How to fetch employee data from Sage HRIS API

Introduction

If you’re building workflows on top of Sage HRIS API, the first real test of your integration maturity is how cleanly you can extract employee data. This guide breaks down the exact process, endpoints, scripts, parameters, and common challenges—so you don’t waste cycles debugging basics. It’s part of a broader series that deep-dives into Sage HRIS fundamentals such as authentication, rate limits, and real-world implementation patterns. Full Sage HRIS guide is available here.

Get Employee Data from the Sage HRIS API

Prerequisites

• Valid X-Auth-Token for Sage HRIS
• Python environment with requests installed

Key API Endpoints

• Get all employees: GET https://subdomain.sage.hr/api/employees
• Get a specific employee: GET https://subdomain.sage.hr/api/employees/{employee_id}

Step-by-Step Process

1. Fetch All Employees

import requests

url = "https://subdomain.sage.hr/api/employees"
headers = {
    "X-Auth-Token": "your_auth_token"
}
params = {
    "page": 1,
    "team_history": "true",
    "employment_status_history": "true",
    "position_history": "true"
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=params)
employees = response.json()
print(employees)

2. Fetch an Employee by ID

import requests

employee_id = 19  # Replace with the actual employee ID
url = f"https://subdomain.sage.hr/api/employees/{employee_id}"
headers = {
    "X-Auth-Token": "your_auth_token"
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
employee = response.json()
print(employee)

Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)

1. Expired or incorrect tokens: Sage HRIS rejects invalid tokens instantly. Refresh proactively.
2. Pagination surprises: Large orgs require explicit page handling; build a loop and test for last page.
3. Rate-limit throttling: Batch requests, don’t firehose the API.
4. Inconsistent employee histories: When enabling history parameters, data structures can vary by employee.
5. Timeouts on bulk pulls: Use retries with exponential backoff.
6. Deeply nested JSON: Pre-define your parsers; the payload expands quickly.
7. Security lapses: Auth tokens and employee PII must stay out of logs and repos.

FAQs

1. How do I get an X-Auth-Token?
Your Sage HRIS admin generates it for your integration environment.

2. I’m getting a 401 Unauthorized, what should I check?
Your token is either wrong, expired, or tied to the wrong subdomain.

3. How do I handle pagination?
Use the page parameter and iterate until the response returns an empty list.

4. What format does Sage HRIS return data in?
JSON.

5. Can I pull team-level context?
Yes, set team_history=true.

6. Does Sage HRIS enforce rate limits?
Yes. You’ll get throttled if you don’t space requests.

7. Can I update employee records?
Yes, use PUT/PATCH endpoints documented in the Sage HRIS guide.

Knit for Sage HRIS API Integration

If you want a cleaner alternative to maintaining your own Sage HRIS API integrations, Knit abstracts the entire process, auth, refresh cycles, retries, pagination, schema normalization, and long-term maintenance. Integrate once, and gain plug-and-play access to Sage HRIS and dozens of other HRIS systems without rewriting connectors every quarter.