> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.heyy.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Let your employee read contact fields

> Grant read access so the employee can see and use contact data.

**Read** is the base permission on the **Attributes** tab — see [Choose which attributes to expose](/help/ai-employees/capabilities/choose-attributes-to-expose) for how it relates to Share and Update. With Read enabled, the employee can see an attribute's value and use it internally: in its own reasoning, in an [action](/help/ai-employees/capabilities/actions-overview) call, or in how it greets a returning contact by name. Read does not let the employee say the value out loud — that requires Share as well.

## Grant read access

1. Open the **Attributes** tab on an employee.
2. Click **Add attribute**.
3. Choose a built-in field (first name, last name, email, phone) or a custom [workspace attribute](/help/contacts/mini-crm/custom-attributes-as-columns).
4. Enable **Read**.
5. Save.

<Frame>
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/heyy-c8bd5c9e/1coCVJUJuVs6SA9x/assets/ai-employees-attributes-read.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=1coCVJUJuVs6SA9x&q=85&s=bef36a5edbe090b88bcbc56e4075874a" alt="Enable read on an attribute" width="1366" height="627" data-path="assets/ai-employees-attributes-read.png" />
</Frame>

## Using it in guidelines

Once Read is enabled, reference the attribute directly in a [guideline](/help/ai-employees/identity-and-guidelines/write-your-guidelines) with `@Attributes` — for example, *update the language attribute when the AI detects the contact's language*, or *greet returning contacts by their first name*.

<Tip>
  Only expose fields the employee truly needs. Fewer fields mean fewer places a guideline can misfire or leak a value it should not have access to.
</Tip>