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# What's in the employee export, and how do I assign roles safely?

> Learn which columns the employee export contains, which are intentionally left out, and how to assign roles through a partial import without overwriting existing ones.

[Go to Employees ↗](https://webapp.honestly.de/app#/employees) · Opens the webapp — please log in first

The employee export gives you your current employee list as an Excel file — a good starting point before you update data via Excel or assign roles in bulk. This article explains where to start the export, which columns the file contains, which are deliberately left out, and how to assign roles safely without accidentally overwriting roles that are already in place.

### Where to find the export

Go to **Employees** in the main navigation. Above the list you'll find the **Export Employees** button (download icon). Only admins can start the export.

Clicking it opens the **Export Employees** dialog. Confirm with **Start Export**. The file is generated in the background, so you don't have to wait on the page. You can follow the progress at the top under **Last Export**, which moves from *Processing* to *Ready*. Once the file is ready, download it with **Download**. The download stays available for seven days, after which the file is deleted automatically and you create a new export if you need one.

### What columns the file contains

The file starts with these fixed columns, in exactly this order:

| Column      | Contents                                                                         |
| ----------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| ImportId    | The unique ID of each employee, usually the personnel number.                    |
| Email       | The email address.                                                               |
| Firstname   | The first name.                                                                  |
| Lastname    | The surname.                                                                     |
| Language    | The main language in ISO 639-1 format.                                           |
| ReportsToId | The ImportId of the person the employee reports to.                              |
| Role        | The current role: *Admin*, *Manager*, *Analyst*, *Report viewer* or *Respondee*. |

After that comes one column for each employee attribute in your account, sorted alphabetically by attribute name.

<Note>
  Employees without access to the web app appear as *Respondee* in the **Role** column.
</Note>

### Which columns are intentionally missing

Four columns are deliberately left out of the export. The same note appears in the export dialog under **Please note:**

* **PermissionGroup** and **PermissionGroupValue** — the data permissions, i.e. what an employee can access in the account.
* **Seniority** and **Age Category** — the system works these two groupings out itself from the year of joining and the year of birth, so they don't appear as their own columns in the file.

This matters when you re-import: anything not in the file is not overwritten on import. Because PermissionGroup and PermissionGroupValue are missing, data permissions are left untouched when you re-import an unchanged export file.

### What happens when you re-import the export

The **Role** column is part of the export and is also read on import. This means:

* If you re-import the file unchanged, everyone is written back the same role value — nothing changes.
* If you change a role value in the file, the import changes the role accordingly — with the consequences in the next section.
* Data permissions stay untouched, because PermissionGroup and PermissionGroupValue are not in the file.

### Assigning roles safely

If you only want to give a role to individual people — for example, giving several people managers the **Report viewer** role — a **partial import** containing only those people is the safest way. Anyone not in the file stays unchanged.

For that file, include the columns **ImportId**, **Email**, **Firstname**, **Lastname**, **Language** and **Role**.

<Note>
  If the **Role** column is present in the file, it must have a valid value in *every* row. Rows without a valid role are rejected. A partially filled **Role** column is therefore worse than none at all.
</Note>

<Warning>
  A role change via import takes effect immediately:

  * Anyone who is already a **Manager** or **Admin** and is given **Report viewer** via import is downgraded.
  * The value **Respondee** removes access to the web application entirely.
  * Anyone who has no access yet and is given a role other than **Respondee** receives the access email immediately with the import. It cannot be recalled.
</Warning>

For the available roles and what each can do, see [Rights & roles](/help/employees/rights-and-roles). For how partial and full imports work, see [Import via Excel](/help/employees/import-via-excel) and [Excel import rules](/help/employees/excel-import-rules).

### Where else you can see current roles

You don't need to export just to get an overview: in the list under **Employees**, use the **Columns** button to show the **Role** column, and use the **Role** filter to filter for a specific role.

### The full list via the API

Accounts with the **API Access (Business Intelligence)** add-on can retrieve the full employee list including the role via the export API (endpoint `GET /v1/employees`). You'll find the details in the [Developer Docs](/developers/api-reference/employees).

#### Related articles

* [Import via Excel](/help/employees/import-via-excel)
* [Excel import rules](/help/employees/excel-import-rules)
* [Rights & roles](/help/employees/rights-and-roles)
* [Reporting structures and data permissions](/help/employees/reporting-structures)