Get employee data from Remote HRIS API

‍Introduction

If you're building HR workflows, global payroll pipelines, or employee lifecycle automation, you’ll eventually need to pull clean, compliant employee data from Remote API. This guide walks you through exactly that.

As part of our broader deep-dive series on the Remote API, we unpack one of the most common real-world use cases, retrieving employee information with a single employment ID. If you want a more exhaustive understanding, check this out.

Getting Employee Data from the Remote API

Prerequisites

Before you hit the endpoint, make sure you have:

• A valid Bearer Token for Remote.
• The employment ID of the employee whose data you want to fetch.
• Awareness of country-specific data constraints and compliance obligations.

API Endpoint

To retrieve employee details:
GET /v1/employments/{employment_id}

Step-by-Step Process

1. Obtain an Access Token

Remote uses Bearer Token authentication. Follow the official docs to generate your token.

2. Retrieve Employee Data

Below is a simple Python snippet using requests:

import requests

def get_employee_data(employment_id, access_token):
    url = f"https://api.remote.com/v1/employments/{employment_id}"
    headers = {
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {access_token}"
    }
    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
    
    if response.status_code == 200:
        return response.json()
    else:
        return response.json().get("message")

# Example usage
employment_id = "93t3j-employment-id-9suej43"
access_token = "your_access_token_here"
print(get_employee_data(employment_id, access_token))

Common Pitfalls to Watch Out For

Here are some typical pitfalls teams face while using Remote API:

1. Country-specific data rules
   Different jurisdictions enforce different mandatory fields, formats, and restrictions.
2. Rate limits
   High-volume syncs can easily breach Remote’s API limits if you’re not batching or retrying intelligently.
3. 401 and token expiry issues
   Bearer Tokens expire; teams often forget automatic refresh flows.
4. Incorrect or stale employment IDs
   IDs change when employees move between statuses, verify before querying.
5. Dynamic schema changes
   Remote updates contract fields and JSON schemas regularly; hard-coded assumptions break fast.
6. Network or timeout failures
   Global APIs mean global latency, build resilient retry logic.
7. Compliance slip-ups
   Remote enforces strict data governance; ensure you’re aligned with their country-specific JSON Schemas.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is the Bearer Token required?
It authenticates every request made to the Remote API. No token, no access.

2. How do I manage rate limits?
Use exponential backoff and batch requests where possible.

3. What does a 401 error usually indicate?
Almost always an expired or invalid Bearer Token.

4. How do I stay compliant with changing country rules?
Sync regularly with Remote’s JSON Schema forms and avoid hard-coding fields.

5. What if the employment ID is wrong?
Validate IDs from your source-of-truth system before hitting the endpoint.

6. How do I handle network issues?
Retries, timeouts, and fallback logic, treat it like any critical external dependency.

7. Can I fetch all employees in one go?
Remote doesn't offer a direct “list all employees” endpoint today; you need employment IDs individually or from underlying systems.

Knit for Remote HRIS API Integration

If you’d rather not navigate tokens, schema updates, compliance checks, and ongoing maintenance, Knit’s unified API automates all of it for Remote HRIS API. A single integration gets you standardized Remote data, token management, monitoring, and version-stable syncs, no heavy lifting on your end.