Getting started with permissions

Learn how BrightHR permission levels work with this step‑by‑step guide. Understand the differences between Admin, Manager, Employee, Payroll, Recruitment, and Learning Manager permissions, how reporting lines function, and how to customise who can view or edit information across your HR system.

Getting started with permissions

In this handy course you'll be guided through the process of setting up your BrightHR account, all with our easy to follow step-by-step guide.

You'll also find out how to make the most of all the time saving features BrightHR has to offer on both the website and with our handy mobile apps.

Getting Started With Permissions

In this lesson, we will cover the basics of permissions and what each permission level gives access to as well as how to sign direct reports to their managers. 

Permissions

Permission levels determine who an employee reports to on the system, the person who can view their information and approve their holiday requests.

There are three different types of access you can have on the system, Admin, Manager and Employee. 

As the main contact for your account, you will automatically be set as an admin and have full access to the account. When you add an employee they will be set as having employee access unless you choose to give them additional access.

Admins hold all the power. They can access all areas within BrightHR and all employee profiles. There’s nothing they can’t do—they’re your superusers.

Admins can:

  • Raise, view and edit absences for anyone in the company.
  • Approve or decline absence requests from anyone in the company.
  • View and edit everybody’s profiles.
  • Create working time patterns and rosters.
  • Terminate and delete any employee.
  • Upload and manage documents for everyone.
  • Manage annual leave carry over.
  • Add employees.
  • Change user permission types.
  • Receive notifications for everyone.
  • Add / edit performance goals.
  • Manage and delete praise.

Setting Up An Admin

To set up an Admin, all you need to do is find the name of the employee you wish to set as an Admin from the list of users.

Change their role to Admin and click the 'Save Changes' button at the top of the page. 

Enhanced Permissions

With enhanced permissions, you have the ability to give certain tailored permissions to employees or managers, either to edit or view certain parts of employee profiles.

Select view / edit for things like absences, personal details and more for a specific set of employees or all of them, it's your choice!

Let's take a look at what this gives access to:

Absences

This section allows you to give access to view or edit different absence types on a specific set of employees or all employees.

If they have the edit option, they will be able to add, edit and delete the absence type as well as approve / decline requestable absence types such as annual leave.

absences

Employment Tab

This section enables your user to access all details under the employment tab on an employee profile.

Again, the permission is broken down to view / edit for each section.

employment

Personal & Emergencies

This section as it suggests gives access to personal information including emergency contacts.

personal

Other permissions included that you could enhance include:

Working time patterns - This gives users the ability to either view or create working time patterns for employees (they can only assign new patterns to employee profiles they have been given access to).

Places of work - This will give access to either view or edit locations added in the Places of work tab. Edit privileges allows users to add, edit and delete places of work as well as assign and unassign every employee.

Manage teams - This permission allows the user to add / manage teams in the employee hub. This will only give edit permissions, and the user would have access to amend / edit for the whole business.

Other permissions