In 15Five, the Employee Identifier is a unique piece of information used to track and manage each employee’s account. By default, the Employee Identifier is set to the employee’s email address. While this option is convenient, it can change over time due to name updates or domain changes, which may lead to duplicate accounts or access issues. To avoid these challenges, many organizations prefer to use Employee ID: a static, unchanging identifier unique to each person. This article walks through how to change your organization's Employee Identifier.

In this article, you will learn...

Access and availability

⛔️ Required access to Company settings.
👥 This article is relevant to Account admins.
📦 This feature is available in all pricing packages.


How to select an Employee Identifier 🧑‍💻

  1. Click on the Settings gear in the top, right-hand corner of 15Five.
    Settings-Gear-25.png
  2. Select "Company settings" from the dropdown menu to open the company settings page.
    Company-Settings.png
  3. You're now on the "Company info" tab of Company settings. From here, expand the "Import settings" section.
    Expand-Import-Settings.png
  4. Select whether you want to use email or employee ID as the unique identifier for your employees.
    Select-Employee-Identifier.png

    ✏️

    Note

    This setting only impacts CSV imports, SFTP, and HRIS integrations. It does not affect integrations that are not hosted in 15Five, such as SCIM and SAML.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ❓

Why should I use employee ID, rather than email address, as the unique identifier for my company?
We recommend using employee ID as the employee identifier. Unlike email addresses, which can change due to name or domain updates, employee IDs remain constant. Selecting this option prevents account access issues or duplicate accounts caused by email changes.
Do I need to include an email address for a user if my company uses employee ID as our identifier?
Yes— the reason being that employees must sign in to 15Five using an email address. If we don't have one on record for them, they won't be able to log in.
What is the default unique identifier in 15Five— email or employee ID?
Email is the default.
What happens if my company switches to using employee ID as our unique identifier and then we do a bulk import to populate employee IDs in 15Five? Will duplicate accounts be created?
No— to prevent this from happening with CSV imports, we created logic for the system to check both email and empty ID. If there are empty IDs or duplicate IDs between 15Five and the CSV, account admins will see error messages like this:
Screen_Shot_2022-10-25_at_2.39.51_PM.png
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