Similar to our Groups functionality, you can now send us metadata for employees as key:value pairs, which makes it easier to send us columns of data where the values overlap (e.g. Work State: CA and Home State: CA). It also means the data in Blissbook better aligns with how you're used to seeing it in your HRIS/Payroll/AD platform (which Blissbook can integrate with), which means it's easier to use for reporting or to limit access to content.
Custom fields will typically provide metadata about your employees, such as:
work location (state, city, country)
whether someone is paid salary or hourly
overtime status like exempt or non-exempt
employment status like full-time, part-time, temp, or intern
whether someone is an employee or contractor
whether someone is On Leave or not
an isManager flag
any custom code you use to classify people
Sending this data makes it easy to personalize content for users - for example if you have a California addendum or other policies that only apply to specific populations of people. It's one of the ways we help you reduce noise for those reading your documents.
You can also use these fields/groups to filter employees in your reporting center, to set the audience of a document, to create and use saved segments, or to customize who is in a signature round.
There is no limit on the amount of custom fields or groups you have or the text you use within them. However, the best practice is to only send us data you'll actually need. This reduces noise for you too!
How to Set Up Custom Fields
Direct Integration
If you are directly integrating Blissbook with your HRIS/Payroll/AD platform, Blissbook will automatically bring in several pieces of metadata as custom fields. Super easy!
If you have additional custom data that you want us to pull in to Blissbook, please let our support team know. We will set up a custom mapping to pull in the data you need. Easy again!
CSV Upload (with or without an SFTP automation)
There are two possible paths here, marked below as A) and B).
A) If you are currently using Groups in one of the following ways, you will need to follow a migration process:
Access limitation
In the audience of a document (e.g. you are sharing a document with a specified Group)
Inside a document via personalized content functionality
Saved Report: is there a custom report that uses a Group in its filtering?
Saved Segment: is there a Saved Segment that uses a Group in its filtering?
Fully replacing Groups on your sync file with Custom Fields would delete Groups from your account and, if you are using Groups in any of the above places, those places would cease working as expected. This can result in the inappropriate sharing or not sharing of content with employees.
To prevent this, first upload a file with BOTH Groups AND Custom Fields on it. Once that's done, manually migrate your access limitation, saved reports, saved segments, etc. to use the Custom Fields instead of the Groups within the filtering expression. Once the Groups are no longer being used in any of these places, you can then safely remove them from your upload file.
B) If you are not using Groups in any of the above ways, no migration is required. You can fully replace the Groups on your file upload with Custom Fields and use them right away.
CSV Guidance
Please refer to the bottom of our creating your employee list help article for template files, rules on which column headings are not allowed, and more.
Testing
If you are worried you will upload a file and break something, we can help!
Contact our support team and send us the file you want to upload. We can review it and test upload it in our internal environment to verify you've got everything right.
If you need a full test account set up, we can do that for you too. Once you've got everything right, you can then upload your file to your actual account. Let our support team know.
Manual Employee Maintenance
If you are manually editing employees, unfortunately there is no way to create and use Custom Fields. You will need to create and upload a CSV employee sync file.
Using Custom Fields
Filter Employees
There are several places in Blissbook that have filters available for you to use that can use Custom Fields. Anywhere you see "+ Add a filter" will list your custom fields.
Customize Report Columns
On your People page or in your Reporting center, you can click the little grid icon/button above the top right corner of the grid, and you can select the columns you'd like to show. These columns will be carried through to the export of the file as well.
