External Attendees
Overview
External Attendees gives your business a shared contact book for people outside your Ramp account, such as candidates, prospects, vendors, government officials, or employees who do not have Ramp accounts. Admins define attendee types to categorize contacts by relationship, and Ramp lets employees search for reusable attendee records and add structured attendee details to card transactions and reimbursements.
External Attendees is available on Ramp Plus. Businesses that are not on Ramp Plus continue using the existing free-text attendee experience.
How external attendees work
External Attendees turns attendee names into reusable records that can be searched, selected, edited, and reported on. This helps businesses avoid inconsistent free-text entries like "A. Smith," "Alex Smith," and "Alexander Smith" being treated as unrelated attendees.
External Attendees can help businesses:
- Track spend by candidate, vendor, or other relationship for reporting
- Support healthcare and life sciences reporting needs, including Sunshine Act and CMS exports
- Represent people who are part of the company but do not have Ramp accounts
- Give Ramp AI features more attendee context for policy enforcement and accounting decisions
Admin setup
Admins can enable and manage External Attendees from Company > People > Manage attendees. After External Attendees is enabled, Ramp automatically creates a default attendee type so your business can start using reusable attendees right away.
Managing attendee types
Each external attendee is assigned an attendee type, which gives admins a way to categorize external contacts for the business. Admins can create and manage these types from the attendee settings page.
- Create attendee types — Add types beyond the default to match your business relationships, such as Candidate, Government Official, or Healthcare Provider. Each type defines a category employees select when adding a new external attendee.
- Rename and edit — The default type can be renamed, and field requirements can be configured independently per type.
- Archive attendee types — Archived types stop appearing as options when employees create new attendees. Existing attendees of that type remain on historical transactions.
Attendee types carry through to exports and reporting, so the categories you define here determine how attendee data can be filtered and grouped downstream.
Attendee field requirements
Each attendee type can have its own field requirements. Name and Type are always required. Company, Email, and External ID can be required or optional for each attendee type.
For example, a business might require Company and Email for a Government Official attendee type, while leaving those fields optional for a Candidate attendee type. External ID can store an identifier from another system, such as a CRM contact ID.
Populate the contact book
Your business can add external attendees manually or by CSV upload. Attendees added to the contact book become searchable for future card transactions and reimbursements.
Manual creation
Admins and employees can create an external attendee one at a time when adding attendees to a transaction or reimbursement. The person creating the attendee enters the attendee name, attendee type, and any required fields for that type.
Employees can manage external attendees they personally created. Admins can view, search, edit, archive, and bulk-manage all external attendees from the External attendees tab under Company > People.
Bulk CSV upload
Admins and employees can upload external attendees in bulk using CSV. This is useful when your business wants to import attendees from a CRM, spreadsheet, or another system.
The CSV template adapts its headers based on your attendee type field requirements. For example, Company may appear as required, optional, or required only for specific attendee types depending on your setup.
Employee experience
Employees can add external attendees when completing card transactions and reimbursements. When an employee searches for an attendee, Ramp returns matching Ramp users and matching external attendees together so the employee can select the right person from one search experience.
If your business has more than one attendee type, Ramp asks the employee to choose the attendee type when creating a new external attendee. If your business has only one attendee type, Ramp assigns that type automatically.
When employees select reusable external attendees instead of typing free-text names, the attendee record can be reused by other employees and included consistently in exports and reporting.
Exports and reporting
Transaction and reimbursement exports can include attendee details such as attendee name, attendee type, and company. Where attendee row expansion is enabled, exports can be expanded by attendee so each attendee is easier to review and report on.
For healthcare and life sciences businesses, External Attendees can support Sunshine Act and CMS reporting by capturing structured attendee details for healthcare providers, government officials, or other covered attendee categories. Ramp's Sunshine Act exports can use attendee data as part of compliance reporting.
Archive and downgrade behavior
Archived external attendees no longer appear in future attendee search results, but they remain visible on historical transactions and reimbursements where they were already added. This preserves historical expense and reporting context.
If your business downgrades from Ramp Plus, existing external attendees remain viewable. Ramp serves default-type attendees only going forward, and admins can no longer edit attendee types unless the business has Ramp Plus again.
Frequently asked questions
Can employees still type attendee names manually?
Businesses that are not on Ramp Plus continue using the current free-text attendee experience. For Ramp Plus businesses with External Attendees enabled, employees can search reusable external attendees when adding attendees to card transactions and reimbursements.
Can we create more than one attendee type?
Yes. Admins can create multiple attendee types and configure field requirements separately for each type.
What fields are required for every external attendee?
Name and attendee type are always required. Company, Email, and External ID are configurable for each attendee type.
What happens to archived attendees on older expenses?
Archived attendees remain visible on historical transactions and reimbursements, but they no longer appear in future attendee searches.