Custom attributes

A custom attribute is a field of your own on every employee, such as a cost center, a union status or a work arrangement, beyond the built-in profile fields. You create it by hand, or let an import create it from a column of your file. You need the System Admin or Total Rewards Admin role to manage them.

Find your custom attributes

1. In the sidebar, select Settings, then under Access, Roles & permissions.
2. Select the Custom attributes tab.

The tab lists each attribute with its Name, Type, Origin and Status. Origin reads Created by hand, or Import, a link to the import that created it. An account holds at most 50 attributes, retired ones included; at 50, New attribute is unavailable until you retire or delete one.

The five types

Every attribute has one type. You choose it when you create the attribute, and it can’t be changed afterwards, because the values already stored were read as that type.

Type	What a value is
Text	Free text of up to 255 characters.
Number	A whole or decimal number. Commas and spaces are ignored, so 1,250.50 is 1250.5.
Date	A calendar date written YYYY-MM-DD.
Boolean	Yes or no. yes, true, y and 1 are yes, and no, false, n and 0 are no, in any case.
Pick-list	One value from a fixed list you define. A value is matched without regard to case, and the list’s own spelling is what is stored.

A value that doesn’t fit its attribute’s type is refused, and says why.

Who can see an attribute

A new attribute starts visible to administrators only: the System Admin and Total Rewards Admin roles can see it, and no other role can, nor can an employee see their own value. It has a row on the Field access tab of the same page, where you grant it to other roles. Until you do, it stays out of what everyone else reads, and out of a reviewed file they download.

The same goes for an attribute you add as a column in a cycle’s 4. Worksheet section: People Managers and Final Approvers see the column only once their role can view the attribute. Until then the section says so, both when it is closed and under the columns when it is open, with a link to Field access and a Grant view button. Granting view there opens the attribute to every holder of the role, wherever they see the employee, not just on this cycle’s worksheets, so a confirm asks first.

Create one by hand

1. On the Custom attributes tab, select New attribute.
2. Give it a Name, and choose its Type. For a pick-list, add its values.
3. Select Create.

To change an attribute later, select its edit button to rename it, or for a pick-list change its values, then select Save. The retire button hides an attribute from the list without losing its values or its permissions, and the restore button brings it back. The delete button removes it and the value it holds on every employee, and asks you to confirm first, saying how many employees carry a value.

How an import creates and fills one

A column in your file that the import template has no place for appears on the review’s Extra columns step. Choose what it imports as:

• New attribute — create an attribute from the column. The name is the column’s header until you change it, and the type is proposed from the values in the column, such as a pick-list for a few values that repeat. Both are in the column’s details, which open when you choose it. A type that doesn’t fit every value isn’t offered.
• An existing attribute — fill an attribute you already have.
• Don’t import — leave the column out.

Nothing is created while you review. A row whose cell doesn’t fit the attribute, such as a value that is not on its pick-list, is listed on the review’s Problems step with the reason and the cell at fault, and is left out. When you approve, the confirm says how many attributes the import will create, such as It creates 1 attribute. The import then creates each new attribute, visible to administrators only, and fills it from its column, row by row. A blank cell leaves a new employee without a value, and clears the value of an employee who had one.

When the import completes, the attribute is on the Custom attributes tab with Import as its origin. To read what the import will hold for each column before you approve, see Import field reference, and for the whole review, Reviewing an import.