Overview
The purpose of the bulk actions functionality is to be able to apply actions to multiple / all businesses within a bureau to create efficiencies through reducing the amount of steps it takes to apply a specific action across multiple businesses. These include the same updates / changes that you would make to an individual client file, applied in bulk to multiple businesses;
You are able to access this functionality via the Bureau admin > Bulk actions page.
NB: This article is specifically about bulk updates to actions that are not pay run related. To view information relating to bulk pay run activities, please see here.
Creating a bulk action
There are several bulk actions available within the Bureau Dashboard.
- Go to Bureau Admin.
- Click on Bulk actions.
- There are three main buttons - Business template, Import business and Bulk update.
Business template allows the user to download a blank template for creating multiple businesses.
The excel spreadsheet can be filled in by the bureau, adding in the relevant details needed to create businesses, where appropriate there are drop down lists of the relevant options for each field.
Also the PAYE ref, Accounts office ref and Corporation tax UTR can also be included in the template for each new business. Save this file to a location where you will be able to find it again later.
Once the template has been completed with the relevant details and saved, the user can click on...
Import businesses button and follow the flat file mapping process through the stages of validation. When the Import businesses button is clicked, a list of Brands or Business templates will show in the list, where they exist.
See this article on how to set up a business template.
The first step of the flat file import is to locate the file you downloaded, completed and saved earlier.
Next there the Bulk update button is on the right hand side. This allows the following fields to be configured:
Settings:
From here you can choose to bulk copy settings from one business to another.
- Brand: If you have access to more than one brand, you will be able to make a selection via the drop down;
- Use business settings from: From the drop down you will be able to choose any business that exists within the selected brand;
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Settings to copy: These include (will be added to in the future):
- Advanced settings
- Employee portal settings
- HMRC settings (UK)
- Manage users
- Pay slip
- Report packs
- Preview data: This option allows you to view the current data that exists for the selected settings. By default, all options within the settings will be marked to be copied, however if you only want to copy across certain settings and not others, you can untick (and click 'Save') against those that you do not wish to copy;
- Available to all businesses: Ticking this box will apply the updates to all businesses that you have access to;
- Apply updates to these businesses: If you do not tick the above 'Available to all businesses' box, you can manually select 1 or multiple businesses that you would like to apply the updates to.
You can click Bulk update once the settings have been configured.
You'll then see the bulk actions overview.
Bulk Actions Overview
From here, you are able to see a list of the following:
- Bulk action type: All the bulk updates and bulk activities;
- Bureau/Brands: Within which bureau/subsidiary it was performed;
- Activities: Includes each business and separate activity that was performed as part of the bulk update;
- Created: The date the update was performed;
- Created by: Which user performed the update;
- Status: Status of the bulk action (in progress, error or completed).
Should a bulk action fail, you can click in the 'Activity' column which will bring up a context column. You can then hover over the error to view more information about the cause, including the affected business:
If you want to go to the business payroll file to manually investigate where the issue might have happened, you can do this by clicking the arrow, or re-try the bulk action for that specific business by going back to the bulk actions overview and clicking the below icon:
Should the issue persist and you are not able to manually find the problem, you will have to escalate the issue to the support team.
User restrictions
Bureau admins will always have access to bulk actions. Bureau managers and Payroll Processors can apply bulk actions to the businesses that they have been given brand access to. This access is given via the process of assigning business groups or individual businesses. Should a payroll processor be required to make updates to businesses that they do not have access to, it falls within the bureau manager's responsibility to grant access to these clients. This article provides more information on user access to the bureau dashboard.
Bulk Update Restricted users
Where a bureau has created a user who does not have full access, but has restricted access to one or more reports, this user can now be given the same reporting access to multiple businesses from within the Bureau dashboard.
- Go to Bureau Admin.
- Click on Bulk actions.
- Click Bulk Update and select Settings from the drop down.
- Then select the brand and business you want to copy the user from.
- Select Manage Users from the Settings to copy drop down menu.
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Click the Preview data button and the panel to the right will show you any users in the chosen business who have restricted access with some reports included. If there is more than one restricted access user found, then you can simply untick any that you don’t wish to include in the update.
- Once the relevant users have been selected, click Save.
- You now have the option to select whether to allow this user restricted access to all businesses, by ticking the Available to all businesses check box, or you can select the individual business(es) you would like to give this user access to.
- Once you have selected all or some businesses, click Bulk update.
- Select Proceed.
- The system will then take the user back to the Bulk actions list, where it will show the status of the update.
- Clicking on the number in the Activities link opens a panel to show the updated businesses and the status.
N.B. If the system finds this user already exists in one of the selected businesses, with access to multiple reports, then it will add in any new reports from the business the settings are being copied from, which are not already accessible to that user.