Employee Access Manual
Is there a help manual for employee access users?
Purpose: Depending on the customized settings your company has selected in BambooHR, you can view your information and edit it if you have access granted by your HR administrator. This manual will guide you through various features, such as requesting time off and viewing time off history in your BambooHR account. If you have further questions, please reach out to your manager or HR administrator.
Table of Contents
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Account setup
- How to log in to your new BambooHR account through SSO, SSO with a password, or email/password only
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Tabs
- What information each tab includes—Home, My Info, People, and Files
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Information updates
- How to update your personal information with or without required approval
- Email and inbox notifications
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Who's Out calendar
- How to view who is out of office, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, weekends
- Time off
When your HR administrator grants you access to BambooHR, you will receive an email notification to log in to your account. The content will depend on if your company has enabled single sign-on (SSO) or not. There are three options you may see.
SSO only
Click Get Started to launch your company's designated SSO software and log in.
SSO with password option enabled
The main option for this one will be to click Get Started and use the SSO. However, you will see an option to set up a password if you would like to.
Email/password only
Click Choose Password to create a password.
On the next screen, set up a password you would like to use and confirm it in the second box. Click Reset Password to save your password and log in to your account.
For future logins, use your email address and your new password to log in to your account.
If you are having trouble with logging in, check out our tips. If that does not solve the issue for you, please contact your HR administrator.
Navigate to your login screen
If you have forgotten your password, please go to your BambooHR URL and click Forgot Password?
Enter your email address
Enter your work email address and click Send Email. We will send an email to your email address with a password recovery link. Please note that this link will only be valid for 24 hours after we send the email.
Reset your password
In the email, click Reset Your Password for the password reset link.
Create a new password
The link will redirect you to a new page where you can type your new password in the first box and then type it once more in the second box to confirm. Click Reset Password to save your new password.
You can now log in to your account by using your email address and new password.
As an employee access user, you will have access to the Home, My Info, People, and Files tabs. Employees can view their personal information only for themselves in BambooHR.
The Home tab shows company-wide and personal information widgets. Your HR administrator determines which widgets to display on Home.The company-wide widgets include the following:
- Welcome to Company
- Celebrations
- Company Links
- Who's Out
Personal information widgets show information that only pertains to the employee.
- Goals/Training/Benefits
- What's Happening
My Info
BambooHR allows you to view, and in some cases, edit your personal information. Your HR administrator determines your access to fields and editing capabilities on this tab. To view your personal information, click My Info when logged into BambooHR.
People
The People tab has two viewing options: Company Directory and Org Chart. Your HR administrator determines access to these two viewing options. The company directory shows contact information for all employees at your company. You can click on your name in the directory to go to your My Info tab. The org chart shows the reporting structure of your company.
Files
The Files tab shows any company files shared with you. Your HR administrator will need to share at least one file with you to have the Files tab displayed.
When a field is available for you to update, you can click on the field to enter new information or select a new option from a dropdown list. After updating the field, click Save.
Immediately saving an information change is dependent on the type of access you have, or the change will go through the approval process. Read below to learn about each change type.
Update information without approval
Depending on the individual field settings in an employee access level, you may have the option to update field information without needing approval for a change to go into effect.
To make a change in a field that does not require approval, click on the field to enter new information and then click Save Changes. The change goes into effect immediately and overwrites old information. No users will get an email notification because this particular access does not require approval. Without approval requirements, the system automatically updates and saves your new information.
Update information with approval
Depending on the individual field settings in an employee access level, you may have the option to update field information with approval requirements before having a change go into effect.
To make a change in a field that requires approval, click on the field to enter new information and then click Save Changes. Once you save your change and submit your request, the approver(s) will receive an email notification. After the approval of your request, you will receive an email notification and see the change on your employee profile.
If a field has a pending change, you will see the pencil icon and cannot make further changes until an approver takes action on your current request. If you would like to cancel the request, you will need to go to the Sent section in your BambooHR inbox to add a comment or cancel it.
Each time you click Save for a field on a tab, the system will submit an individual request for the field change.
Example: I updated the City field and clicked Save and then updated the Country field and clicked Save. The system generated two separate requests, one for each field change. If you need to make multiple changes on one tab, it is best to make all field changes at once and then click Save. In this way, you include each field change in a single information update request.
When you make a change in a field that requires approval, the approver(s) will receive an email notification about your request that needs their review. The email notification will include the name of the field you updated. For security reasons, the new data in the field always shows as redacted in the email notification. The approver(s) can click View Request to see the entire request.
View sent requests
You can view your sent requests by going to your inbox in the top right corner of the page when you log in to BambooHR. Click Sent to see all sent requests, including information updates and time off requests. You can change the item status in the top right corner to view all types of requests: Approved, Completed, Denied, Pending, Canceled, and Signed.
Click on a request to view its specific details. New information will show on the left, and older information will display on the right. If the request is still pending, you will see an option to cancel it in the top right corner.
You can add a comment about the request in the comment box. To do this, click on the box and type your comment and then click Post. The approver(s) will get a notification of any comments made on the request, and the system will save all comments with the request.
If you need to attach a file to your request, click on the paper clip icon in the comment box. The system will automatically upload the file to your Workflow Attachments folder via My Info > Documents.
Email notification
Upon the approval or denial of your request, you will receive an email notification. If the approver commented at the time of the approval or denial, the comment will appear in the email notification. Click View Request to see the request details in your BambooHR inbox.
In the Who's Out widget on Home, you can do the following:
- Filter information by My Circle (your peers, manager, and direct reports), Department, Employment Status, Job Title, and Location.
- Expand the widget to view more days and who will be out during these days. When an employee is going to be out for more than one day, the expanded widget will show the date they will be out until.
- View the profile picture and name of the employee who will be out on that date. For company holidays, you will see the title of the company holiday next to the date.
- Click Full Calendar to view more information in a calendar view.
Who’s Out calendar
Once you open the full calendar, you will be able to view additional details and filter the information shown in the calendar.
- Change the view of the calendar to show a week, two weeks, or the full month.
- Scroll through the following months to see upcoming approved time off requests and company holidays.
- Filtering options allow you to filter the calendar to show employees by Department, Location, Division, Job Title, Employment Status, or My Circle (peers, direct reports, and your manager). If you do not set a filter, the calendar will show all employees.
- Select what you would like to show on the calendar: Holidays, Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Weekends. If your HR administrator has enabled iCalendar feeds, you will be able to pull calendar information from BambooHR into programs like Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar through a iCal feed. In this way, selected events will show up in your calendar program instead of having to log in to BambooHR to view them.
Time off
BambooHR allows you to request time off from Home. To do so, click Request Time Off in the Time Off widget.
Fill out the required information regarding the date(s), the amount of requested time off, and the associated time off category. You can add a note to describe why you are requesting time off.
Once you click Send Request, the assigned approver(s) will receive an email notification and review your request.
Your HR administrator determines your access to the Time Off tab.
A warning will appear when you request time off that will result in a negative balance. This warning lets you know your available balance on the requested date and the negative balance if you continue with the request. You can choose to continue or cancel the request submission.
Once an approver(s) approves or denies your time off request, you will receive an email notification. You may see additional comments in the email notification if the approver(s) added a comment about the request.
If they approve your time off request, you can view its details in your Upcoming Time Off table via My Info > Time Off. Or, you can go to the History table on the same tab. Select the time off category and then apply the Requests filter.
While the Requests filter shows approved time off requests that have not yet occurred, the Earned/Used filter will not reflect approved time off requests until you have taken the time off.
The email notification of the time off request will go through the approval process. The approver can approve or deny the request through the email notification, or they can click Review this request in BambooHR to go directly to the pending time off request in BambooHR.
If there are multiple approvers in an approval workflow for your company, they need to approve the request before it can become an officially approved request in BambooHR.
Additionally, the approver can go to their inbox in the top right corner of the screen when logged in to BambooHR to review the time off request.
Any comments added to a request will show in the email notification for approved or denied time off requests. The approver can add a comment providing the reason of a denied time off request.
You can cancel or edit a time off request if it is pending or if the date for the request is still in the future. You cannot cancel denied requests or requests for past time frames.
To start editing or canceling a time off request, click on a time off balance in the Time Off widget on Home. Another option is to click My Info and navigate to the Time Off tab.
Scroll down to the History table and select the time off category you requested time off for. Then, choose Requests in the top right corner. Once you find the time off request you want to edit or cancel, click on the status link.
If you want to view time off requests from another year, you can use the Year filter in the top left corner of the table to show that information.
After clicking on the status link, a new modal will appear and show you the details of your request. Here, you can edit the request or choose to cancel it. If you edit the request, it will go through the approval process again.
Home
You can review your current time off balances in the Time Off widget on Home. The widget shows you the current balance for each time off category, and it will show if there are any scheduled days or hours. To view more details about a specific time off balance, click on the balance.
Time Off tab
On your Time Off tab, a section shows each time off category with its current balance. The available balance is the net amount of time off you have available, including any approved time off requests that have not yet occurred. Those requests will show an amount as scheduled in this section.
The Upcoming Time Off table shows upcoming time off (approved) and company holidays.
The History table gives you the option to select a time off category and show the earned/used or request history for that category. The Earned/Used filter shows past time off requests, accruals, or balance adjustments. The Requests filter shows all requests under a specific time off category, which includes approved, denied, and canceled requests.
You can calculate future balances for the time off categories available on your Time Off tab. Navigate to Time Off and hover your cursor over a time off category. Then, click on the calculator icon that shows "Calculate Time Off."
Select a time off category and enter a date in the future to see what the balance will be as of that date. The Accrual Details section will show approved time off requests and accruals that will happen before the future date.
Did you know BambooHR has a mobile app? Be sure to download it so you can get quick access to request time off, view the Who's Out calendar, and the company directory!