What can I learn from this page? | How to add your hierarchy |
Who is this guide for? | Account Admins |
What are the Benefits of Adding a Hierarchy?
A truly thriving culture has to be driven by more than just HR. Managers and team leaders play a critical role as well. That's why Culture Amp is continually building out capabilities to enable and support managers.
By adding a hierarchy, you will be able to unlock capabilities like leader-based report sharing, performance cycles and 1-on-1 conversations. This makes it easier than ever to get insights about employee experience and performance into the hands of your managers and leaders.
How to Add a Hierarchy
To get started with your hierarchy, follow these steps:
First, make sure your data contains Manager Email (or equivalent eg: Supervisor Email) for most employees.
Make sure demographic information for Department and Job Title is included for all employees (if you use Performance).
Complete an initial partial import to first add these employees as users to the platform (if they do not already have existing user profiles).
Add your hierarchy by completing a full import or manual sync. More detailed instructions are provided below.
As you add your hierarchy in the full import or manual sync, you will be guided through the process of validating your hierarchy. Once you add your hierarchy, it will be re-validated during any user import or sync so that you and your managers can continuously benefit from hierarchy-based capabilities.
Manual Data Import
Prepare Your Data File
Once hierarchy-based features have been switched on for your account, ensure your employee data file:
Contains a manager identifier that is unique to every manager. We recommend Manager Email. If you do not use Performance or Manager 1 on 1's, you may also use Manager ID. You cannot use Manager Name because it’s possible for two managers to have the same name.
This manager identifier corresponds with an employee identifier you're using in Culture Amp (e.g. Employee Email or Employee ID).
Manager identifier for your organizational leader is left blank.
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: To help you prepare your data, we’ve provided some guidance on translating manager names into manager emails using VLOOKUP function.
Note: A common workaround if your organisation has two or more leaders, is to create a dummy user profile where those leaders/CEOs report to them as their manager. When you complete your sync, the dummy user would then be placed at the top of the hierarchy.
Add Your Hierarchy Using a Manual Data Import
Once your employee data file is ready, open Culture Amp as an admin, go to the 'Settings' section and click 'Import users'. You'll see the following screen.
Select the ‘Full Import’ option, upload your employee data file and click ‘Next’.
After your data has been analyzed, select your manager identifier from the dropdown shown below. If you decide you do not want to enable hierarchies at this time, you can do so by setting the ‘Turn on hierarchy’ toggle to off.
💡 Tip: You can check which demographic you chose as your manager identifier at any time by visiting the Account Demographics page and looking for this hierarchy symbol:
If you have multiple employees in your data file without a manager, you will be asked to select which one is your organizational leader. This employee will be placed at the top of your hierarchy at level 0. You can change this employee at any time by doing another full import. Have more than one leader of your organization? See our How to troubleshoot hierarchy errors guide below.
Your data will be reviewed for any roadblock hierarchy errors that prevent building your hierarchy. These will appear in the far left tile. You cannot continue with the import if your hierarchy is enabled and roadblock errors are present. You must either fix these errors and re-import your data, or return to the previous step and turn off hierarchies.
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'll 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)
Prepare Your Data
Once hierarchy-based features have been switched on for your account, you need to prepare the data in your HRIS so that it can be used to build a valid hierarchy in Culture Amp. This involves assigning every employee in your HRIS a manager (except your CEO), using a unique manager identifier. We recommend Manager Email. If you do not use Performance, you may also use Manager ID.
It usually involves adding a manager email or ID to the HRIS report that is being pulled through the integration. Many HRIS already have manager email or ID in their standard fields. In some other cases (e.g. in BambooHR) you can use calculated fields. The specific steps you need to take will depend on the HRIS you use.
BambooHR:
Every employee must have a Manager designated under ‘Reports To’. This field can be 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, e.g.
Namely:
Adding manager emails in Namely is really easy! All you need to do is to add 'Reports to Full Name' and 'Reports to Email' on your Namely report that syncs with Culture Amp.
They will come into Culture Amp as demographics and you will be able to use 'Reports to Email' to build the hierarchy.
Personio:
Please make sure that you add 'Supervisor' attribute to the list of whitelisted attributes in Personio under 'Settings' > 'API' > 'Access'. Then we'll be able to translate 'Supervisor' attribute into manager emails/IDs needed for building and validating a hierarchy. 'Supervisor' is going to be your manager identifier in the hierarchy set up which is explained in more detail below.
Workday:
Adding manager emails in Workday is very straightforward. All you need to do is to add 'Manager' and 'Manager Email' on your Workday report that syncs with Culture Amp.
Gusto:
Setting up hierarchy when you use Gusto integration is really easy. 'Manager Email' is already included into the standard list of demographics always synced via the integration. 'Manager Email' will be the only option you see on 'Set up hierarchy' step of your import workflow.
If before setting up Gusto integration you had hierarchy based on demographic other than 'Manager Email', please reach out to Product Support in order to change your hierarchy from that old demographic to 'Manager Email'.
Elmo:
Setting up hierarchy when you use Elmo integration is really easy. 'Manager email' is already included into the standard list of demographics always synced via the integration. 'Manager email' will be the only option you see on 'Set up hierarchy' step of your import workflow.
Add Your Hierarchy Using an HRIS integration
Note: If your manager identifier demographic does not already exist in your Culture Amp account, you'll need to complete the very first HRIS sync without hierarchy validation (this is because demographics need to be added to your account before you're able to select one as the manager identifier). At the 'Set up hierarchy' page, move the slider to the 'Off' position. Once the first HRIS sync is completed and your demographics have been added to your account, you should complete another HRIS sync to set up and validate the hierarchy.
Open Culture Amp as an admin, go to the 'Account admin' section and click 'Import users'.
Scroll down until you see the option to manually sync your Culture Amp data with your HRIS. Click 'sync'.
After your data has been analyzed, select your manager identifier from the dropdown shown below. If you decide you do not want to enable hierarchies at this time, you can do so by setting the ‘Turn on hierarchy’ toggle to off.
Note: If you do not see the correct manager identifier in this dropdown, you may need to complete a manual sync in order to pull the identifier into Culture Amp first. Toggle hierarchies off and complete the import process. Then, start a new import and click 'sync' again.
💡 Tip: You can check which demographic you chose as your manager identifier at any time by visiting the Account Demographics page and looking for this hierarchy symbol:
If you have multiple employees in your HRIS without a manager, you will be asked to select which one is your organizational leader. This employee will be placed at the top of your hierarchy at level 0. You can change this employee at any time by doing another sync.
Your HRIS data will be reviewed for any roadblock hierarchy errors that prevent building your hierarchy. These will appear in the far left tile. You cannot continue with the sync if hierarchies are enabled and roadblock errors are present. You must either fix these errors in your HRIS and re-sync your data, or return to the previous step and turn off hierarchies.
Once you've completed the sync and validated your hierarchy, hierarchy validations will be permanently turned on for your account. Every time you sync data with your HRIS, it'll 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 you use daily autosyncs and one of them fails due to hierarchy validation errors, we will send an email to your nominated contact person. We will attempt your next scheduled daily sync as scheduled.
SFTP Integration
Prepare Your Data
Once hierarchy-based features have been switched on for your account, ensure that the data file you put into SFTP server meets the following requirements to form a valid hierarchy:
Contains a manager identifier that is unique to every manager. We recommend Manager Email. If you do not use Performance, you may also use Manager ID. You cannot use Manager Name because it’s possible for two managers to have the same name.
This manager identifier corresponds with an employee identifier you're using in Culture Amp (e.g. Employee Email or Employee ID).
Manager identifier for your organizational leader is left blank.
If you have just added manager identifiers, please confirm that the data is coming through the integration correctly before proceeding to adding the hierarchy.
Add 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.
Click 'Export users' to get your employee data file in XLSX format or create a new employee data file. Check that it contains a manager identifier meeting the criteria listed in the section above.
Select the ‘Full Import’ option, upload your employee data file and click ‘Next’. This will take you through a step-by-step workflow for setting up your hierarchy for the first time.
After your data has been analyzed, select your manager identifier from the dropdown shown below. If you decide you do not want to enable hierarchies at this time, you can do so by setting the ‘Turn on hierarchy’ toggle to off.
💡 Tip: You can check which demographic you chose as your manager identifier at any time by visiting the Account Demographics page and looking for this hierarchy symbol:
If you have multiple employees in your data file without a manager, you will be asked to select which one is your organizational leader. This employee will be placed at the top of your hierarchy at level 0. You can change this employee at any time by doing another full import via a CSV/XLSX file.
Your data will be reviewed for any roadblock hierarchy errors that prevent building your hierarchy. These will appear in the far left tile. You cannot continue with the import if your hierarchy is enabled and roadblock errors are present. You must either fix these errors and re-import your data, or return to the previous step and turn off hierarchies.
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 Employee Data Integration (SFTP integration), it'll 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 import via SFTP fails due to hierarchy validation errors, we will send an email to your nominated contact person.