About the directory

Learn about why you need an employee directory and the different maintenance options.

Updated over a week ago

How the directory works

To take advantage of features like employee scheduling or host notifications, Envoy needs to “know” who your employees are. You’ll provide your employee contact information to Envoy by creating and maintaining your directory.

Once an employee record is created in your directory, that employee will have certain permissions based on the products and account configurations you use:

  • Receive host notifications from Envoy Visitors: During sign-in, a visitor will be able to select the employee’s name in the host field.

  • Receive delivery notifications from Envoy Workplace: When an administrator logs a delivery, Deliveries will match the recipient's name with their name in the directory.

  • Access their Envoy dashboard and Envoy Mobile app: Employees can log in on web and mobile to manage visitors, view deliveries, and book a desk.

  • Accept an admin role: As an Envoy administrator, you can grant any employee in the directory additional administrator permissions.

Fields in the Employee Record

The directory should contain an employee record for each employee.

These records consist of the following:

  • Name: The employee's first and last name.

  • Email address: The employee's work email address. They will use this email address to access Envoy and receive all Envoy-related notifications.

  • Cell phone number (optional): The employee's cell phone number. Include or adjust a country code if your employee's number does not use the same country code shown as default.

  • Primary location: This is the primary working location for an employee. If an employee is only listed in one directory, this field will default to that location. If an employee is listed in multiple locations' directories, those locations will appear as options. Learn more about primary location.

  • Department (optional): The department in which the employee is included. This field can be used to create neighborhoods, show detailed occupancy, and more.

  • Assistant (optional): You can add another employee as an assistant. More details below.

Who can view or edit the employee directory?

All Employees can view the employee directory but only admins will be able to view the admin roles or make any changes to the directory.

If you don’t want your employees to have the ability to view the directory, contact us and we can disable this feature.

About assistants

Available on Envoy Premium & Enterprise Plans

If members of your executive team would prefer that their assistants manage visitors, invites, and reservations, you can assign assistants within the Envoy directory.

Assistants can receive host notifications on behalf of or in addition to their executive. They’ll also have access to manage and edit their executive’s visitors, invites, and desk reservations.

Directory setup and maintenance

Depending on your Envoy plan, there are multiple ways to add employee records into your directory.

✨ Important Note: If there has been a change to your company's email domain, please contact support before you begin the process.

Option 1: Directory integrations

Available on Envoy Premium & Enterprise Plans

Directory integrations sync employees into the Envoy directory. This is an easy and flexible option to automatically maintain your directory.

Important notes about directory sync:

  • Envoy currently supports Active Directory, Okta, Centrify, G Suite, Microsoft Azure AD, and OneLogin sync.

  • You can sync all employees to all locations, specified employees to all locations or specified employees to specified locations.

  • You can manually create new employees or add employees from other locations while maintaining your directory sync. This feature is helpful for contractors, temps or other people who may host visitors/receive deliveries but are not core team members. Learn more about manually adding employees.

  • Directory integrations sync automatically but you can always force a sync if needed.

Option 2: CSV upload

You can also manage your directory by uploading a CSV of employee records. A CSV is a type of file. It stands for “comma-separated values.” CSV files store data in plain text, and can be created and edited either in spreadsheet software (like Google Sheets or Excel) or a text editor (like Sublime Text).

In a CSV, each record consists fields separated by commas. If you open a CSV in a spreadsheet software, fields are separated into columns instead of separated by commas. For the purposes of managing your Envoy directory, most administrators find it easier to edit a CSV in spreadsheet software.

Here's an example of what the CSV needs to look like in order to import properly:

name, email, phone_number, assistant_emails, department
Full Name, [email protected], (555) 555-5555, "[email protected], [email protected]", Human Resources

Important notes about CSV management

  • Anytime you upload a new CSV file, it will overwrite the whole existing directory. As such, it’s best practice to keep a “master” CSV file updated, and re-upload that file to your directory anytime you need to make a change. Manually added employees will not be deleted when a CSV is uploaded.

  • Each location’s directory is separate, so you’ll need to maintain each location’s directory. You can either have one CSV of all employees at all locations and upload it to each directory, or you can maintain separate CSV files for each location.

Option 3: Manual management

Envoy also provides the option to manually create and edit employee records.

Important notes about manual management

  • You’ll type employee information into the appropriate fields, making this method easy but time-consuming. As such, this method is not recommended unless you have a very small team with little turnover.

  • Any manually added employee will not be overwritten if you choose to upload a CSV or use a directory sync at a later date.

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