What Business World is used for and who will be affected
Business World is the University's finance system, although you may also know it as Agresso, or Marketplace.
You're most likely to use Business World if you are a member of staff and your role includes:
- purchasing goods or services, including via Marketplace
- invoicing customers
- reporting and budgeting
However, most members of staff, as well as postgraduate students, may occasionally use Business World to claim expenses.
What is happening and when

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) will be applied to Business World in the coming week to further protect our sensitive information and data, and provide extra security controls to reduce the impact of a cyber attack.
What you need to do to prepare
It is important to check in advance that:
- your security information, such as your phone number, is up to date
- you have suitable MFA methods set up
Suitable methods
Only the phone (text/sms), alternative phone, and authenticator app are suitable to authenticate your University M365 account when signing into University systems.
If you've previously selected the security question or email options, these are suitable for resetting your password, but will not work as an MFA factor.
Changing or adding verification methods
To check, change, or add additional authentication methods:
- access your security information by logging in to My Account
- select 'Update Info' within the 'Security Info' section
- check your authentication methods and update your phone number if it's incorrect
- add suitable methods, if you need to
What will be different
If you are logging in with your University account, your login experience will be similar to when you sign in to other University services, such as Outlook. Simply:
- enter your University username (e.g. abc123@bath.ac.uk) and password
- follow the Microsoft instructions to verify your identify using your chosen authentication method
The first time you log in to Business World (Agresso) following this change, you will need to consent to Business World using your University profile information. This simply allows the application to read your University username and email address and use it for your Agresso profile.
How frequently you’ll need to authenticate your login
Due to the nature of the data in Business World, you will need to authenticate your identity every day.
As MFA across our University systems is set up with Conditional Access, you will usually only need to authenticate once per day, even if you:
- log in and out of Business World throughout the day
- use more than one University system within the same day
You would only need to re-authenticate more often if there are login behaviours that have increased risk, such as logins from a different location or device.
Further help and support
Visit the Layer up your account security with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) webpage to find out more about Multi-factor Authentication, including a summary of which methods are suitable for which activities.
If you experience difficulties setting up MFA or accessing your account, please contact the IT Service Desk at go.bath.ac.uk/it-help.