Business Unit access controls which data a user can see across the platform. While a user's role determines what actions they can take, their Business Unit access determines which Facilities, Input Data, and analytics results are visible to them.
What Business Unit access controls
When you assign Business Unit access to a user, you're defining their data scope. This affects:
Facilities and locations: Users only see Facilities that belong to their assigned Business Units. When uploading data or browsing Facility lists, only relevant Facilities appear.
Input Data visibility: Activity data, emissions calculations, and historical records are filtered to show only data from the user's Business Units.
Analytics and workbooks: Charts, tables, and reports automatically filter to show data from the user's assigned Business Units. A user viewing the same workbook as a colleague may see different data based on their respective access.
Selection options: When users need to select a Facility, Business Unit, or other entity, they only see options within their access scope.
Example: Regional access in practice
Consider an organisation with Business Units for Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. A sustainability analyst assigned to the Europe Business Unit only experiences the following:
What they see:
European Facilities in all lists and selection menus
Input Data uploaded to European Facilities
Analytics showing European emissions, energy consumption, and other metrics
Products associated with European operations
What they don't see:
Facilities in North America or Asia-Pacific
Input Data from other regions
Analytics from outside their Business Unit scope
This analyst has the same role permissions as their colleagues in other regions, but their view of the platform is limited to European data.
Full access vs. limited access
Users can have access to specific Business Units or to all Business Units in your organisation:
Full access means the user can see data from every Business Unit, including any new Business Units created in the future. This is appropriate for sustainability leaders who need a complete view of organisational data.
Limited access means the user can only see data from their assigned Business Units. This is appropriate for regional teams, specific project work, or when data confidentiality requires segmentation.
A user with full platform permissions through their role but limited Business Unit access will be able to perform many actions, but only on data within their scope. For example, a Measurement & Reporting Professional with access to only the UK Business Unit can create and publish workbooks, but those workbooks will only contain UK data when they look at them.
Business Unit hierarchy
If your organisation uses nested Business Units (for example, "Europe" containing "UK", "Germany", and "France"), access to a parent Business Unit includes access to all its children.
Granting someone access to "Europe" automatically gives them access to UK, Germany, France, and any other Business Units nested under Europe. You don't need to select each child Business Unit individually.
How Business Unit access is assigned
Business Unit access can be set when inviting a new user or changed at any time for existing users.
Set Business Unit access when inviting a user
Click your profile icon in the top right corner and select Manage Users.
Click Invite users.
Enter the user's email address.
In the Business Unit access field, select the Business Units they should have access to.
Select a role and complete the invitation.
The user receives the specified Business Unit access as soon as they accept the invitation. See "Invite new users" for the complete invitation process.
Change Business Unit access for an existing user
Click your profile icon in the top right corner and select Manage Users.
In the Active Users tab, find the user.
Click the Business Unit access dropdown in their row.
Select or deselect Business Units as needed.
Confirm the change.
Changes take effect immediately. Only users with the "Manage User Roles & Business Unit Access" permission (Sustainability Administrator and Platform Administrator) can change another user's access. See "Change a user's Business Unit access" for more detail.
Check a user's current access
To see which Business Units a user can access:
Click your profile icon in the top right corner and select Manage Users.
In the Active Users tab, find the user you want to check.
Look at the Business Unit access column in their row.
The column displays the Business Units assigned to that user. If they have access to all Business Units, this is indicated in the column.
To change a user's access, see "Change a user's Business Unit access".