What can I learn from this page?	Set up your hierarchy in Culture Amp for leader-based reports and performance tools. Follow steps to prepare, import, and validate your data.
Who is this guide for?	Account Admins

Benefits of Adding a Hierarchy

A truly thriving culture is driven by more than just HR. Managers and team leaders play a critical role in shaping the employee experience. At Culture Amp, we are continually enhancing our platform to support managers and enable their success.

By adding a hierarchy, you unlock powerful features like leader-based report sharing, performance cycles, 1-on-1 conversations (classic) and 1-on-1 Conversations (new) These capabilities make it easier to get valuable insights about employee experience and performance into the hands of your managers and leaders.

Getting Started with Your Hierarchy

Follow these steps to set up your hierarchy in Culture Amp:

Prepare Your Data
- Ensure your data includes Manager Email (or equivalent demographic, like Supervisor Email) for most employees.
- Include Department and Job Title for all employees if you use Performance.
- Do an initial partial import to add these employees as users to the platform if they don’t already have user profiles.
Add Your Hierarchy
- Complete a full import or manual sync to add your hierarchy.
- You will be guided through validating your hierarchy during this process.
- Once added, the hierarchy will be re-validated during any user import to ensure it stays updated.

Manual Data Import

Preparing Your Data File

Make sure your employee data file:

Contains a unique manager identifier for every manager. Manager Email is recommended. If you don’t use Performance, 1-on-1 conversations (classic) or 1-on-1 Conversations (new) you can use Manager ID. You cannot validate the hierarchy using Manager Name.
Matches the manager identifier with an employee identifier in Culture Amp (e.g., Employee Email or Employee ID). For example, if I were a manager, my user Email (jane.doe@gmail.com) would be the same email assigned to my direct reports under their Manager Email field.
Leaves the manager identifier for your organizational leader (e.g., CEO) blank.

An example of a well-formulated hierarchy.

☝️An example of a hierarchy in an employee data file. Employees are assigned a manager using a unique manager identifier that corresponds to an employee.

💡 Tip: For help preparing your data, check out our guidance on using VLOOKUP to translate manager names into manager emails.

Add Your Hierarchy Using a Manual Data Import

1. Import Users

Select Full Import, upload your data file, and click Next.

2. Select Manager Identifier

After analysis, select your manager identifier (e.g., Manager Email) from the dropdown. Click Next.

3. Select Your Organizational Leader

If multiple employees lack a manager, you'll be prompted to select your organizational leader, who will be placed at the top of your hierarchy at level 0.
You can change this anytime with another full import.
If only one user lacks a manager (e.g., your CEO), the platform will automatically assume they are your organizational leader, and you won't be prompted to select a leader.
Have more than one leader? See our How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors guide for a recommended workaround.

4. Review Data for Hierarchy Errors

Your data will be reviewed for any hierarchy errors that prevent building your hierarchy.
Errors will appear in the far left tile on the review screen.
- Yellow Errors: These are not blockers. The file can be processed, but some errors were detected (e.g., not all employees have a manager assigned).
- Red Errors: These are blockers. The import cannot be processed. Errors must be resolved in your file before the data can be processed on the platform.
Fix these errors in your file and re-import your data, or return to the previous step and turn off hierarchies.
Check out our How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors guide to help.

5. Validate Hierarchy

Once you've resolved any blockers, click Import data to finalize the import.
Once you've imported your employee data and validated your organizational hierarchy, hierarchy validations will be permanently turned on for your account.
Every time you import data, it will be checked to see if it forms a valid hierarchy.
This ensures you and your managers always have access to hierarchy-based capabilities, such as leader-based report sharing, performance cycles, and 1-on-1 conversations.

HRIS Integrations (BambooHR, Namely, Personio, Workday, Gusto)

Preparing Your Data

Make sure your HRIS file:

Contains a unique manager identifier for every manager. Manager Email (or equivalent, like Supervisor Email) is recommended. If you don’t use Performance, you can also use Manager ID. You cannot validate the hierarchy using Manager Name.
Matches the manager identifier with an employee identifier in Culture Amp (e.g., Employee Email or Employee ID). For example, if I were a manager, my user Email (jane.doe@gmail.com) would be the same email assigned to my direct reports under their Manager Email field.
Leaves the manager identifier for your organizational leader (e.g., CEO) blank.

Adding Manager Identifiers to Your HRIS

Many HRIS systems already include manager email or ID in their standard fields. In some cases, like BambooHR, you can use calculated fields. The specific steps will depend on the HRIS you use. Check out the guidance for your HRIS below:

BambooHR

To prepare your data in BambooHR, follow these steps:

Ensure every employee has a Manager designated under the Reports To field. This field is found in Person > Job Information table > Reports to.
Create a report in BambooHR to integrate with Culture Amp, or use an existing report.
In BambooHR, navigate to Report > Edit (pencil icon) > Calculated fields and ensure the Supervisor email and/or Supervisor ID fields are included in the report. These fields will add the email/ID of the Reports to selection to the report.
Ensure the Supervisor email or Supervisor ID field appears in the Selected Fields for the BambooHR report.

Namely

In Namely, add Reports to Full Name and Reports to Email to your Namely report. Build your hierarchy using Reports to Email.

Personio

Add the Supervisor attribute to the list of whitelisted attributes in Personio under Settings > API > Access. This will allow Culture Amp to translate the Supervisor attribute into manager emails/IDs which are needed for building and validating a hierarchy. Supervisor will be your manager identifier in the hierarchy setup.

Workday

Add Manager and Manager Email to your Workday report that is set up to sync with Culture Amp.

Gusto

Setting up hierarchy with Gusto integration is simple as Manager Email is included in the standard list of demographics synced via the integration. It will be the only demographic option available to select when setting up your hierarchy. If your hierarchy used a different demographic before setting up the Gusto integration, simply reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to get help from a Product Support Specialist.

Elmo

Manager Email is included in the standard demographics list synced via the integration and will be the only option you will see when setting up the hierarchy.

Adding Your Hierarchy Using an HRIS Integration

If your manager identifier demographic doesn’t exist in Culture Amp, complete the first HRIS sync without hierarchy validation. Just toggle off the Turn on hierarchy option during the Set up hierarchy step. After syncing your data and adding demographics, complete another HRIS sync to set up and validate the hierarchy.

To validate your hierarchy via an HRIS sync:

1. Import Users

2. Select Manager Identifier

After analysis, select your manager identifier from the dropdown e.g. Manager Email.

4. Select Organizational Leader

If multiple employees lack a manager, you'll be prompted to select your organizational leader, who will be placed at the top of your hierarchy at level 0.
You can change this anytime with another full import.
If only one user lacks a manager (e.g., your CEO), the platform will automatically assume they are your organizational leader, and you won't need to select a leader.
Have more than one leader? See our How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors guide for a recommended workaround.

5. Review Data for Hierarchy Errors

Your data will be reviewed for any hierarchy errors that prevent building your hierarchy.
Errors will appear in the far left tile on the review screen.
- Yellow Errors: These are not blockers. The file can be processed, but some errors were detected (e.g., not all employees have a manager assigned).
- Red Errors: These are blockers. The import cannot be processed. Errors must be resolved in your file before the data can be processed on the platform.
Fix these errors in your file and re-import your data, or return to the previous step and turn off hierarchies.
Check out our How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors guide for help.

6. Validate Hierarchy

Once you've resolved any blockers, click Import data to finalize the import.
Once you've imported your employee data and validated your organizational hierarchy, hierarchy validations will be permanently turned on for your account.
Every time you import data, it will be checked to see if it forms a valid hierarchy.
This ensures you and your managers always have access to hierarchy-based capabilities, such as leader-based report sharing, performance cycles, and 1-on-1 conversations.
If an HRIS import fails due to hierarchy errors, Culture Amp will email the nominated contact person on the Data Integrations page.

SFTP Integration

Preparing Your Data

Make sure the data file you put into the SFTP server:

Contains a unique manager identifier for every manager. Manager Email is recommended. If you don’t use Performance, 1-on-1 conversations (classic) or 1-on-1 Conversations (new) you can use Manager ID. You cannot validate the hierarchy using Manager Name.
Matches the manager identifier with an employee identifier in Culture Amp (e.g., Employee Email or Employee ID). For example, if I were a manager, my user Email (jane.doe@gmail.com) would be the same email assigned to my direct reports under their Manager Email field.
Leaves the manager identifier for your organizational leader (e.g., CEO) blank.

Adding Your Hierarchy Using an SFTP Integration

To set up a hierarchy for the first time, you will need to complete one manual upload via a CSV/XLSX file. After that you will be able to use your SFTP integration again. To complete a manual import, follow the steps below:

1. Export User File

Login to Culture Amp and go to your Settings page. Click Export Users to get your employee data file in XLSX format or create a new file.

2. Import Users

Go to your Settings page, select Import Users, upload your user file, choose Full Import, and click Next.

3. Select Manager Identifier

After analysis, select your manager identifier from the dropdown e.g. Manager Email.

4. Select Organizational Leader

If multiple employees lack a manager, you'll be prompted to select your organizational leader, who will be placed at the top of your hierarchy at level 0.
You can change this anytime with another full import.
If only one user lacks a manager (e.g., your CEO), the platform will automatically assume they are your organizational leader, and you won't need to select a leader.
Have more than one leader? See our How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors guide for a recommended workaround.

6. Review Data for Hierarchy Errors

Your data will be reviewed for any hierarchy errors that prevent building your hierarchy.
Errors will appear in the far left tile on the review screen.
- Yellow Errors: These are not blockers. The file can be processed, but some errors were detected (e.g., not all employees have a manager assigned).
- Red Errors: These are blockers. The import cannot be processed. Errors must be resolved in your file before the data can be processed on the platform.
Fix these errors in your file and re-import your data, or return to the previous step and turn off hierarchies.
Check out our How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors guide to help.

7. Validate Hierarchy

Once you've resolved any blockers, click Import data to finalize the import.
Once you've imported your employee data and validated your organizational hierarchy, hierarchy validations will be permanently turned on for your account.
Every time you import data via SFTP, it will be checked for a valid hierarchy. Ensure the exact demographic used to validate your hierarchy via manual import matches the manager demographic you use on any files uploaded to the SFTP server moving forward.
If an SFTP HRIS import fails due to hierarchy errors, Culture Amp will email the nominated contact person on the Data Integrations page.

Checking Your Manager Identifier

To double-check if your hierarchy is validated:

Log in to Culture Amp and go to your Settings > Account Demographics page.
Look for the hierarchy symbol next to the demographic you used for validation (e.g., Manager Email, Supervisor Email etc).
If the symbol is missing, your hierarchy is not validated.
Re-import your data, making sure to select Full Import for any manual imports. If you need further help, just reply with "Ask a Person" during a support conversation to speak with a product specialist.

☝️ Example of the hierarchy symbol that should show next to your hierarchy demographic on the Account Demographics page.

FAQs

How are managers assigned for Self-reflections and the 1-on-1 Conversations (new) experience?

In the new performance rebuild, which includes Self Reflections (soon to include manager reviews) and 1-on-1 Conversations (new):

Validated Hierarchy: If you have a validated hierarchy, both 1-on-1 Conversations (new) and Self-reflections will use this to determine a user's manager.
Fallback Option: If you don't have a validated hierarchy, then 1-on-1 Conversations (new) and Self-reflections will use the "Manager Email" demographic mapped on the Performance & 1-on-1 configuration page as a fallback. This one-time mapping process is done by our support team when you first set up manager 1-on-1s or start using Performance. The configuration page is only visible to Culture Amp Support (not customers). If you need help confirming which demographic is mapped, reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.

This behavior differs from other performance modules like Manager-requested feedback, Manager reviews, Anytime feedback, and 1-on-1 conversations (classic). These modules use only the "Manager Email" demographic mapped on the Performance & 1-on-1 configuration page to assign an employee's manager.

💬 Need further help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.

How to Sync HRIS Data from Elmo

Create Your Employee Data File

How to Troubleshoot Hierarchy Errors

How to Sync HRIS Data from Dayforce (formerly Ceridian)

Leader-based hierarchy reports