# Directory-managed membership

> A workspace can take its member list from your company directory, so joining and leaving are handled by the directory rather than by hand.

A team workspace can be connected to your company's identity directory, and
from then on the directory decides who is a member of that workspace. People
arriving and leaving are handled where your company already handles them,
rather than by someone remembering to add and remove them in Bolter.

This is an admin setup, and most people never touch it. What follows is what
changes for everyone else once it is on.

## What the directory controls, and what it does not

The directory controls exactly one thing: who is a member of that workspace.

It does not control roles. Owner, admin and member are still set in Bolter, and
connecting a directory never changes someone's role or hands one out. It also
does not touch members who were added by hand, and it does not reach anything
outside that workspace.

Most importantly, it does not own your account. Your Bolter account is yours
and exists independently of any company directory: it existed before your
workspace connected one, and it keeps existing if you leave the company. What
you lose when the directory removes you is membership of that workspace, not
your account, your personal workspace, or the agents you own there. For what
membership gets you, see [Workspaces, accounts, and limits](https://bolter.chat/help/workspaces).

## Signing in

If your workspace uses a directory, sign in with that identity when you are
asked to. Bolter matches you to the directory's own permanent id for you, not
to your email address, which is why changing your email address never
disconnects you and why an email address on its own is never enough to accept a
directory-managed place in a workspace.

If you already had a Bolter account before your workspace connected its
directory, that same account is the one you keep. You are linked to it, not
replaced.

## What an admin sets up

An admin connects the directory once, from the workspace's Integrations tab.
Bolter supports connecting through Google Workspace, and through SCIM for
directories that provide it. One workspace has one directory connection.

After that, membership reconciles on its own. An admin can still see the full
member list on the workspace's Members tab, and can still manage roles there.

Source: https://bolter.chat/help/directory-managed-membership