarding tasks?
- An employee has resigned. How do I remove their system access?
- Can I assign or remove access in bulk?
- Is there a way to combine access levels?
- Can I give an outside user access to the system?
- I have a user who does not have access to specific fields in the access level but can see them in an email alert or approval.
- Who can log in to the Help Center, and what will they see?
- Some of my users are seeing information they should not be seeing. What is happening?
- We have made too many access levels. How can we clean these up?
Answer: This employee does not have an access level.
How can I fix it?: The employee will need to have an access level assigned. Please note only Full Admin users can assign a custom access level or manager access level. If this is the first time the employee gets assigned an access level, they will receive a password email automatically. If the employee is getting re-hired or has an access level before, you can reset their password as an admin.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: Some features are hidden in the See On Home section of the access level, or in the case of benefits, there is no information available in the employee profile.
How can I fix it?: In Settings > Access Levels > Select Access Level Name > Access Level Settings > See on Home, make sure the box is checked for each widget that your employees should see. This tab is separate on every access level. Make sure that you check each level and adjust accordingly.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: The system keeps the Onboarding tab hidden from employees. This is to protect confidential tasks.
How can I fix it?: The onboarding tasks automatically go to the new hire’s inbox. When they log in, they will be able to complete any pending tasks. You can send many tasks through the New Hire Packet before the employee starts.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: Access will get removed differently based on the date of termination. If the termination takes place the same day, access gets removed immediately. If the termination is future-dated, access will get removed at 11:59 PM (local time) the night of termination.
How can I fix it?: You can remove or reassign access levels at any time through the employee profile. To add an access level, make sure the employee has an Active employee status on the Personal tab.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: Yes! System admins (Full Admin users and the Account Owner) can power edit employee access levels. Admins can bulk add employees to manager and custom access through settings.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: Yes! This is a common request for employees who wear many hats.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: Absolutely! These users are called non-employee users. There are a few things to remember about these users as they aren't treated the same as employees in your account.
- Non-employee users should be in a custom or Full Admin access level. This is because users in employee access levels can only see their own profile, which non-employee users don't have, so they wouldn't see anything useful. Since employees can't report to non-employee users (this would break critical functions like the org chart and performance management), putting them in a manager access level would not allow them to see anything useful either
- You can assign a non-employee user as the Account Owner.
- Non-employee users will not show up on the employee list, Company Directory, or Org Chart.
- Non-employee users can be part of the approval process for information updates, time off requests, and custom approvals.
- Non-employee users can have onboarding and offboarding tasks assigned.
- Non-employee users can be a "Specific Person" signer on a signature template, but they cannot be the "Employee" signer.
- Customers do not get charged for non-employee users.
- Their name will appear as {Last name} {First name} on the list, even though the display name settings may be different ({First name} {Last name}).
- To delete a non-employee user, you need to first set them to No Access and save that change. Once that is complete, go to the No Access section in access level settings and click on their name. This will take you to a page where you can edit their name and email, and in the top right corner, there is a button that says "Delete this user." We recommend changing the email address for that user before deleting them if you plan on reusing the email address.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: This is a system feature that allows limited access to employee information when needed but prevents them from having access to that information all the time. This is an effort to allow them to get work done and still protect sensitive information. There is no way around this feature. The best thing you could do is remove the user from the approval process or email alert.
Answer: Account Owners, Full Admin users, and custom access level users (not manager access level users) have the "?" button in BambooHR that gives them direct access to the Help Center. This will automatically show them the help guides available. If you go to help.bamboohr.com without logging into the Help Center, you will see the public articles available for anyone to see. This includes the BambooHR for Employees section and the Partner Integrations section. Full Admins can share links to help guides in these sections, and employees will not need to sign in to the Help Center to view the information.
Answer: This is because of incorrect access level settings. Incorrect settings include being in the wrong access level, having the wrong View/Edit access, or having access to the wrong employees. These are not spontaneous changes, and someone must have changed those in the system.
How can I fix it?: A Full Admin user in the internal system must make all access level edits. Customer Support cannot make access changes. To make edits, go to Settings > Access Levels > Select an Access Level Name > Access Level Settings. From there, you can view each tab and make any necessary changes. Make sure to preview as a user after saving the changes. This will allow you to verify they can now see everything they should see.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?
Answer: Having a clean list of access levels is very helpful for troubleshooting access issues. The best way to clear out access levels is to edit one employee access level first. Make sure that employees can see everything they need to, and then assign all users EXCEPT the admins to this updated employee level. Go through each access level and make edits. If you've decided that you don’t need an access level, you can delete it (click on the access name, then the gear icon, then Delete Access Level) as long as nobody is using that level. Make sure a custom or manager access level is not using this level (applicable only for employee access levels). We recommend creating access levels by job title rather than employee name because this makes it easier if an employee leaves or has somebody join them in the position. Assign access levels as needed.
Where can I learn more about how to do this?