If using email addresses isn’t an option, onboarding your users via username and password is a great way to get everybody into the app.

In the onboarding phase you contact your users and hand out access data. Take proper steps to keep this data secure by providing it directly. Being personally in contact with your users during the onboarding phase usually has the advantage of greatly raising the acceptance of the app. To reduce the effort of communicating the access data to your users, you can use well-known information, such as a last name for username and a birthdate as one-time password.

You can also use username onboarding in parallel with all the other onboarding methods.

User Data Requirements

Provide the following information for the users:

• Username
• One-time password  — create a one-time password if you have specific requirements or let the system will generate the one-time passwords

There is also the highly recommended option to provide:  

• Identifier — required for user synchronizations like the CSV import
• Recovery code — which can either be set up, generated by the system, or left empty to be generated on demand
• First name
• Last name

Optionally, you can also provide further information such as:

• Location
• Department
• Position
• Additional information you might wish to use with custom profile fields

Enter User Data in the System

To enable your users to sign in with a username, you must first create the user data in the system. To import user data you can choose from several options: To enable your users to sign in with a username, you must first create the user data in the system. To import user data you can choose from several options:

• CSV import
• User API
• Create user manually in the Studio

Inviting Users to the App

1. Import the user data into the system; for example, via CSV import.
2. If you let the system generate one-time passwords and recovery codes, export the user data and then print the sign-in data and give it to your users.
3. Communicate the following information to your users:
   
   • Name of the app
   • Information about how to download the app and a link to the web app
   • Username
   • One-time password
   • Recovery code

Make sure every user receives their personalized information in a secure way! Staffbase recommends it be distributed with the user's pay stub.

How Users Register with the App

1. The user opens the app or web app.
2. The user enters their username and one-time password.
3. Optionally, the user confirms your terms of use or the privacy policy.
4. The user is prompted to create a new password.
5. Optionally, the user is asked to complete the profile and enter additional information, such as email address.
   
   The email address provided by the user during the account registration is stored as the personal email address of the user. Learn more.

At this point, the user has a live and active account and is able to sign-in using the username and the just set password. The one-time password is no longer valid after the first sign-in. There is a recovery flow to reset the password if the user forgets their self-defined password.

How Users Reset Their Password

Should they forget it, users can reset their password. There are several options that can be set up. Here is the standard option for username onboarding:

1. The user opens the app or web app.
2. The user clicks the link Forgot password?.
3. The user enters the recovery code.
4. The user sets a new password.