🚀How do I create a user in Zest?

Zest offers two ways to create an employee account: manual creation, one user at a time from the Back Office, or bulk creation, via an Excel import file or an automated synchronization. This article walks you through both methods.

🔐 Prerequisites – Access rights

To create a user, you must have one of the following roles:

SuperAdmin: can create users across the entire zone.

Department Admin or Location Admin: can create users within their scope, if this delegation has been enabled. ℹ️ This is enabled in Back Office > Rights > General, by checking the option Can create and edit users within their scope, manually via the back office or by import.

👉 If you don't see these options, contact your HR team or a Zest Super Administrator.

🧱 Before you start: the 3 base roles in Zest

When creating a user, you'll need to choose their level of access. Three options are available:

Role	What it allows
Super-admin	Access to zone settings, editing account rights, defining the org chart and accounts, as well as the highest level of statistics (global view).
Global View	Access to statistics for the entire Zest zone, without the Super-admin's configuration rights.
User / Employee	A regular platform user, with visibility limited to their own scope (their team, their department, depending on the case).

ℹ️ Note: this role is independent of being a Department/Location Admin or of having a team as a manager. For example, a user can be a "User" in terms of their global role, while also being a Department Admin within their scope, or the manager of a team.

🚀 Method 1 – Create a user manually

Step 1 – Access the user list

Click on your first name, top right of the screen, then select Backoffice.

Click Users.

Click the blue Add a new user button, top right.

Step 2 – Enter the user's information

Enter the employee's last name and first name.

Enter their email address and/or their employee ID:
- you can fill in both fields,
- or only one of the two.

Enter their job title (optional).

If the employee logs in via SSO and SSO is enabled on your zone, turn on the corresponding option and enter their SSO identifier.

Choose the employee's language.

If attributes are used at your company, select the ones that apply to this employee.

⚠️ Warning: if you enter an employee ID, only enter the ID itself, without any prefix. Your Onboarding Project Manager or your CSM has already set up a prefix on your Zest zone: the login will automatically be made up of the prefix + the employee ID.

Step 3 – Set the access level

Choose whether the user is Super-admin, Global View, or User (see the roles table above).

Step 4 – Assign a manager and a team

Indicate whether the employee has a manager:
- if yes, search for and select their manager,
- if no, leave the blue toggle on No.

Indicate whether the employee has a team (employees reporting to them):
- if yes, select the relevant employees,
- if no, leave the blue toggle on No.

ℹ️ Note: this step only appears if a hierarchy tree (Teams tree) has been set up on your zone.

Step 5 – Choose the department and location

Select the employee's department.

Select, if applicable, their location.

Click Yes in the relevant fields if the employee needs to be assigned to a department and/or a location, then make your selection.

Click Add to confirm the creation of the profile.

⚠️ Warning: an employee can only belong to one department at a time.

CREATE USER DEPT LOC.mov

Step 6 – Invite the employee to log in

In the user list, find the user, then click the (…) three-dot menu:

If the user has an email address but doesn't log in via SSO, click the dedicated icon, to the right of their row in the user list.

Click Invite to log in to send them their invitation email.

🧩 Method 2 – Create users in bulk

To create several users at once, or to update your employee database, Zest offers two approaches: manual import via an Excel file, and automated import.

📥 a. Manual import via Excel file

Step 1 – Retrieve the import file

In the Backoffice, click Users.

Select the Import tab.

Choose one of the two options:
- Blank import file: a fully empty, standardized file, ideal for a first import.
- Current user database: the most up-to-date version of your database, easy to edit (additions, updates, corrections).

💡 Tip: starting from your current database helps avoid data-entry errors (accents, commas, exact unit names).

Step 2 – Fill in the file

The file has 3 tabs: Users, Departments, Locations. Column and tab names must never be changed.

Key columns to know:

Column	Required?	What it's for
`status`	Yes	Indicates whether the employee is active (`active`), suspended (`suspended`), or removed (`removed`).
`department`	Yes	Department assignment. Must exactly match a name listed in the Departments tab.
`location`	No	Location assignment. Must exactly match a name listed in the Locations tab.
`rank`	Yes	User's role: `user`, `superAdmin`, or `globalViewer`.
`lang`	Yes	Interface language, in 2-letter ISO format (`fr`, `en`, `es`…).
`managerId`	Recommended	Email or ID of the direct manager.
`ssoLogin`	No	SSO login identifier, only if SSO is enabled.

👉 For the full list of columns (custom attributes, department/location admins…) and all the rules for filling in the file, see the article Bulk-import employees.

⚠️ Warning: management loops (A manages B, B manages C, C manages A) are not allowed, and an employee can only have one assignment per tree (Teams, Departments, Locations).

Step 3 – Choose the import type

🟩 Incremental import (the most common): adds new employees, updates existing employees, and only removes those marked removed in the file.

🟥 Differential import (cleanup mode): adds and updates the employees in the file, but automatically removes all employees not present in the file.

⚠️ Warning: differential import must be used with caution. An unintended removal requires manual reactivation or a new import.

🔄 b. Automated import

For continuous, hands-off updates to your database, Zest also offers automated synchronization with your HRIS or internal directory (SCIM, SFTP, or native integrations with certain HRIS platforms such as Personio, Lucca, ADP, Payfit…).

👉 To learn more about setting this up, see the article Bulk-import employees.

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