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Jan 8, 2024
Everything you need to know about HRIS API Integration
11
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As organizations grow in revenue and people strength, a lot of data comes into existence that needs to be managed well for business success. With more people being onboarded, most HR teams struggle to manage all processes, especially where employee data is concerned.
Invariably, different HR tools and software or HRIS (Human Resources Information Software) get adopted to automate certain parts of the workflow.
Research shows that larger companies with over 500 employees often choose HRIS to consolidate systems.
With the increasing number of HR tools and overall use cases, organizations need to integrate these software with one another and their core application to ensure seamless flow of information. Here, HRIS integration plays a major role.
This article seeks to provide a complete understanding on HRIS API integration, focusing on different concepts, data models, use cases and how to achieve it in the most efficient and effective way.
Key Concepts
Here are some of the key concepts or terminologies you should understand before moving onto more details on the applications, use cases, etc.
Directory
Directory platforms essentially are the single source of truth for all employees, especially the new joiners. It ensures that when an employee joins, they have access to all the resources, tools and software they need. Employees can leverage the Directory to familiarize themselves with different aspects of the organization.
Payroll
Payroll refers to everything related to the compensation aspect for employees. It helps companies calculate the salary due to employees at the end of every month, taxes, benefits, etc. It ensures that employees are accurately compensated based on their agreements, while also complying with statutory laws and policies.
Benefits
In most structured organizations, employees are entitled to additional benefits beyond the compensation. This includes health insurance, accidental insurance, retirement plans, provident fund (India), paid time off, etc. All these come under the benefits section of an employment contract and need to be carefully monitored.
Recruitment, retention and retirement
Any HRIS API that you come across will address all or some aspects of the employee lifecycle. Here, you should understand the basics of recruitment, which involves attracting and hiring the best talent for your open roles, retention, which focuses on ensuring that you are able to prevent attrition and turnover for your employees by facilitating the right culture, fair pay, etc. and finally, retirement or exit, either due to completion of tenure, age or any other reason.
Learning and development
Another concept that requires attention is learning and development. It caters to understanding the learning and training needs for your employees, both hard and soft skills and adequately providing the right upskilling opportunities for professional success.
HRIS Integration: Top Use Cases
Let’s quickly understand how HRIS integration across HR software and tools leads to an exemplary employee experience as well as facilitates operational efficiency for HR teams. Most of the use cases of HRIS integration follow the read and write HRIS APIs which ensure automatic syncing of data between the HRIS platforms and allied applications. Put simply, manually entry of data across applications and updates can be prone to human errors. However, even a single inaccuracy in updating data can lead to serious consequences, including faulty payroll creation, absence tracking, etc. Furthermore, manual data entry might lead to unauthorized data access, especially for sensitive employee information. Here’s a quick snapshot of how HRIS integration can be used across different scenarios.
HRIS integration for ATS tools
ATS or applicant tracking system can leverage HRIS integration to ensure that all important and relevant details about new employees, including name, contact information, demographic and educational backgrounds, etc. are automatically updated into the customer’s preferred HRIS tool without the need to manually entering data, which can lead to inaccuracies and is operationally taxing. ATS tools leverage the write HRIS API and provide data to the HR tools in use.
Examples: Greenhouse Software, Workable, BambooHR, Lever, Zoho
HRIS integration for payroll software
Payroll software plays an integral role in any company’s HR processes. It focuses on ensuring that everything related to payroll and compensation for employees is accurate and up to date. HRIS integration with payroll software enables the latter to get automated and real time access to employee data including time off, work schedule, shifts undertaken, payments made on behalf of the company, etc.
At the same time, it gets access to employee data on bank details, tax slabs, etc. Together, this enables the payroll software to deliver accurate payslips to its customers, regarding the latter’s employees. With automated integration, data sync can be prone to errors, which can lead to faulty compensation disbursal and many compliance challenges. HRIS integration, when done right, can alert the payroll software with any new addition to the employee database in real time to ensure setting up of their payroll immediately. At the same time, once payslips are made and salaries are disbursed, payroll software can leverage HRIS integration to write back this data into the HR software for records.
Examples: Gusto, RUN Powered by ADP, Paylocity, Rippling
HRIS integration for employee onboarding/ offboarding software
Employee onboarding software uses HRIS integration to ensure a smooth onboarding process, free of administrative challenges. Onboarding tools leverage the read HRIS APIs to get access to all the data for new employees to set up their accounts across different platforms, set up payroll, get access to bank details, benefits, etc. With HRIS integrations, employee onboarding software can provide their clients with automated onboarding support without the need to manually retrieve data for each new joiner to set up their systems and accounts. Furthermore, HRIS integration also ensures that when an employee leaves an organization, the update is automatically communicated to the onboarding software to push deprovisioning of the systems, and services. This also ensures that access to any tools, files, or any other confidential access is terminated. Manually deprovisioning access can lead to some manual errors, and even cause delays in exit formalities.
Examples: Deel, Savvy, Sappling
Ease of communication and announcements
With the right HRIS integration, HR teams can integrate all relevant data and send out communication and key announcements in a centralized manner. HRIS integrations ensure that the announcements reach all employees on the correct contact information without the need for HR teams to individually communicate the needful.
HRIS integration for LMS tools
LMS tools leverage both the read and write HRIS APIs. On the one hand, they read or get access to all relevant employee data including roles, organizational structure, skills demand, competencies, etc. from the HRIS tool being used. Based on this data, they curate personalized learning and training modules for employees for effective upskilling. Once the training is administered, the LMS tools again leverage HRIS integrations to write data back into the HRIS platform with the status of the training, including whether or not the employee has completed the same, how did they perform, updating new certifications, etc. Such integration ensures that all learning modules align well with employee data and profiles, as well as all training are captured to enhance the employee’s portfolio.
Example: TalentLMS, 360Learning, Docebo, Google Classroom
HRIS integration for workforce management and scheduling tools
Similar to LMS, workforce management and scheduling tools utilize both read and write HRIS APIs. The consolidated data and employee profile, detailing their competencies and training undertaken can help workforce management tools suggest the best delegation of work for companies, leading to resource optimization. On the other hand, scheduling tools can feed data automatically with HRIS integration into HR tools about the number of hours employees have worked, their time off, free bandwidth for allocation, shift schedules etc. HRIS integration can help easily sync employee work schedules and roster data to get a clear picture of each employee’s schedule and contribution.
Examples: QuickBooks Time, When I Work
HRIS integration for benefits administration tools
HRIS integration for benefits administration tools ensures that employees are provided with the benefits accurately, customized to their contribution and set parameters in the organization. Benefits administration tools can automatically connect with the employee data and records of their customers to understand the benefits they are eligible for based on the organizational structure, employment type, etc. They can read employee data to determine the benefits that employees are entitled to. Furthermore, based on employee data, they feed relevant information back into the HR software, which can further be leveraged by payroll software used by the customers to ensure accurate payslip creation.
Examples: TriNet Zenefits, Rippling, PeopleKeep, Ceridian Dayforce
HRIS integration for workforce planning tools
Workforce planning tools essentially help companies identify the gap in their talent pipeline to create strategic recruitment plans. They help understand the current capabilities to determine future hiring needs. HRIS integration with such tools can help automatically sync the current employee data, with a focus on organizational structure, key competencies, training offered, etc. Such insights can help workforce planning tools accurately manage talent demands for any organization. At the same time, real time sync with data from HR tools ensures that workforce planning can be updated in real time.
Examples: ClearCompany, Deel, ActivTrak
HRIS API Data Models
The different HRIS tools you use are bound to come with different data models or fields which will capture data for exchange between applications. It is important for HR professionals and those building and managing these integrations to understand these data models, especially to ensure normalization and transformation of data when it moves from one application to another.
Employees/ Employee Profiles
This includes details of all employees whether full time or contractual, including first and last name, contact details, date of birth, email ID, etc. At the same time, it covers other details on demographics and employment history including status, start date, marital status, gender, etc. In case of a former employee, this field also captures termination date.
Employee Contact Details
This includes personal details of the employee, including personal phone number, address, etc. which can be used to contact employees beyond work contact information.
Employee Profile Picture
Employee profile picture object or data model captures the profile picture of the employees that can be used across employee records and purposes.
Employment Type
The next data model in discussion focuses on the type or the nature of employment. An organization can hire full time employees, contractual workers, gig workers, volunteers, etc. This distinction in employment type helps differentiate between payroll specifications, taxation rules, benefits, etc.
Location
Location object or data model refers to the geographical area for the employee. Here, both the work location as well as the residential or native/ home location of the employee is captured. This field captures address, country, zip code, etc.
Leave Request
Leave request data model focuses on capturing all the time off or leave of absence entries made by the employee. It includes detailing the nature of leave, time period, status, reason, etc.
Leave Balance
Each employee, based on their nature of employment, is entitled to certain time off in a year. The leave balance object helps organizations keep a track of the remaining balance of leave of absence left with the employee. With this, organizations can ensure accurate payroll, benefits and compensation.
Attendance
This data model captures the attendance of employees, including fields like time in, time out, number of working hours, shift timing, status, break time, etc.
Organizational Structure
Each organization has a hierarchical structure or layers which depict an employee’s position in the whole scheme of things. The organizational structure object helps understand an employee’s designation, department, manager (s), direct reportees, etc.
Bank Details
This data model focuses on capturing the bank details of the employee, along with other financial details like a linked account for transfer of salary and other benefits that the employee is entitled to. In addition, it captures routing information like Swift Code, IFSC Code, Branch Code, etc.
Dependents
Dependents object focuses on the family members of an employee or individuals who the employee has confirmed as dependents for purposes of insurance, family details, etc. This also includes details of employees’ dependents including their date of birth, relation to the employee, among others.
KYC
This includes the background verification and other details about an employee with some identification proof and KYC (know your customer) documents. This is essential for companies to ensure their employees are well meaning citizens of the country meeting all compliances to work in that location. It captures details like Aadhar Number, PAN Number or unique identification number for the KYC document.
Compensation
This data model captures all details related to compensation for an employee, including total compensation/ cost to company, compensation split, salary in hand, etc. It also includes details on fixed compensation, variable pay as well as stock options. Compensation object also captures the frequency of salary payment, pay period, etc.
Unified HRIS API Integration: Get Started
By now, it would be clear to you that there are several HRIS tools in the market today that companies use and need to integrate with one another to ensure smooth exchange of data and consistency in records across platforms. However, manually implementing integrations between APIs of individual platforms can be extremely time consuming and resource intensive. In such a case, you can rely on a unified API like Knit, which gives you a single HRIS API to integrate with. Once you integrate with the HRIS API, you automatically get integrated with all the HR platforms you use.
Before moving on to the best practices to choose the right Unified HRIS API integration platform, here are some quick reasons why you should choose one:
- Requires integration with a common unified API to connect with a plethora of HRIS software used by different customers
- Supports common integration logic, endpoints, pagination which is easy to understand
- Normalizes and transforms data into a unified data model with possibility of having custom fields for smooth data sync
- Can facilitate real time data sync between the application offered and HRIS software with instant alerts
- Tales care of integration maintenance and management with logging and error detection
- Significantly lower cost and time requirements, ability to integrate with multiple HRIS platforms within days to a few weeks
- Common documentation and need to understand only one API than toggling between documentation of all HRIS APIs
- Need to deal with only one form of authentication, rate limits, pagination, etc.
Here are some points that you should always consider while choosing the right unified HRIS API for your company:
Understand the documentation
Start by gauging whether or not the unified API provides comprehensive and easy to understand documentation for integration. One of the key reasons to choose a unified API is to prevent the effort of navigating through individual documentation for each integration you need. Therefore, getting the right documentation, which covers everything you need is important. The documentation will also help you understand the integration logic being followed, including REST vs SOAP, and end points like GET, POST, and PATCH, provision of free sandbox, etc.
Which authentication model is followed?
Next, understand the authentication model that the unified API provides. Essentially, there are a few major types of authentication, including,
- Basic Auth that requires an API key or password for access
- OAuth 2.0 which relies on token exchanges
- Username-password based authentication
The right authentication and authorization is important since it will directly impact the privacy and security of the data you exchange between integrations.
What are the rate limits?
Rate limits are simply the number of API requests that can be made in a defined period of time. They are generally set to prevent cyber attacks like DDoS attacks which come in the form of exponential unleashing of API requests. Having a lower threshold of rate limit, but with expected high rate of requests can lead to unexpected unified API behavior. Ensure that your unified API provider can customize rate limits to address your and your customer needs.
Do you get post integration support?
HRIS API integration doesn’t end with building the integrations. There is a lot which goes on once the integrations are under use. There can be errors in data transformation, zombie APIs, API keys breaking or expiring, bad data being returned, long running syncs, troubleshooting challenges, and more. Your unified API needs to provide you with exceptional maintenance and management support, taking care of any challenge that comes along. At the same time, the error messages should be easy to decipher for your customer success team to ultimately address the queries.
How secure are the integrations?
Undoubtedly, security of your HRIS API integration is critical to your business operations. Thus, choose a unified API provider which is security-first. Gauge the level of encryption it offers, We have already talked about authentication. Don’t forget to check for security protocols, certifications and compliances which are adhered by the unified API for maximum resilience.
Knit: Unified HRIS API
Knit is a unified HRIS API provider that enables companies to implement native HRIS integrations to streamline and optimize HR processes. When you integrate with Knit, you get:
- One unified API to connect with all HRIS tools you need
- Single unified data model for seamless data normalization and exchange
- Compliance to the highest security standards like SOC2, GDPR, ISO27001, HIPAA
- Option to authenticate the way you want, including, OAuth, API key or a username-password based authentication
- 100% webhooks architecture that send out notification whenever updated data is available
- Guaranteed scalability and delivery of HR data irrespective of data load
- High level of security as Knit doesn’t store a copy of your data
- Option to read and write data from any app from any HRIS category
- Option to limit data sync and API calls to only what you need
- Double encryption when in transit and when at rest with addition PII layer
- Detailed Logs, Issues, Integrated Accounts and Syncs page to easily monitor HRIS integrations
- Custom fields to manage any non-standard HRIS data
Knit, as a unified HRIS API ensures a high ROI for companies which seek to integrate their diverse HRIS applications to make their HR processes effective, without sinking their organizational budgets.
Wrapping up: TL:DR
To conclude, it is quite evident that HRIS integration is a must have for any growing HR team which is looking to work with several HR tools to manage different parts of the process. However, building and managing integrations in-house can be quite intensive in terms of investments and engineering team involvement. Fortunately, with a unified HRIS API, companies only need to integrate once with a unified API key and connect with all HRIS applications, with high levels of security, guaranteed scalability, seamless data normalization, integration management and real time sync.
Product
Jan 6, 2024
Understanding Payroll API Integration: The Complete Guide
11
mins
If you are looking to integrate multiple HRIS, payroll and ATS apps with a single API key, check out Knit API. If you are looking to learn more about key payroll API concepts, data models and use cases, keep reading
As the nature of employment is constantly changing with dynamic employee benefit expectations, organizational payroll is seeing constant transformation. At the same time, payroll data is no longer used only for paying employees, but is increasingly being employed for a variety of other purposes.
This diversification and added complexities of payroll has given rise to payroll APIs which are integral in bringing together the employment ecosystem for businesses to facilitate smooth transactions.
What are payroll APIs?
Like all other APIs or application programming interfaces, payroll APIs help companies integrate their different applications or platforms that they use to manage employee payment details together for a robust payroll system.
Essentially, it enables organizations to bring together details related to salary, benefits, payment schedule etc. and run this data seamlessly to ensure that all employees are compensated correctly and on time, facilitating greater satisfaction and motivation, while preventing any financial challenges for the company.
Payroll concepts and information
To build or use any payroll API or HRIS integration, it is important that you understand the key payroll concepts and the information you will need to collect for effective execution. Since payroll APIs are domain specific, lack of knowledge of these concepts will make the process of integration complicated and slow. Thus, here is a quick list of concepts to get started.
1. Frequency and repetition
The first concept you should start with focuses on understanding the frequency and repetition of payments. There are multiple layers to understand here.
First, understand the frequency. In technical terms, it is called pay period. This refers to the number of times a payment is made within a specific period. For instance, it could be monthly, twice in a month, four times a month, etc. Essentially, it is how many times a payment is made within a particular period.
Second, is the repetition, also known as payroll runs. Within an organization, some employees are paid on a regular basis, while others might receive a one-time payment for specific projects. A payroll run defines whether or not the payment is recurring. Your payroll run will also constitute a status to help understand whether or not the payment has been made. In case the payment is being calculated, the status will likely be unprocessed. However, once it is complete, the status will change to paid or whatever nomenclature you use.
2. Pay scale and in-hand pay
As a part of the payroll concepts, it is extremely important for you to understand terms like pay scale, in-hand pay, compensation, pay rate, deduction, reimbursements, etc. We’ll take them one at a time.
Pay scale/ Pay rate
A pay scale or pay rate determines the amount of salary that is due to an employee based on their level of experience, job role, title, tenure with the organization, etc.
A pay scale or a pay rate can be in the form of an hourly or weekly or even a monthly figure, say INR xx per week or INR yy per hour. It may differ for people with similar experience at the same level, based on their tenure with the company, skills and competencies, etc.
Compensation
Based on the pay scale or pay rate, a company can calculate the compensation due to any employee. Generally, the math for compensation isn’t linear. Compensation is also referred to as the gross pay which includes the pay rate multiplied by the time period that the employee has worked for along with other benefits like bonuses and commissions that might be due to the employee, based on their terms of employment.
For instance, some organizations provide a one-time joining bonus, while others have sales incentives for their employees. All of these form a part of the compensation or gross pay.
Benefits
In addition to the benefits mentioned above, an employee might be eligible for others including a health cover, leave-travel allowance, mental wellness allowance etc. These all together add up to benefits that an employee receives over and above the pay rate.
Deductions
Within the compensation or the gross pay are parts of deductions, which are not directly paid to the employees. These deductions differ across countries and regions and even based on the size of the company.
For instance, in India, companies have to deduct PF from the employee’s gross pay which is given to them at the time of retirement. However, if an organization is smaller than 20 people, this compliance doesn’t come into existence. At the same time, based on the pay scale and pay rate, there are tax deductions which are due.
In-hand pay
The in-hand pay is essentially the amount an employee receives after addition of all due payment and subtraction of the aforementioned deductions. This is the payment that the employee receives in his/ her bank account.
Reimbursements
Another concept within the payroll is reimbursements. There might be some expenses that an employee undertakes based on the requirements of the job, which are not a part of the gross pay. For instance, an employee takes out a client for dinner or is traveling for company work. In such cases, the expenses borne by the employee are compensated to the employee. Reimbursements are generally direct and don’t incur any tax deductions.
3. Cost to employer
The above concepts together add up to the cost to the employer. This refers to how much an employee essentially costs to a company, including all the direct and indirect payments made to them. The calculation starts with the pay scale or pay rate to which other aspects like contribution to benefits and em
Payroll data models/ data schemas
Now that you have an understanding of the major payroll concepts, you also need to be aware about the key data or information that you will need to comprehend to work on payroll APIs.
Essentially, there are two types of data models that are most used in payroll APIs. One focuses on the employees and the other on the overall organization or company.
Employee details
From an employee standpoint, any payroll API will need to have the following details:
Location
The part of the world where the employee resides. You need to capture not only the present but also the permanent address of the employee.
Profile
Employee profile refers to a basic biography of the concerned person which includes their educational backgrounds, qualifications, experience, areas of expertise, etc. These will help you understand which pay scale they will fit into and define the compensation in a better way. It is equally important to get their personal details like date of birth, medical history, etc.
ID
An employee ID will help you give a unique identifier to each employee and ensure all payments are made correctly. There might be instances where two or more employees share the same name or other details. An employee ID will help differentiate the two and process their payrolls correctly.
Dependents
Information on dependents like elderly parents, spouses and children will help you get a better picture of the employee’s family. This is important from a social security and medicare perspective that is often extended to dependents of employees.
Company details
When it comes to company details, working with a payroll API, you need to have a fair understanding of the organizational structure. The idea is to understand the hierarchy within the organization, the different teams as well as to get manager details for each employee.
A simple use case includes reimbursements. Generally, reimbursements require an approval from the direct reporting manager. Having this information can make your payroll API work effectively.
Top payroll API use cases
Invariably, a payroll API can help you integrate different information related to an employee’s payroll and ensure a smooth payment process. However, it is interesting to note that many SaaS companies are now utilizing this payroll data collected from payroll APIs with HRIS integration to power their operations. Some of the top payroll API use cases include:
1. Insurance and lending
Often, information about payroll and income for individuals is siloed and insurance and lending companies have to navigate through dozens of documents to determine whether or not the individual is eligible for any kind of insurance or loans. Fortunately, with payroll APIs, this becomes easy by enabling several benefits.
- First, payroll API can help lenders or insurance agents with streamlined information on whether or not the person has the ability to pay the installments or loans.
- Second, any kind of lending also requires a background verification which payroll APIs with HRIS integration can easily provide. Thus, with payroll APIs, SaaS based insurance and lending companies can easily process verification and loan underwriting.
2. Accounting
Accounting and tax management companies have for long struggled with manual paperwork to file company taxes which comply with the national and regional norms. With payroll API, SaaS based accounting firms find it extremely easy to access all employee related tax information at one place. They can see the benefits offered to different employees, overall compensation, reimbursements and all other payroll related technicalities which were earlier siloed.
Armed with this data, courtesy payroll APIs, accounting firms find their work has been highly streamlined as they no longer have to manually document all information and then work to verify its accuracy and compliance.
3. Employee benefit companies
There are several SaaS companies today that are helping businesses set up their benefits plans and services for high levels of employee satisfaction. These employee benefits companies can take help of data from payroll APIs to help businesses customize their benefits packages to best suit employee expectations and trends.
For instance, you might want to have different benefits for full-time versus contractual employees. With payroll API data, employee benefit companies can help businesses make financially prudent decisions for employee benefits.
4. Performance management systems
The recent years have seen a rise in the adoption of performance management systems which can help businesses adopt practices for better employee performance. Armed with HRIS and payroll API data from different companies, these companies can identify motivators in payroll for better performance and even help identify rate of absenteeism and causes of poor performance.
Such SaaS based companies use payroll APIs to understand which pay scale employees take more time off, what their benefits look like and how this gap can be bridge to facilitate better performance. Invariably, here, payroll data can help streamline performance management from a benefits, incentives and compensation standpoint.As well as, it makes HRIS data makes it a one click process to gather all relevant employee information.
5. Consumer fintech companies
Consumer fintech companies, like those in direct deposit switching, are increasingly leveraging payroll APIs to facilitate their operations. Payroll API integrations allow consumers to directly route their deposits through their payroll with direct deposit switching. The account receiving the deposit is directly linked to the employee’s payroll account, making it easy for consumer fintech companies to increase their transactions, without manual intervention which increases friction and reduces overall value.
5. Commercial insurance
Finally, there are SaaS companies that deal with commercial insurance for companies for different purposes. Be it health or any other, payroll API data can help them get a realistic picture of the company’s people posture and their payroll information which can help these commercial insurance companies suggest the best plans for them as well as ensure that the employees are able to make the payments. They can achieve all of this without having to manually process data for all employees across the organization.
Payroll fragmentation challenges
Research shows that the payroll market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% between 2022 and 2031, reaching $55.69 billion by 2031.
While the growth is promising, the payroll market is extremely fragmented. Undoubtedly, there are a few players like ADP RUN, Workday, etc. which have a significant market share. However, the top 10 players in the space constitute only about 55%-60% share, which clearly illustrates the presence of multiple other smaller companies. In fact, as you go down from the top 2-3 to the top 10, the market share for individual applications dwindles down to 1% each.
Here is a quick snapshot of the payroll market segmentation to help understand its fragmented nature and the need for a unified solution to make sense of payroll APIs.
Before moving on to how payroll fragmentation can be addressed with a unified solution, it is important to understand why this fragmentation exists. The top reasons include:
Changing and diverse employee demographics
First, different businesses have different demographics and industries that they cater to. Irrespective of the features, each business is looking for a payroll solution that provides them with the best pricing based on their number of employees and employment terms. While some might have a large number of full time salaried employees, others might have a large number of contractual workers, while the third kind might have a balanced mix of both. These diverse demographic requirements have given birth to different payroll applications, fragmenting the market.
Dynamic market conditions
Next, it is important to understand that market conditions and employment terms are constantly in flux.
- On one hand, the compensation and benefits expectations are continually changing.
- On the other hand, with the rise of remote and hybrid work, employment models are undergoing transformation.
Therefore, as businesses need new and fresh approaches to deal with their payroll requirements, a consequent rise of fragmentation can be observed.
New and tech enabled solutions
Finally, organizations are increasingly adopting white labeled or embedded payroll solutions which enable them to either brand the solutions with their name or embed the API into their existing product. This is enabling market players in other verticals to also enter the payroll market, which further adds to the fragmentation.
- On one hand, there are completely new SaaS players entering the market to address new business needs and changing market conditions.
- On the other hand, existing players from other verticals are adding to their capabilities to address payroll requirements.
Unified API for payroll integration
With so many payroll applications in the market for HRMS integration, it can be extremely daunting for businesses to make sense of all payroll related data. At the same time, it is difficult to manage data exchange between different payroll applications you might be using. Therefore, a unified payroll API can help make the process easy.
Data normalization
First, the data needs to be normalized. This means that your unified payroll API will normalize and funnel data from all payroll providers about each employee into a consistent, predictable and easy to understand data format or syntax, which can be used.
Data management
Second, a unified API will help you manage all employee payroll data in the form of unified logs with an API key to ensure that you can easily retrieve the data as and when needed.
Make informed decisions
Finally, a unified payroll API can help ensure that you are able to make sense of the payroll data and make informed decisions during financial planning and analysis on factors like pay equity, financial prudence, etc.
Payroll API data with Knit
As a unified payroll API, Knit can help you easily get access to the following payroll data from different payroll applications that you might be using to facilitate seamless payment processing and payroll planning for the next financial year.
Employee Profile
Seamlessly retrieve all employee data like first name, last name, unique ID, date of birth, work email, start date, termination data in case of former employees, marital data and employment type.
Employee Organizational Structure
Hierarchical data for the employee, including information on the employee’s title and designation, department, manager details, subordinates or those who report to the employee, etc.
Employee Dependents
Details about the family members of the employees including children, spouse and parents. The information includes name, relation, date of birth and other specific data points which can be useful when you are negotiating insurance and other benefits with third party companies.
Employee Location
Information on where the employee currently resides, specific address as well as the permanent address for the employee.
Employee payroll
All kinds of details about the compensation for the employee, including gross pay, net pay, benefits and other earnings like commissions, bonuses, employee contributions to benefits, employer contributions, taxes and other deductions, reimbursements, etc.
Wrapping up: TL:DR
Overall, if you observe it is very clear that increasingly, the payroll market is becoming more and more fragmented. Invariably, it is becoming extremely difficult for businesses using multiple payroll applications to normalize all data to facilitate understanding and exchange. To make sense of payroll APIs, you need to first acquaint yourself with the key payroll concepts like pay period, payroll run, compensation, in-hand pay, gross pay, reimbursements, benefits and deductions, etc.
Once you understand these, you will agree that a payroll API can make the payment process seamless by helping in employee onboarding and payroll integration, management of reimbursements, administration of benefits and easy deductions, tax and net pay management, accounting and financial planning, among others.
Increasingly, data from payroll APIs is also enabling other SaaS companies to power their operations, especially in the finance and fintech space. If you look closely, lending, insurance, portfolio management, etc. have become very streamlined, automated with a reduced reliance on manual process. At the same time, HR management has also become simplified, especially across performance management. Payroll data can help performance management companies help businesses identify the right incentive structure to motivate high performance.
However, with increasing fragmentation, a unified payroll API can help businesses easily extract salary information, data on benefits and deductions and records about how and when the employees have been paid along with tax related information from a single source. Thus, if you are adopting payroll API, look out for data normalization and data management for maximum business effectiveness.
Product
Jan 8, 2024
Everything you need to know about HRIS API Integration
11
mins
As organizations grow in revenue and people strength, a lot of data comes into existence that needs to be managed well for business success. With more people being onboarded, most HR teams struggle to manage all processes, especially where employee data is concerned.
Invariably, different HR tools and software or HRIS (Human Resources Information Software) get adopted to automate certain parts of the workflow.
Research shows that larger companies with over 500 employees often choose HRIS to consolidate systems.
With the increasing number of HR tools and overall use cases, organizations need to integrate these software with one another and their core application to ensure seamless flow of information. Here, HRIS integration plays a major role.
This article seeks to provide a complete understanding on HRIS API integration, focusing on different concepts, data models, use cases and how to achieve it in the most efficient and effective way.
Key Concepts
Here are some of the key concepts or terminologies you should understand before moving onto more details on the applications, use cases, etc.
Directory
Directory platforms essentially are the single source of truth for all employees, especially the new joiners. It ensures that when an employee joins, they have access to all the resources, tools and software they need. Employees can leverage the Directory to familiarize themselves with different aspects of the organization.
Payroll
Payroll refers to everything related to the compensation aspect for employees. It helps companies calculate the salary due to employees at the end of every month, taxes, benefits, etc. It ensures that employees are accurately compensated based on their agreements, while also complying with statutory laws and policies.
Benefits
In most structured organizations, employees are entitled to additional benefits beyond the compensation. This includes health insurance, accidental insurance, retirement plans, provident fund (India), paid time off, etc. All these come under the benefits section of an employment contract and need to be carefully monitored.
Recruitment, retention and retirement
Any HRIS API that you come across will address all or some aspects of the employee lifecycle. Here, you should understand the basics of recruitment, which involves attracting and hiring the best talent for your open roles, retention, which focuses on ensuring that you are able to prevent attrition and turnover for your employees by facilitating the right culture, fair pay, etc. and finally, retirement or exit, either due to completion of tenure, age or any other reason.
Learning and development
Another concept that requires attention is learning and development. It caters to understanding the learning and training needs for your employees, both hard and soft skills and adequately providing the right upskilling opportunities for professional success.
HRIS Integration: Top Use Cases
Let’s quickly understand how HRIS integration across HR software and tools leads to an exemplary employee experience as well as facilitates operational efficiency for HR teams. Most of the use cases of HRIS integration follow the read and write HRIS APIs which ensure automatic syncing of data between the HRIS platforms and allied applications. Put simply, manually entry of data across applications and updates can be prone to human errors. However, even a single inaccuracy in updating data can lead to serious consequences, including faulty payroll creation, absence tracking, etc. Furthermore, manual data entry might lead to unauthorized data access, especially for sensitive employee information. Here’s a quick snapshot of how HRIS integration can be used across different scenarios.
HRIS integration for ATS tools
ATS or applicant tracking system can leverage HRIS integration to ensure that all important and relevant details about new employees, including name, contact information, demographic and educational backgrounds, etc. are automatically updated into the customer’s preferred HRIS tool without the need to manually entering data, which can lead to inaccuracies and is operationally taxing. ATS tools leverage the write HRIS API and provide data to the HR tools in use.
Examples: Greenhouse Software, Workable, BambooHR, Lever, Zoho
HRIS integration for payroll software
Payroll software plays an integral role in any company’s HR processes. It focuses on ensuring that everything related to payroll and compensation for employees is accurate and up to date. HRIS integration with payroll software enables the latter to get automated and real time access to employee data including time off, work schedule, shifts undertaken, payments made on behalf of the company, etc.
At the same time, it gets access to employee data on bank details, tax slabs, etc. Together, this enables the payroll software to deliver accurate payslips to its customers, regarding the latter’s employees. With automated integration, data sync can be prone to errors, which can lead to faulty compensation disbursal and many compliance challenges. HRIS integration, when done right, can alert the payroll software with any new addition to the employee database in real time to ensure setting up of their payroll immediately. At the same time, once payslips are made and salaries are disbursed, payroll software can leverage HRIS integration to write back this data into the HR software for records.
Examples: Gusto, RUN Powered by ADP, Paylocity, Rippling
HRIS integration for employee onboarding/ offboarding software
Employee onboarding software uses HRIS integration to ensure a smooth onboarding process, free of administrative challenges. Onboarding tools leverage the read HRIS APIs to get access to all the data for new employees to set up their accounts across different platforms, set up payroll, get access to bank details, benefits, etc. With HRIS integrations, employee onboarding software can provide their clients with automated onboarding support without the need to manually retrieve data for each new joiner to set up their systems and accounts. Furthermore, HRIS integration also ensures that when an employee leaves an organization, the update is automatically communicated to the onboarding software to push deprovisioning of the systems, and services. This also ensures that access to any tools, files, or any other confidential access is terminated. Manually deprovisioning access can lead to some manual errors, and even cause delays in exit formalities.
Examples: Deel, Savvy, Sappling
Ease of communication and announcements
With the right HRIS integration, HR teams can integrate all relevant data and send out communication and key announcements in a centralized manner. HRIS integrations ensure that the announcements reach all employees on the correct contact information without the need for HR teams to individually communicate the needful.
HRIS integration for LMS tools
LMS tools leverage both the read and write HRIS APIs. On the one hand, they read or get access to all relevant employee data including roles, organizational structure, skills demand, competencies, etc. from the HRIS tool being used. Based on this data, they curate personalized learning and training modules for employees for effective upskilling. Once the training is administered, the LMS tools again leverage HRIS integrations to write data back into the HRIS platform with the status of the training, including whether or not the employee has completed the same, how did they perform, updating new certifications, etc. Such integration ensures that all learning modules align well with employee data and profiles, as well as all training are captured to enhance the employee’s portfolio.
Example: TalentLMS, 360Learning, Docebo, Google Classroom
HRIS integration for workforce management and scheduling tools
Similar to LMS, workforce management and scheduling tools utilize both read and write HRIS APIs. The consolidated data and employee profile, detailing their competencies and training undertaken can help workforce management tools suggest the best delegation of work for companies, leading to resource optimization. On the other hand, scheduling tools can feed data automatically with HRIS integration into HR tools about the number of hours employees have worked, their time off, free bandwidth for allocation, shift schedules etc. HRIS integration can help easily sync employee work schedules and roster data to get a clear picture of each employee’s schedule and contribution.
Examples: QuickBooks Time, When I Work
HRIS integration for benefits administration tools
HRIS integration for benefits administration tools ensures that employees are provided with the benefits accurately, customized to their contribution and set parameters in the organization. Benefits administration tools can automatically connect with the employee data and records of their customers to understand the benefits they are eligible for based on the organizational structure, employment type, etc. They can read employee data to determine the benefits that employees are entitled to. Furthermore, based on employee data, they feed relevant information back into the HR software, which can further be leveraged by payroll software used by the customers to ensure accurate payslip creation.
Examples: TriNet Zenefits, Rippling, PeopleKeep, Ceridian Dayforce
HRIS integration for workforce planning tools
Workforce planning tools essentially help companies identify the gap in their talent pipeline to create strategic recruitment plans. They help understand the current capabilities to determine future hiring needs. HRIS integration with such tools can help automatically sync the current employee data, with a focus on organizational structure, key competencies, training offered, etc. Such insights can help workforce planning tools accurately manage talent demands for any organization. At the same time, real time sync with data from HR tools ensures that workforce planning can be updated in real time.
Examples: ClearCompany, Deel, ActivTrak
HRIS API Data Models
The different HRIS tools you use are bound to come with different data models or fields which will capture data for exchange between applications. It is important for HR professionals and those building and managing these integrations to understand these data models, especially to ensure normalization and transformation of data when it moves from one application to another.
Employees/ Employee Profiles
This includes details of all employees whether full time or contractual, including first and last name, contact details, date of birth, email ID, etc. At the same time, it covers other details on demographics and employment history including status, start date, marital status, gender, etc. In case of a former employee, this field also captures termination date.
Employee Contact Details
This includes personal details of the employee, including personal phone number, address, etc. which can be used to contact employees beyond work contact information.
Employee Profile Picture
Employee profile picture object or data model captures the profile picture of the employees that can be used across employee records and purposes.
Employment Type
The next data model in discussion focuses on the type or the nature of employment. An organization can hire full time employees, contractual workers, gig workers, volunteers, etc. This distinction in employment type helps differentiate between payroll specifications, taxation rules, benefits, etc.
Location
Location object or data model refers to the geographical area for the employee. Here, both the work location as well as the residential or native/ home location of the employee is captured. This field captures address, country, zip code, etc.
Leave Request
Leave request data model focuses on capturing all the time off or leave of absence entries made by the employee. It includes detailing the nature of leave, time period, status, reason, etc.
Leave Balance
Each employee, based on their nature of employment, is entitled to certain time off in a year. The leave balance object helps organizations keep a track of the remaining balance of leave of absence left with the employee. With this, organizations can ensure accurate payroll, benefits and compensation.
Attendance
This data model captures the attendance of employees, including fields like time in, time out, number of working hours, shift timing, status, break time, etc.
Organizational Structure
Each organization has a hierarchical structure or layers which depict an employee’s position in the whole scheme of things. The organizational structure object helps understand an employee’s designation, department, manager (s), direct reportees, etc.
Bank Details
This data model focuses on capturing the bank details of the employee, along with other financial details like a linked account for transfer of salary and other benefits that the employee is entitled to. In addition, it captures routing information like Swift Code, IFSC Code, Branch Code, etc.
Dependents
Dependents object focuses on the family members of an employee or individuals who the employee has confirmed as dependents for purposes of insurance, family details, etc. This also includes details of employees’ dependents including their date of birth, relation to the employee, among others.
KYC
This includes the background verification and other details about an employee with some identification proof and KYC (know your customer) documents. This is essential for companies to ensure their employees are well meaning citizens of the country meeting all compliances to work in that location. It captures details like Aadhar Number, PAN Number or unique identification number for the KYC document.
Compensation
This data model captures all details related to compensation for an employee, including total compensation/ cost to company, compensation split, salary in hand, etc. It also includes details on fixed compensation, variable pay as well as stock options. Compensation object also captures the frequency of salary payment, pay period, etc.
Unified HRIS API Integration: Get Started
By now, it would be clear to you that there are several HRIS tools in the market today that companies use and need to integrate with one another to ensure smooth exchange of data and consistency in records across platforms. However, manually implementing integrations between APIs of individual platforms can be extremely time consuming and resource intensive. In such a case, you can rely on a unified API like Knit, which gives you a single HRIS API to integrate with. Once you integrate with the HRIS API, you automatically get integrated with all the HR platforms you use.
Before moving on to the best practices to choose the right Unified HRIS API integration platform, here are some quick reasons why you should choose one:
- Requires integration with a common unified API to connect with a plethora of HRIS software used by different customers
- Supports common integration logic, endpoints, pagination which is easy to understand
- Normalizes and transforms data into a unified data model with possibility of having custom fields for smooth data sync
- Can facilitate real time data sync between the application offered and HRIS software with instant alerts
- Tales care of integration maintenance and management with logging and error detection
- Significantly lower cost and time requirements, ability to integrate with multiple HRIS platforms within days to a few weeks
- Common documentation and need to understand only one API than toggling between documentation of all HRIS APIs
- Need to deal with only one form of authentication, rate limits, pagination, etc.
Here are some points that you should always consider while choosing the right unified HRIS API for your company:
Understand the documentation
Start by gauging whether or not the unified API provides comprehensive and easy to understand documentation for integration. One of the key reasons to choose a unified API is to prevent the effort of navigating through individual documentation for each integration you need. Therefore, getting the right documentation, which covers everything you need is important. The documentation will also help you understand the integration logic being followed, including REST vs SOAP, and end points like GET, POST, and PATCH, provision of free sandbox, etc.
Which authentication model is followed?
Next, understand the authentication model that the unified API provides. Essentially, there are a few major types of authentication, including,
- Basic Auth that requires an API key or password for access
- OAuth 2.0 which relies on token exchanges
- Username-password based authentication
The right authentication and authorization is important since it will directly impact the privacy and security of the data you exchange between integrations.
What are the rate limits?
Rate limits are simply the number of API requests that can be made in a defined period of time. They are generally set to prevent cyber attacks like DDoS attacks which come in the form of exponential unleashing of API requests. Having a lower threshold of rate limit, but with expected high rate of requests can lead to unexpected unified API behavior. Ensure that your unified API provider can customize rate limits to address your and your customer needs.
Do you get post integration support?
HRIS API integration doesn’t end with building the integrations. There is a lot which goes on once the integrations are under use. There can be errors in data transformation, zombie APIs, API keys breaking or expiring, bad data being returned, long running syncs, troubleshooting challenges, and more. Your unified API needs to provide you with exceptional maintenance and management support, taking care of any challenge that comes along. At the same time, the error messages should be easy to decipher for your customer success team to ultimately address the queries.
How secure are the integrations?
Undoubtedly, security of your HRIS API integration is critical to your business operations. Thus, choose a unified API provider which is security-first. Gauge the level of encryption it offers, We have already talked about authentication. Don’t forget to check for security protocols, certifications and compliances which are adhered by the unified API for maximum resilience.
Knit: Unified HRIS API
Knit is a unified HRIS API provider that enables companies to implement native HRIS integrations to streamline and optimize HR processes. When you integrate with Knit, you get:
- One unified API to connect with all HRIS tools you need
- Single unified data model for seamless data normalization and exchange
- Compliance to the highest security standards like SOC2, GDPR, ISO27001, HIPAA
- Option to authenticate the way you want, including, OAuth, API key or a username-password based authentication
- 100% webhooks architecture that send out notification whenever updated data is available
- Guaranteed scalability and delivery of HR data irrespective of data load
- High level of security as Knit doesn’t store a copy of your data
- Option to read and write data from any app from any HRIS category
- Option to limit data sync and API calls to only what you need
- Double encryption when in transit and when at rest with addition PII layer
- Detailed Logs, Issues, Integrated Accounts and Syncs page to easily monitor HRIS integrations
- Custom fields to manage any non-standard HRIS data
Knit, as a unified HRIS API ensures a high ROI for companies which seek to integrate their diverse HRIS applications to make their HR processes effective, without sinking their organizational budgets.
Wrapping up: TL:DR
To conclude, it is quite evident that HRIS integration is a must have for any growing HR team which is looking to work with several HR tools to manage different parts of the process. However, building and managing integrations in-house can be quite intensive in terms of investments and engineering team involvement. Fortunately, with a unified HRIS API, companies only need to integrate once with a unified API key and connect with all HRIS applications, with high levels of security, guaranteed scalability, seamless data normalization, integration management and real time sync.
Product
Jan 6, 2024
Understanding Payroll API Integration: The Complete Guide
11
mins
If you are looking to integrate multiple HRIS, payroll and ATS apps with a single API key, check out Knit API. If you are looking to learn more about key payroll API concepts, data models and use cases, keep reading
As the nature of employment is constantly changing with dynamic employee benefit expectations, organizational payroll is seeing constant transformation. At the same time, payroll data is no longer used only for paying employees, but is increasingly being employed for a variety of other purposes.
This diversification and added complexities of payroll has given rise to payroll APIs which are integral in bringing together the employment ecosystem for businesses to facilitate smooth transactions.
What are payroll APIs?
Like all other APIs or application programming interfaces, payroll APIs help companies integrate their different applications or platforms that they use to manage employee payment details together for a robust payroll system.
Essentially, it enables organizations to bring together details related to salary, benefits, payment schedule etc. and run this data seamlessly to ensure that all employees are compensated correctly and on time, facilitating greater satisfaction and motivation, while preventing any financial challenges for the company.
Payroll concepts and information
To build or use any payroll API or HRIS integration, it is important that you understand the key payroll concepts and the information you will need to collect for effective execution. Since payroll APIs are domain specific, lack of knowledge of these concepts will make the process of integration complicated and slow. Thus, here is a quick list of concepts to get started.
1. Frequency and repetition
The first concept you should start with focuses on understanding the frequency and repetition of payments. There are multiple layers to understand here.
First, understand the frequency. In technical terms, it is called pay period. This refers to the number of times a payment is made within a specific period. For instance, it could be monthly, twice in a month, four times a month, etc. Essentially, it is how many times a payment is made within a particular period.
Second, is the repetition, also known as payroll runs. Within an organization, some employees are paid on a regular basis, while others might receive a one-time payment for specific projects. A payroll run defines whether or not the payment is recurring. Your payroll run will also constitute a status to help understand whether or not the payment has been made. In case the payment is being calculated, the status will likely be unprocessed. However, once it is complete, the status will change to paid or whatever nomenclature you use.
2. Pay scale and in-hand pay
As a part of the payroll concepts, it is extremely important for you to understand terms like pay scale, in-hand pay, compensation, pay rate, deduction, reimbursements, etc. We’ll take them one at a time.
Pay scale/ Pay rate
A pay scale or pay rate determines the amount of salary that is due to an employee based on their level of experience, job role, title, tenure with the organization, etc.
A pay scale or a pay rate can be in the form of an hourly or weekly or even a monthly figure, say INR xx per week or INR yy per hour. It may differ for people with similar experience at the same level, based on their tenure with the company, skills and competencies, etc.
Compensation
Based on the pay scale or pay rate, a company can calculate the compensation due to any employee. Generally, the math for compensation isn’t linear. Compensation is also referred to as the gross pay which includes the pay rate multiplied by the time period that the employee has worked for along with other benefits like bonuses and commissions that might be due to the employee, based on their terms of employment.
For instance, some organizations provide a one-time joining bonus, while others have sales incentives for their employees. All of these form a part of the compensation or gross pay.
Benefits
In addition to the benefits mentioned above, an employee might be eligible for others including a health cover, leave-travel allowance, mental wellness allowance etc. These all together add up to benefits that an employee receives over and above the pay rate.
Deductions
Within the compensation or the gross pay are parts of deductions, which are not directly paid to the employees. These deductions differ across countries and regions and even based on the size of the company.
For instance, in India, companies have to deduct PF from the employee’s gross pay which is given to them at the time of retirement. However, if an organization is smaller than 20 people, this compliance doesn’t come into existence. At the same time, based on the pay scale and pay rate, there are tax deductions which are due.
In-hand pay
The in-hand pay is essentially the amount an employee receives after addition of all due payment and subtraction of the aforementioned deductions. This is the payment that the employee receives in his/ her bank account.
Reimbursements
Another concept within the payroll is reimbursements. There might be some expenses that an employee undertakes based on the requirements of the job, which are not a part of the gross pay. For instance, an employee takes out a client for dinner or is traveling for company work. In such cases, the expenses borne by the employee are compensated to the employee. Reimbursements are generally direct and don’t incur any tax deductions.
3. Cost to employer
The above concepts together add up to the cost to the employer. This refers to how much an employee essentially costs to a company, including all the direct and indirect payments made to them. The calculation starts with the pay scale or pay rate to which other aspects like contribution to benefits and em
Payroll data models/ data schemas
Now that you have an understanding of the major payroll concepts, you also need to be aware about the key data or information that you will need to comprehend to work on payroll APIs.
Essentially, there are two types of data models that are most used in payroll APIs. One focuses on the employees and the other on the overall organization or company.
Employee details
From an employee standpoint, any payroll API will need to have the following details:
Location
The part of the world where the employee resides. You need to capture not only the present but also the permanent address of the employee.
Profile
Employee profile refers to a basic biography of the concerned person which includes their educational backgrounds, qualifications, experience, areas of expertise, etc. These will help you understand which pay scale they will fit into and define the compensation in a better way. It is equally important to get their personal details like date of birth, medical history, etc.
ID
An employee ID will help you give a unique identifier to each employee and ensure all payments are made correctly. There might be instances where two or more employees share the same name or other details. An employee ID will help differentiate the two and process their payrolls correctly.
Dependents
Information on dependents like elderly parents, spouses and children will help you get a better picture of the employee’s family. This is important from a social security and medicare perspective that is often extended to dependents of employees.
Company details
When it comes to company details, working with a payroll API, you need to have a fair understanding of the organizational structure. The idea is to understand the hierarchy within the organization, the different teams as well as to get manager details for each employee.
A simple use case includes reimbursements. Generally, reimbursements require an approval from the direct reporting manager. Having this information can make your payroll API work effectively.
Top payroll API use cases
Invariably, a payroll API can help you integrate different information related to an employee’s payroll and ensure a smooth payment process. However, it is interesting to note that many SaaS companies are now utilizing this payroll data collected from payroll APIs with HRIS integration to power their operations. Some of the top payroll API use cases include:
1. Insurance and lending
Often, information about payroll and income for individuals is siloed and insurance and lending companies have to navigate through dozens of documents to determine whether or not the individual is eligible for any kind of insurance or loans. Fortunately, with payroll APIs, this becomes easy by enabling several benefits.
- First, payroll API can help lenders or insurance agents with streamlined information on whether or not the person has the ability to pay the installments or loans.
- Second, any kind of lending also requires a background verification which payroll APIs with HRIS integration can easily provide. Thus, with payroll APIs, SaaS based insurance and lending companies can easily process verification and loan underwriting.
2. Accounting
Accounting and tax management companies have for long struggled with manual paperwork to file company taxes which comply with the national and regional norms. With payroll API, SaaS based accounting firms find it extremely easy to access all employee related tax information at one place. They can see the benefits offered to different employees, overall compensation, reimbursements and all other payroll related technicalities which were earlier siloed.
Armed with this data, courtesy payroll APIs, accounting firms find their work has been highly streamlined as they no longer have to manually document all information and then work to verify its accuracy and compliance.
3. Employee benefit companies
There are several SaaS companies today that are helping businesses set up their benefits plans and services for high levels of employee satisfaction. These employee benefits companies can take help of data from payroll APIs to help businesses customize their benefits packages to best suit employee expectations and trends.
For instance, you might want to have different benefits for full-time versus contractual employees. With payroll API data, employee benefit companies can help businesses make financially prudent decisions for employee benefits.
4. Performance management systems
The recent years have seen a rise in the adoption of performance management systems which can help businesses adopt practices for better employee performance. Armed with HRIS and payroll API data from different companies, these companies can identify motivators in payroll for better performance and even help identify rate of absenteeism and causes of poor performance.
Such SaaS based companies use payroll APIs to understand which pay scale employees take more time off, what their benefits look like and how this gap can be bridge to facilitate better performance. Invariably, here, payroll data can help streamline performance management from a benefits, incentives and compensation standpoint.As well as, it makes HRIS data makes it a one click process to gather all relevant employee information.
5. Consumer fintech companies
Consumer fintech companies, like those in direct deposit switching, are increasingly leveraging payroll APIs to facilitate their operations. Payroll API integrations allow consumers to directly route their deposits through their payroll with direct deposit switching. The account receiving the deposit is directly linked to the employee’s payroll account, making it easy for consumer fintech companies to increase their transactions, without manual intervention which increases friction and reduces overall value.
5. Commercial insurance
Finally, there are SaaS companies that deal with commercial insurance for companies for different purposes. Be it health or any other, payroll API data can help them get a realistic picture of the company’s people posture and their payroll information which can help these commercial insurance companies suggest the best plans for them as well as ensure that the employees are able to make the payments. They can achieve all of this without having to manually process data for all employees across the organization.
Payroll fragmentation challenges
Research shows that the payroll market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% between 2022 and 2031, reaching $55.69 billion by 2031.
While the growth is promising, the payroll market is extremely fragmented. Undoubtedly, there are a few players like ADP RUN, Workday, etc. which have a significant market share. However, the top 10 players in the space constitute only about 55%-60% share, which clearly illustrates the presence of multiple other smaller companies. In fact, as you go down from the top 2-3 to the top 10, the market share for individual applications dwindles down to 1% each.
Here is a quick snapshot of the payroll market segmentation to help understand its fragmented nature and the need for a unified solution to make sense of payroll APIs.
Before moving on to how payroll fragmentation can be addressed with a unified solution, it is important to understand why this fragmentation exists. The top reasons include:
Changing and diverse employee demographics
First, different businesses have different demographics and industries that they cater to. Irrespective of the features, each business is looking for a payroll solution that provides them with the best pricing based on their number of employees and employment terms. While some might have a large number of full time salaried employees, others might have a large number of contractual workers, while the third kind might have a balanced mix of both. These diverse demographic requirements have given birth to different payroll applications, fragmenting the market.
Dynamic market conditions
Next, it is important to understand that market conditions and employment terms are constantly in flux.
- On one hand, the compensation and benefits expectations are continually changing.
- On the other hand, with the rise of remote and hybrid work, employment models are undergoing transformation.
Therefore, as businesses need new and fresh approaches to deal with their payroll requirements, a consequent rise of fragmentation can be observed.
New and tech enabled solutions
Finally, organizations are increasingly adopting white labeled or embedded payroll solutions which enable them to either brand the solutions with their name or embed the API into their existing product. This is enabling market players in other verticals to also enter the payroll market, which further adds to the fragmentation.
- On one hand, there are completely new SaaS players entering the market to address new business needs and changing market conditions.
- On the other hand, existing players from other verticals are adding to their capabilities to address payroll requirements.
Unified API for payroll integration
With so many payroll applications in the market for HRMS integration, it can be extremely daunting for businesses to make sense of all payroll related data. At the same time, it is difficult to manage data exchange between different payroll applications you might be using. Therefore, a unified payroll API can help make the process easy.
Data normalization
First, the data needs to be normalized. This means that your unified payroll API will normalize and funnel data from all payroll providers about each employee into a consistent, predictable and easy to understand data format or syntax, which can be used.
Data management
Second, a unified API will help you manage all employee payroll data in the form of unified logs with an API key to ensure that you can easily retrieve the data as and when needed.
Make informed decisions
Finally, a unified payroll API can help ensure that you are able to make sense of the payroll data and make informed decisions during financial planning and analysis on factors like pay equity, financial prudence, etc.
Payroll API data with Knit
As a unified payroll API, Knit can help you easily get access to the following payroll data from different payroll applications that you might be using to facilitate seamless payment processing and payroll planning for the next financial year.
Employee Profile
Seamlessly retrieve all employee data like first name, last name, unique ID, date of birth, work email, start date, termination data in case of former employees, marital data and employment type.
Employee Organizational Structure
Hierarchical data for the employee, including information on the employee’s title and designation, department, manager details, subordinates or those who report to the employee, etc.
Employee Dependents
Details about the family members of the employees including children, spouse and parents. The information includes name, relation, date of birth and other specific data points which can be useful when you are negotiating insurance and other benefits with third party companies.
Employee Location
Information on where the employee currently resides, specific address as well as the permanent address for the employee.
Employee payroll
All kinds of details about the compensation for the employee, including gross pay, net pay, benefits and other earnings like commissions, bonuses, employee contributions to benefits, employer contributions, taxes and other deductions, reimbursements, etc.
Wrapping up: TL:DR
Overall, if you observe it is very clear that increasingly, the payroll market is becoming more and more fragmented. Invariably, it is becoming extremely difficult for businesses using multiple payroll applications to normalize all data to facilitate understanding and exchange. To make sense of payroll APIs, you need to first acquaint yourself with the key payroll concepts like pay period, payroll run, compensation, in-hand pay, gross pay, reimbursements, benefits and deductions, etc.
Once you understand these, you will agree that a payroll API can make the payment process seamless by helping in employee onboarding and payroll integration, management of reimbursements, administration of benefits and easy deductions, tax and net pay management, accounting and financial planning, among others.
Increasingly, data from payroll APIs is also enabling other SaaS companies to power their operations, especially in the finance and fintech space. If you look closely, lending, insurance, portfolio management, etc. have become very streamlined, automated with a reduced reliance on manual process. At the same time, HR management has also become simplified, especially across performance management. Payroll data can help performance management companies help businesses identify the right incentive structure to motivate high performance.
However, with increasing fragmentation, a unified payroll API can help businesses easily extract salary information, data on benefits and deductions and records about how and when the employees have been paid along with tax related information from a single source. Thus, if you are adopting payroll API, look out for data normalization and data management for maximum business effectiveness.
Product
Nov 18, 2023
Merge API Vs Knit API - Which One is Right for You?
11
mins
In this article we will learn about Merge API, a unified API solution to help developers build native integrations with multiple 3rd party end systems in one go using the 1:many connectors provided by Merge.
We will also learn about what happens post integration - how data syncs happen on Merge API predominantly via a pull based model where Merge stores a copy of the end customer data in their servers, which could lead to end customer anxiety around security and compliance.
Finally, we will talk about how Knit API is solving for this by working on a push based model which does not require any customer data storage - helping you reduce friction with your customers and alleviate their concerns on how their data is being handled.
Let’s dive in.
What are unified APIs?
Essentially, a unified is a 1:Many API which helps developers go-live with multiple integrations within a category of SaaS with a one time effort of integrating with the unified API provided by the platform. For example, let's say an Employee Benefits platform wishes to integrate with multiple HRMS systems which its existing or potential customers use. In the absence of a unified API, the developers at the benefits platform will have to read API documentation of each HRMS, understand its data model and build the connectors 1:1. This wastes massive dev effort on a repetitive task which essentially serves the same basic purpose of syncing employee data from the customers HRMS to the benefits platform. Unified APIs save all of this effort by normalizing the data models of all the HRMS tools out there in to one common data model so the developers at the benefits platform have to work with just one connector rather than building a connector for each different HRMS tool in a 1:1 manner.
Other than building the integrations faster, unified APIs also help you maintain them in a low effort way by providing DIY integration management dashboards which your front line customer success teams can use to diagnose and fix any issues with live integrations so that your engineering team does not need to get involved every time there is a break or question around data syncs from your customers.
If you are wondering whether a unified API is a right solution for you or not, read this
Now, let us look at the components of a unified API solution.
Key components of a unified API solution
Any unified API solution has four basic components -
1. The auth component
Users of your APP use the auth component, embedded in your APP, to authenticate and authorize access to their enterprise app to your SaaS application.
2. 1:Many Connectors
1:many connectors are simply put, a common data model which abstracts the data models of all the existing applications in a category of apps so that your engineering team can work with just the one connector provided by the unified API platform rather than individually integrating with all the connectors within that category of apps. This saves massive time as your dev team does not need to understand the nuances of each and instead build your product logic on the common data model of the unified API provider.
3. Integration Management
Often the most neglected piece when teams build integrations in-house, integration management dashboards are one of the key value propositions of Unified API platforms since they help your frontline teams diagnose and fix any integration or sync issues without having to involve the engineering team each time. Think about the massive amount of time it can save in maintaining the integrations which are already built and live.
4. Data Syncs
This is probably the core of the product - getting data in from the source app to your app and writing back from your app to the source is why we build integrations. Because this is important, we will talk about this in more detail below, and along the way of understanding Merge's data sync model.
Data syncs via unified APIs
To understand how data syncs happen via unified APIs, we first need to understand that there are two parts to the process -
1. Data syncs between the source app and the unified API provider
2. Data syncs between the unified API provider and your app
Data syncs between the source app and the unified API provider
The first part of the data sync is to read data from the source APP and do something. Now, here again, there are two phases:
- The initial data sync
- Delta syncs thereafter
The initial data sync happens when your app’s user has authenticated and authorized the unified API platform to access data from the source app for the first time. This is when Merge API accesses and stores a copy of the data in its own database. This is the copy of the data that Merge API uses to serve your app, i.e., the consumer app.
Post the initial syncs, the delta syncs come into the picture. The purpose of the delta syncs is to inform the consumer app of any changes in the data, for example title, manager, or location changes for any employee if you are syncing with a source HRMS system.
Now here, depending on the source system, delta syncs could be handled via webhooks OR by periodic polling of the source app.
- When the source app supports Webhooks, like Rippling, it dispatches any delta events to Merge, which then changes its copy to reflect the new information available.
- When the source app does not support Webhooks, like Success Factors, Merge has to again read the entire data from the source app and create a fresh copy of the data by polling the source system at pre-set frequencies. Depending on the plan you have, these sync frequencies could be every 24 hours or more frequent.
The thing to note is that in both scenarios, whether or not the source app supports Webhooks, Merge API serves the consumer app via its stored copy of the data.
Concerns with a data storage first model for data syncs
A data storage based model brings with it multiple challenges. First and foremost the end customers who are authorizing your app to access their data via Merge API might not be comfortable with a third party having a copy of their data stored somewhere. Even when Merge API is SOC2 compliant, as ex-users of Merge APIs HRMS integrations for our HRTech venture, we had a segment of customers who had concerns about the handling of the data, employee data being PII, and there were also concerns about where the data is being stored (in some cases outside the customers geography).
This added unnecessary friction between us and our customers, requiring additional infosec questions and paperwork which delayed deal closures or in some cases led to deals not closing at all.
Data syncs between the unified API provider and your app
Now that the unified API provider has the data, your app must consume the data for your business logic to work. There are two main philosophies or approaches here - pull vs push.
The pull model
In a pull model, your servers are busy making calls to the data providers like HRIS, Payroll systems etc. to get data. In order to do so, you will need to create a polling infra.
If you're doing so for 10-15 batch jobs, perhaps it is manageable. But imagine doing this for hundreds, even thousands, of jobs. The problem gets harder. Further, if there is no new data to report, you just wasted your compute resources on an empty call.
The push model
Now compare this with the push model. Typically, you will be required to subscribe to certain events by registering a webhook. When the event happens, the data providers would notify you with appropriate payload on the registered destination URL.
You don't have to manage any polling infra, nor would you waste compute resources on inconsequential calls. With event driven microservices architectures on the rise, the push model is definitely easier to work with and scale vs a pull model.
Which approach does Merge API use? Pull or Push?
Here, the Merge API relies heavily on a pull-based approach (though it does provide delta webhooks, which we will talk about below). Let’s look at the three options Merge API provides to consumer apps-
1. Periodic Syncs
Here, your app is expected to periodically poll the Merge copy of the data, such as every 24 hours. What this means is that you will have to build and maintain a polling infrastructure at your end for each connected customer. This is ok if you have a small number of customers, but quickly gets difficult to maintain if you have lots of connected customers.
2. Ad-hoc Syncs
If your app wants to sync data frequently, Merge API provides an option for you to write sync functions which can pull only data which has changed since last sync using its modified_after timestamp. While this reduces the data load, it still requires the polling infrastructure we talked about in point 1.
3. Webhooks
Merge’s webhooks are again of two types - sync notifications and changed data webhooks.
Sync notification events are simply notifications to your app that something in the data has changed and expects you to start the ad-hoc sync once you receive the notification - so essentially pull. On the other hand, while it does offer the changed data webhooks, it does not guarantee scale and data delivery via these webhooks.
From Merge’s doc:
- Merge offers webhooks that deliver updated data when individual data instances are updated, but depending on the amount of user data, this will not scale well.
- Make sure to implement polling and don't rely entirely on notification webhooks. They can fail for a variety of reasons (such as downtime on your end or failed processing). Merge does attempt to redeliver multiple times using exponential backoff, but we still recommend calling your sync functions on a periodic cadence of around once every 24 hours.
So you see the problem? You will not be able to work around the need for building and maintaining a separate polling infrastructure.
Knit’s approach to data syncs
While everyone talks about security, at Knit, we actually have walked the talk by embedding security in our platform architecture.
We do NOT store a copy of the source data with us. And we have built a completely events driven architecture from the ground up, so we work only with Webhooks and deliver both the initial and delta syncs to your app via events.
So you have less compliance and convincing to do with your customers, and do not have to waste engineering resources on polling while at the same time get guaranteed scalability and delivery irrespective of the data load.
Another advantage of a true events driven architecture is that it supports real time use cases (where the source APP supports real time webhook pushes) which a polling based architecture does not.
While we will soon be covering our architecture that guarantees security, scale and resilience for event driven stream processing in more detail in a follow up post, you could read more about the basics of how Knit API functions here: Knit API Documentation
Other advantages of Knit API over Merge API
1. Auth component
Knit’s auth component offers a lot of flexibility in terms of design and styling vs what Merge API offers.
It is a Javascript SDK which is far more customizable as compared to iframe which is Merge’s choice for the frontend auth component.
So if you want to make sure that the auth component which your customers are interacting with, looks and feels similar to your own APP, Knit API might just be the right solution for you.
2. Integration Management
Knit provides deep RCA and resolution including ability to identify which records were synced, ability to rerun syncs etc. It also proactively identifies and fixes any integration issues itself.
While Merge also offers customer success dashboards, they are not as deep, so your frontline folks will have to reach out to your engineering teams more frequently. And we all know how much engineering teams enjoy maintaining integrations and going through logs to check for data sync issues rather than building cool new core product features ;)
Final Thoughts
Knit is the only unified API solution which does not store customer data, and offers a scalable, and reliable push driven data sync model for large data loads.
This has several benefits:
- Better security: Since Knit does not store any customer data, you and your customers can be confident about data security and you can close deals much faster.
- Better developer experience: Since you do not need to maintain any polling infrastructure for Knit due to its events driven architecture, your developers have lesser issues maintaining it.
- Better scalability & reliability: Even with a webhook first model, Knit guarantees data delivery and scalability irrespective of the amount of data being synced between the source and destination apps. We offer a 99.99 SLA and aiming for 99.9999 soon.
Curious to learn more about Knit? Get started today
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API Directory
Feb 26, 2024
Ceridian Dayforce API Directory
11
mins
Ceridian Dayforce API Directory
Ceridian Dayforce is an all-inclusive human capital management system that helps employers take care of all stages of an employee’s lifecycle, across HR, payroll, employee engagement, workforce management, services, etc. It is a cloud based system. Ceridian Dayforce enables businesses to unlock workforce intelligence, empower people, and manage compliance.
With the Ceridian Dayforce Connector, developers can get access to the REST API of Ceridian Dayforce HCM, to facilitate integrations across their preferred applications. With this REST API, organizations can store all information regarding their employees and retrieve it as and when the need arises.
Ceridian Dayforce API Authentication
Ceridian Dayforce API supports authentication in 2 ways. First, developers can limit and authorize access via token based authentication. In this mechanism, Ceridian Dayforce verifies the user’s identity to provide a unique access token for API access. Second, developers can leverage the basic auth connection for Ceridian Dayforce API authentication. Here, a username along with a password and API key is what users can use to facilitate API access and ensure reliable authentication. In addition, Ceridian Dayforce API comes with AES 256 encryption, to ensure that the connection’s password/ credentials are safe.
Ceridian Dayforce API Objects, Data Models & Endpoints
When working with Ceridian Dayforce API, you need to understand the data models, objects and endpoints. Here is a quick overview to get started:
Dependents
This object represents a dependent of an employee, including child, spouse, partner, etc. It contains data fields like first/last name, relationship, date of birth, gender, if the dependent is a student
Employee
This object covers all details relating to an individual or candidate who has been employed by the organization. It contains information or data fields like employee number, first/last name, preferred name, work email, personal email, groups, phone number, home/ work location, employments, manager, team, gender, marital status, employment status, start date, termination date, etc.
Employment
This object represents a job position at any company. It contains data fields like employee, job title, pay rate, pay period, pay currency, effective date, employment type, pay frequency, etc.
Group
A group is a subset in which an employee can be placed. Groups can be of multiple types, including teams, pay groups. At the same time, each employee can be a part of multiple groups. It contains data fields or information along the lines of name, type, etc.
Location
This object represents the geographical area which can be associated with an employee. The location object contains data fields including name, street number, city, zip code, country, location type, state, etc.
Team
Team as an object is a subgroup of a company like a department. Each employee is allocated to a particular team as a part of their employment.
Time Off
This object comprehensively represents time off entries for all employees to get a complete picture of attendance in the organization. It contains details like employee, status, employee note, units, amount, request type, start time, end time, etc.
Time Off Balance
This object represents the current status or balance remaining as a part of an employee’s allocated time off. This includes data fields like employee, balance, policy type, among others.
Common Ceridian Dayforce API endpoints
- GET/v1/Employees/{employee_id}/DependentsBeneficiaries
With this endpoint, you can get access to information about the dependents, including their name, date of birth, relationship, etc.
- GET/v1/Employees
This endpoint can be used to get any information needed about the employee, including employment, time off, time off balance, etc.
- GET/v1/employees/{employee_id}/TimeAwayFromWork
This endpoint helps get access to information about time off including start time, end time, request type, etc.
- GET/v1/Employees/{employee_id}/WorkAssignments
With this end point, users can get access to information about an employee’s work assignment focusing on location, zip code, country, among others.
- GET/V1/Employees/{employee_id}/CompensationSummary
This endpoint helps get access to information about the employment and payroll in general, including pay period, pay frequency, rate, etc.
Merge interacts with this API endpoint to...
- GET/V1/Employees/{employee_id}
With this endpoint, one can get information about a particular employee, including personal email, home location, ethnicity, employment status, etc.
- GET/v1/OrgUnits
This endpoint is used to gain access to information about an employee’s team and groups the employee is a part of.
- GET/v1/EmployeeBalancePeriods
With this endpoint, users get access to information about the time off balance and policy type for each employee.
Ceridian Dayforce API Use Cases
- Provides a unified view for all employees, giving all information regarding performance, payroll, time off and other details on one platform, preventing any toggling for users
- Facilitates in-depth and real time analytics for all HR data to help employers understand the health of their organization and make well-informed decisions in a timely manner. It provides a vast catalog of standard reports along with the option to customize reporting based on organizational needs
- Curates insights for business intelligence and helps organizations with flight risk assessment to prevent attrition, gauge personality types, easily access performance data and understand status for each employee
- Ensures self service for employees to empower them to get quick access to their pay details, benefits and all the other information they might need. It also allows employees to update personal information and other details on their own, following chat commands for smooth onboarding and updates
- Promotes role based access and security to uphold high levels of data privacy. This ensures that confidential data has very limited access and employees are only able to view data which is required and relevant to their role
- Helps with workforce management to make data-driven staffing decisions, utilizing flexible scheduling for better business outcomes, streamline absence management and overall optimize HR operations for greater efficiency and productivity
- Makes hire to retire employee lifecycle seamless with AI based screening and automated onboarding, personalized learning recommendations and succession planning, employee engagement interventions and much more
Top customers
With ~6000+ customers, Ceridian Dayforce is a popular HRIS/ HCM provider for organizations, especially in the United States. Here is a list of the top customers that Ceridian Dayforce is servicing:
- CBS News, the news division of the American television and radio service CBS
- Gannett Co., Inc., an American mass media holding company
- Amphenol Corporation, a United States based Manufacturing organization
- Travis Perkins, a United Kingdom based Distribution organization
- The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc., a United States based Insurance organization
- Harley-Davidson, Inc., a United States based Manufacturing organization
- Marrakech Inc., a diverse nonprofit organization
Ceridian Dayforce API FAQs
- How to facilitate Ceridian Dayforce Integration with Active Directory? Answer
- What is the Ceridian Dayforce HRIS API location? Answer
- How to extract the URL to call the Authenticate API method with Dayforce API? Answer
- How to navigate Dayforce Reporting Custom Field SQL? Answer
- How to set up a token-based auth connection to Ceridian Dayforce? Answer
- How to set up a basic auth connection to Ceridian Dayforce? Answer
- How to set up the Ceridian Dayforce Environment? Answer
- What is a Ceridian Dayforce Connector Example? Answer
- How to configure Ceridian Dayforce REST Operations? Answer
- How to enable testing of the Ceridian Dayforce APIs against your own environment? Answer
- How to contribute to the Ceridian Dayforce Connector? Answer
How to integrate with Ceridian Dayforce API
To start your integration journey with Ceridian Dayforce API, you need to create an account on the Ceridian Dayforce Developer Network and the same can be accessed here. In addition, you can also check out this Ceridian Dayforce Connector Overview for a detailed snapshot.
Get started with Ceridian Dayforce API
Ceridian Dayforce HCM doesn’t provide its pricing publicly on its website. However, interested customers can fill in their details or get in touch with the sales team with this link to get an understanding of how much it would cost to get access to Ceridian Dayforce API. To make the integration process smooth with Ceridian Dayforce API or any other HRIS API, you can get started with Knit, one API for all your integrations. Sign up with Knit, and you can integrate with top HRIS API in a short span of time at a fraction of the cost.
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API Directory
Feb 26, 2024
Zoho People API Guide
11
mins
Zoho People API Directory
Zoho People is a leading HR solution provider which enables companies to automate and simplify their HR operations. Right from streamlining core HR processes, to supporting time and attendance management, to facilitating better performance management and fostering greater learning and development, Zoho People has been transforming HR operations for 4500+ companies for over a decade.
With Zoho People API, companies can seamlessly extract and access employee data, update it and integrate this application with other third party applications like ATS, LMS, employee onboarding tools, etc. to facilitate easy exchange of information.
Zoho People API Authentication
Like most industry leading HRIS applications, Zoho People API uses OAuth2.0 protocol for authentication. The application leverages Authorization Code Grant Type to obtain the grant token(code), allowing users to share specific data with applications, without sharing user credentials. Zoho People API uses access tokens for secure and temporary access which is used by the applications to make requests to the connected app.
Using OAuth2.0, Zoho People API users can revoke a customer's access to the application at any time, prevent disclosure of any credentials, ensure information safeguarding if the client is hacked as access tokens are issued to individual applications, facilitate application of specific scopes to either restrict or provide access to certain data for the client.
Zoho People API Objects, Data Models & Endpoints
Integrating with any HRIS application requires the knowledge and understanding of the objects, data models and endpoints it uses. Here is a list of the key concepts about Zoho People API which SaaS developers must familiarize themselves with before commencing the integration process.
Forms API
- POSTInsert Record API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<inputType>/<formLinkName>/insertRecord?inputData=<inputData>
- POSTInsert Record API for Adding Employees
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/json/employee/insertRecord?inputData=<inputData>
- POSTUpdate Record API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<inputType>/<formLinkName>/updateRecord?inputData=<inputData>&recordId=<recordId>
- GETGet Bulk Records API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<formLinkName>/getRecords?sIndex=<record starting index>&limit=<maximum record to fetch>
- POSTAdd Department API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/department/records?xmlData=<xmlData>
- GETFetch Forms API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms?
- GETFetch Single Record API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<formLinkName>/getDataByID?recordId=261091000000049003
- GETFetch Single Record API (Section Wise)
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<formLinkName>/getRecordByID?recordId=<recordId>
- GETGet Related Records API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<formLinkName>/getRelatedRecords?sIndex=<sIndex>&limit=<limit>& parentModule=<parentModule>&id=<id>&lookupfieldName=<lookupfieldName>
- GETSearch Records Based on Record Values
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<formLinkName>/getRecords?searchParams={searchField: '<fieldLabelName>', searchOperator: '<operator>', searchText : '<textValue>'}
- GETGet Fields of Form API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<formLinkName>/components?
Cases API
- POSTAdd Case API
https://people.zoho.com/api/hrcases/addcase?categoryId=<Category ID>&subject=<subject>&description=<description>
- GETView Case API
https://people.zoho.com/api/hrcases/viewcase?recordId=<Reord ID of the case>
- GETView Case Listing API
https://people.zoho.com/api/hrcases/getRequestedCases?index=<index>&status=<status>
- GETView List of Categories API
https://people.zoho.com/api/hrcases/listCategory?
Timesheet API
- POSTCreate Timesheets API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/timetracker/createtimesheet?user=<user>×heetName=<timesheetName>&description=<description>&dateFormat=<dateFormat>&fromDate=<fromDate>&toDate=<toDate>&billableStatus=<billableStatus>&jobId=<jobId>&projectId=<projectId>&clientId=<clientId>&sendforApproval=<sendforApproval>
- POSTModify Timesheets API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/timetracker/modifytimesheet?timesheetId=<timesheetId>×heetName=<timesheetName>&description=<description>&sendforApproval=<sendforApproval>&removeAttachment=<removeAttachment>
- GETGet Timesheets API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/timetracker/gettimesheet?user=<user>&approvalStatus=<approvalStatus>&employeeStatus=<employeeStatus>&dateFormat=<dateFormat>&fromDate=<fromDate>&toDate=<toDate>&sIndex=<sIndex>&limit=<limit>
- GETGet Timesheets Details API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/timetracker/gettimesheetdetails?timesheetId=<timesheetId>&dateFormat=<dateFormat>
- POSTApprove Timesheets API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/timetracker/approvetimesheet?authtoken=<authtoken>×heetId=<timesheetId>&approvalStatus=<approvalStatus>&timeLogs=<timeLogs>&comments=<comments>&isAllLevelApprove=<isAllLevelApprove>
- POSTDelete Timesheets API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/timetracker/deletetimesheet?timesheetId=<timesheetId>
Onboarding API
- POSTTrigger Onboarding API
https://people.zoho.com/api/<Employee|Candidate>/triggerOnboarding
- POSTAdd Candidate API
https://people.zoho.in/people/api/forms/json/Candidate/insertRecord?inputData=<inputData>
- POSTUpdate Candidate API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<inputType>/Candidate/updateRecord?inputData=<inputData>&recordId=<recordId>
Leave API
- POSTAdd Leave API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/<inputType>/<formLinkName>/insertRecord?inputData=<inputData>
- POSTGet Record API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/leave/getDataByID?recordId=413124000068132003
- PATCHCancel Leave API
https://people.zoho.com/api/v2/leavetracker/leaves/records/cancel/<record-id>
- GETUser Report API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/v2/leavetracker/reports/user
- GETLeave Booked and Balance Report API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/v2/leavetracker/reports/bookedAndBalance
- GETLeave Bradford API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/v2/leavetracker/reports/bradford
- GETEncashment Report API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/v2/leavetracker/reports/encashment
- GETLOP Report API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/v2/leavetracker/reports/lop
- POSTAdd Leave Balance API
https://people.zoho.com/api/leave/addBalance?balanceData=<balanceData>&dateFormat=<dateFormat>
Attendance API
- POSTBulk Import API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance/bulkImport?data=<JSONArray>
- GETFetch Last Attendance Entries API
https://people.zoho.com/api/attendance/fetchLatestAttEntries?duration=5&dateTimeFormat=dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss
- POSTAttendance Check In Check Out API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance?dateFormat=<dateFormat>&checkIn=<checkin time>&checkOut=<checkout time>&empId=<employeeId>&emailId=<emailId>&mapId=<mapId>
- POSTAttendance Entries API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance/getAttendanceEntries?date=<date>&dateFormat=<dateformat>&erecno=<erecno>&mapId=<mapId>&emailId=<emailId>&empId=<empId>
- POSTAttendance User Report API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance/getUserReport?sdate=<sdate>&edate=<edate>&empId=<employeeId>&emailId=<emailId>&mapId=<mapId>&dateFormat=<dateFormat>
- POSTEmployee Shift Mapping API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance/updateUserShift?dateFormat=<dateformat>&empId=<employee Id>&shiftName=<shift name>&fdate=<FromDate>&tdate=<toDate>
- GETGetting Shift Details Of Employee API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance/getShiftConfiguration?empId=<employee Id>&emailId<email Id>=&mapId<Mapper ID>=&sdate<startDate>=&edate=<endDate>
- GETGet Regularization Records API
https://people.zoho.com/people/api/attendance/getRegularizationRecords
For more information and details on other endpoints, check out this detailed resource.
Zoho People API Use Cases
- Quick candidate onboarding with offer letter management, new hire portal, customizable workflows and status-view reports
- Cloud-based attendance management system to generate insightful reports, regularize attendance, option to check in from anywhere
- Simple time off management tool with leave policy compliance, instant access to employee leave history, mobile leave applications and approvals and multi-location time off and holiday management
- Productivity timesheets to view the details of the time spent on every project, task, and client, get a centralized overview of your tasks and time resources, calculate payouts faster with accurate employee time logs and automate invoicing
- Shift scheduling to map employees to standard shifts, enable automatic shift rotation with a custom scheduler, mark, track, and analyze breaks and allowances
- Performance management with 360-degree, continuous feedback system, to evaluate employees with customized performance appraisal methods
- Case management to sort and organize employee questions, track their status, and reply promptly from a central location with an easily accessible knowledge base
Top customers
- Zomato, an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company
- The Logical Indian, an independent and public-spirited digital media platform for Indian millennials
- IIFL Finance, a leading finance & investment services company
- Meesho, an online shopping platform
- Waterfield Advisors, a leading independent Multi-Family Office and Wealth Advisory Firm
- DLT Labs, a global leader in the development and delivery of enterprise blockchain technologies and solutions
Zoho People API FAQs
- What to do when you cannot use searchParams on Zoho People API (HTTP Status 400)? Answer
- How to achieve webhook integration between Podio and Zoho People? Answer
- How to get the attendance API from Zoho People in postman? Answer
- What to do if permission is denied when trying to fetch records from Zoho People? Answer
- How to parse through the following ZOHO People JSON string using VB.NET? Answer
- How to write a custom function in Zoho People Deluge to fetch all the dates between from and to given? Answer
- How to sync Zoho People with Google Calendar API for event time update without changing date? Answer
How to integrate with Zoho People API
To integrate your preferred applications with Zoho People API, you need valid Zoho People user credentials. In addition you also must have a valid authentication token or OAuth to access Zoho People API.
Get started with Zoho People API
Integrating with Zoho People API requires engineering bandwidth, resources and knowledge. Invariably, building and maintaining this integration can be extremely expensive for SaaS companies. Fortunately, with Knit, a unified HRIS API, you can easily integrate with Zoho People API and other multiple HRIS applications at once. Knit enables users to normalize data from across HRIS applications, including Zoho People, 10x faster, ensure higher security with double encryption and facilitates bi-directional data sync with webhook architecture to ensure guaranteed scalability, irrespective of data load. Book a demo to learn how you can get started with Zoho People API with ease.
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API Directory
Feb 26, 2024
greytHR API Guide
11
mins
greytHR API Directory
greytHR is a leading HR and Payroll software provider for small and medium sized companies. It enables HR teams and professionals to automate all people operations including employee information management, leave and attendance management, training, appraisals, compensation, etc. greytHR API enables developers to access HR related information like Employee/Leave/Attendance/Salary for seamless exchange between different applications.
greytHR API Authentication
greytHR is based on oAuth2 based authentication for access to APIs, which is an industry-standard protocol for authorization. Since the greytHR API captures a lot of sensitive and confidential information, only authorized entities get access to it. Each API request is authenticated with an auth-token using the client id and client credentials obtained during the registration process. A verified username and password is used for basic authentication.
greytHR API API Objects, Data Models & Endpoints
If you are working with greytHR API for integration with other applications, it is important to understand the data models, objects and endpoints to facilitate data normalization and accurate API requests. Some of these are captured below to help you get started.
Employee
- GET Get all Employees: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees?page=1&size=35
- GET Get Employee: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}
- GET Employee Lookup: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/lookup?q={EmployeeNo./Email/Guid/Access card/ Personal email}
- POST Add Employee: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees
- PUT Update Employee: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}
- GET Get All Employee Profile Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/profile
- GET GET All employees Photo: https://api.greythr.com/hr/v2/employees/photo?photoSize=large&page=1&size=0
- GET Get Employee Photo: https://api.greythr.com/hr/v2/employee/{employeeId}/photo
- GET Get Employee Profile Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/profile
- PUT Update Employee Profile Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/profile
- GET Get All Employee Personal Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/personal
- GET Get Employee Personal Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/personal
- PUT Update Employee Personal Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/personal
- GET Get All Employee Work Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/work
- GET Get Employee Work Details Copy: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/work
- PUT Update Employee Work Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/work
- GET Get All Employee Separation Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/separation
- GET Get Employee Separation Details Copy: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/separation
- PUT Update Employee Separation Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/separation
- GET Get All Employee Address Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/addresses/{address-type}
- GET Get Employee Address Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/addresses/{address-type}
- PUT Update Employee Address Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/addresses/{address-type}
- DELETE Delete Employee Address Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/addresses/{address-type}
- GET Get All Employee Statutory Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/statutory/india
- GET Get Employee Statutory Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/statutory/india
- PUT Update Employee Statutory Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/statutory/india
- GET Get Orgtree - Reporting Structure: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/org-tree
- GET Get Employee Manager details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/org-tree
- POST Add Employee Manager: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/org-tree
- PUT Update Employee Manager: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/org-tree
- GET Get All Employee Positions details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/categories
- GET Get Employee Positions Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/categories
- POST Add Employee Positions: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/categories
- GET Get All Employee Bank Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/bank
- GET Get Employee Bank Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/bank
- POST Add Employee Bank Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/bank
- PUT Update Employee Bank Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/bank
- GET Get All Employee PF & ESI details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/pf
- GET Get Employee PF & ESI details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/pf
- POST Add Employee PF & ESI details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/pf
- PUT Update Employee PF & ESI details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/pf
- GET Get Employee's All Identity Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/identities
- GET Get Employee Identity Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/identities/{identity-code}
- POST Add Employee Identity: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/identities/{identity-code}
- PUT Update Employee Identity: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/identities/{identity-code}
- DELETE Delete Employee Identity: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/identities/{identity-code}
- GET Get Employees Family Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/families/{relationtype-id}
- GET Get Employee Family Details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/families
- POST Add family member to Employee: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/families
- PUT Update Family member details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/families/{relation-id}
- DELETE Delete Family member details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/families/{relation-id}
- GET Get All Employee Asset details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/assets
- GET Get Employee Asset details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/assets
- POST Add Asset to Employee: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/assets
- POST Add Asset to Employee: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/assets
- DELETE Delete Update Family member details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/assets/{asset-id}
- GET Get All Employee Qualifications details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/qualifications
- GET Get Employee Qualifications details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/qualifications
- POST Add Employee Qualifications: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/qualifications
- PUT Update Employee Qualifications details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/qualifications/{qualification-id}
- DELETE Delete Employee Qualifications details: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employee-id}/qualifications/{qualification-id}
- GET Get Employee All Card Details: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employeeId}/card-details
- GET Get Employee Card Details: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/employeeId/card-details/cardId
- POST Add Employee Card Details: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employeeId}/card-details
- DELETE Delete Employee Card Details: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/employee/v2/employees/{employeeId}/card-details/{cardId}
Leave
- GET Get Leave Balance details for All Employees: https://api.greythr.com/leave/v2/employee/years/{{Year}}/balance
- GET Get Employee Leave Balance for a year: https://api.greythr.com/leave/v2/employee/{employee-id}/years/{{Year}}/balance
- GET Get Leave Transactions details for All Employees: https://api.greythr.com/leave/v2/employee/transactions?start={{StartDate}}&end={{EndDate}}
- GET Get Employee Leave Transactions: https://api.greythr.com/leave/v2/employee/{employee-id}/transactions?start={{StartDate}}&end={{EndDate}}
- POST Leave Transaction: https://api.greythr.com/leave/v2/employee/transactions
Attendance
- GET Get Attendance Summary for All Employees: https://api.greythr.com/attendance/v2/employee/insights?end={{EndDate}}&start={{StartDate}}
- GET Get Employee Attendance Summary: https://api.greythr.com/attendance/v2/employee/{employee-id}/insights?end={{EndDate}}&start={{StartDate}}
- GET Get Employee Attendance Summary: https://api.greythr.com/attendance/v2/employee/{employee-id}/insights?end={{EndDate}}&start={{StartDate}}
- GET Get Employee Attendance Muster: https://api.greythr.com/attendance/v2/employee/{employee-id}/muster?end={{EndDate}}&start={{StartDate}}
Payroll
- GET Get All Employee Handenrty salary Items: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/handentry
- GET Get Employee Handenrty salary Items: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/{employee-id}
- GET Get Salary Repository Items: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/salary/repository
- POST Add Employee Handenrty salary Items: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/{employee-id}
- PUT Update Employee Handenrty salary Items: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/{employee-id}
- DELETE Delete Employee Handenrty salary Items: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/{employee-id}
- GET Get Salary Statement for a Month: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/salary/statement/{{yyyy-mm-01}}
- GET Get Salary Statement for an Employee for a Month: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/salary/statement/{{yyyy-mm-01}}/{employee-id}
- GET Get Employees Resettlement for a Month: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/employees/resettlement/{payrollMonth}
- POST Add Salary Revision: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/salary/revision/employees/{employee-id}
- GET Get Salary Revision History: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/salary/revision/employees/{employee-id}/{status}
- GET Get Salary Revision Difference: https://api.greythr.com/payroll/v2/salary/revision/difference/employees/{employee-id}
- GET Get Attendance Snapshot details: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/payroll/v2/attendance/snapshot/employees/{employee-id}
- POST Save Attendance Snapshot: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/payroll/v2/attendance/snapshot/employees/{employee-id}
- DELETE Delete Attendance Snapshot: https://apigee-test.greythr.com/payroll/v2/attendance/snapshot/employees/{employee-id}
List of Values
- POST Get greytHR LOV: https://api.greythr.com/hr/v2/lov
- POST Get greytHR Position/Category: https://api.greythr.com/hr/v2/lov
- GET Get Bank Branch Details: https://api.greythr.com/hr/v2/lov/banks/{bankId}/branches
- POST Add greytHR Org Entities: https://api.greythr.com/hr/v2/lov/org/entities
Documents
- GET Get Employee Documents: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/emp-docs/{employeeId}/{categoryId}
- GET Download Employee Documents: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/emp-docs/{employeeId}/{documentId}/{fieId}
- POST Add Employee Document Category: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/emp-docs/category
- POST Add Employee Document: https://api.greythr.com/employee/v2/employee-docs/{employeeId}/{category}
Users
- POST Add New Users: https://api.greythr.com/user/v2/users
- GET Get Users List: https://api.greythr.com/user/v2/users
- GET Get Employee User ID: https://api.greythr.com/user/v2/users?userType=employee&userName=Employee Number
- POST User SSO: https://api.greythr.com/user/v2/users/{userid}/auth
greytHR API Use Cases
- Centralized employee information management and simplification of HR processes by eliminating inconsistencies, duplication and clutter in employee information
- Easy payroll management with accurate and timely payouts
- Seamless leave management with accurate leave accounting and integration with payroll
- Real time attendance management, easy shift and overtime management
- Goal alignment and performance management, progress tracking, rewards achievements
Top customers
greytHR provides HRMS services to 20,000+ companies across 250+ cities, including:
- Dunzo, a 24x7 delivery app
- HealthifyMe, an Indian digital health and wellness company
- Rapido, an Indian ride-hailing service
- Hutchinson, a French manufacturer of non-tire rubber
- Lentra, a new-age domain-native platform
- ClickDesk, a live support chat software
- CORE Energy Systems, an emerging engineering services and project management company
greytHR API FAQs
- How can admin enable the role for API users? Answer
- How to generate API credentials for the greytHR admins? Answer
- Is it possible to configure API credentials in Tally without enabling the integration of greytHR? Answer
How to integrate with greytHR API
To integrate with the greytHR API, you need to create an account. You can create an account here. You can then go through this documentation to understand the REST API for external applications to integrate and interoperate with greytHR.
Get started with greytHR API
greytHR offers a freemium model for its users. While some features for a certain number of employees can be availed free of cost, the paid version starts at ₹3495/month adding more features which users can leverage. There are more premium tiers to choose from. Each pricing plan comes with a free trial.
However, integrating with greytHR API with in-house resources can be quite expensive and time consuming, for both building and managing the integration. You can significantly bring this cost down by partnering with a platform like Knit. With a nominal integration cost, Knit helps you integrate with a unified HRIS API, with which you can connect with its bouquet of HRIS applications, including greytHR, at no additional cost. As a unified API, Knit helps you connect with your preferred HRIS applications in a fraction of the cost and time. Book a demo today to learn more!
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API Directory
Feb 15, 2024
ADP API Guide
11
mins
ADP API
ADP is an industry leader offering a comprehensive human capital management suite (HCM solutions), bringing together payroll, attendance, HR, time, insights, and other services under one roof. Overall, ADP offers a suite of APIs that developers can get access to via the ADP marketplace. The ADP marketplace contains two types of applications that developers can leverage based on their use case, i.e., Data Connector and End User Application. ADP APIs are designed using an event-based pattern for resource management. ADP provides RESTful APIs.
ADP API follows OpenID Connect and Open Authorization (OAuth) 2.0 flows for comprehensive security. For each of them, ADP provides access tokens, which are used for secure calls to protect ADP Web APIs. Essentially, an access token is a time-bound token, or credential, which can be used to access protected ADP Web APIs restricted to an access scope. Access tokens are provided to the application during the integration process as part of the OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 authentication and authorization flow.
ADP API Authentication
To access and interact with ADP's APIs and authenticate users via single sign-on (SSO), you'll need a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). Accessing ADP's web services requires both a private key and a corresponding Web Services (WS) Certificate. This certificate shares client information with ADP, while the private key verifies the client's authenticity.The WS Certificate can either be generated through an automated process (ideal for those building a marketplace application) or through a manual process (ideal for those building their own business application). To know more about each of these processes, click here.
ADP API Events and Endpoints
ADP API (ADP Workforce Now) uses the following endpoints to facilitate the flow of information and data across channels.
Workers
Worker: A person who works/ performs duties for an organization
Worker Images
- GET/hr/v2/workers/{aoid}/worker-images/photo
Worker Profile Photo Management
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.photo.remove/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.photo.remove
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.photo.upload
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.photo.upload/meta
Workers Data Retrieval
- GET/hr/v2/workers/meta
- GET/hr/v2/workers/{aoid}
- GET/hr/v2/workers
Workers - Lifecycle Management
Worker.hire: Primary work assignment created between a worker/ person and the employer for the first time.
Rehire Worker
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.rehire
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.rehire/meta
Workers - Data Integration Management
Read Worker
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.read/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.read
Worker Demographics
Worker Demographics: Demographics and information for all workers as well as each worker specifically.
Worker Demographics
- GET/hr/v2/worker-demographics/meta
- GET/hr/v2/worker-demographics
- GET/hr/v2/worker-demographics/{aoid}
Worker Associate Profile - Personal & Work Info
Worker associate profile: Extensions to the worker profile containing hobbies/interests, bio, Standout roles, etc.
Associate Preferred Gender Pronoun
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.associate-profile.preferred-gender-pronoun.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.associate-profile.preferred-gender-pronoun.change/meta
Workers - Compensation Management
Add Additional Remuneration
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.additional-remuneration.add
Change Additional Remuneration
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.additional-remuneration.change
Change Base Remuneration
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.base-remuneration.change
Remove Additional Remuneration
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.additional-remuneration.remove
Workers - Work Assignment Management
Work assignment: Details such as a worker's Job Title and Job Function.
Modify Assigned Organizational Units
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.assigned-organizational-units.modify
Modify Work Assignment
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.modify/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.modify
Modify Worker Reports
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.reports-to.modify
Terminate Work Assignment
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.terminate
Personal Contacts
Personal connects: To retrieve, add, update, and delete an associate's emergency contacts.
Add Personal Contact
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-contact.add/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-contact.add
Change Personal Contact
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-contact.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-contact.change/meta
Personal Contacts
- GET/hr/v2/associates/{aoid}/personal-contacts/meta
- GET/hr/v2/associates/{aoid}/personal-contacts
- GET/hr/v2/associates/{aoid}/personal-contacts/{personal-contact-id}
Remove Personal Contact
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-contact.remove/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-contact.remove
Worker Profile Experience (WFN)
Worker profile experience: Manage the HR Worker Profile implementation, add a new position for an employee and update the primary position of an employee, change the base remuneration details of an employee.
Compensation Management
- PUT/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/base-remuneration
- GET/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/base-remuneration/meta
- POST/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/additional-remunerations
- GET/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/additional-remunerations
- PUT/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/additional-remunerations
- GET/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/reportable-benefits/meta
- GET/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/additional-remunerations/meta
- POST/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/reportable-benefits
- GET/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/reportable-benefits
- PUT/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/reportable-benefits
Corporate Groups Management
- POST/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/corporate-groups
- GET/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/corporate-groups/meta
Position Data Management
- PUT/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/worker-dates
- PUT/hr/worker-profile/v1/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/{assignment-id}/primary-assignment
Workers - Business Communication Management
Add Worker Business Email
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.email.add
Add Worker Business Fax
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.fax.add
Add Worker Business Landline
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.landline.add
Add Worker Business Mobile
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.mobile.add
Add Worker Business Pager
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.pager.add
Change Worker Business Email
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.email.change
Change Worker Business Fax
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.fax.change
Change Worker Business Landline
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.landline.change
Change Worker Business Mobile
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.mobile.change
Change Worker Business Pager
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.pager.change
Remove Worker Business Email
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.email.remove
Remove Worker Business Fax
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.fax.remove
Remove Worker Business Landline
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.landline.remove
Remove Worker Business Mobile
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.mobile.remove
Remove Worker Business Pager
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.business-communication.pager.remove
Corporate Directory
Corporate directory: List of corporate contacts or detailed information about a specific contact
Corporate Directory
- GET/{sor-id}/hr/v1/corporate-contact-photos/{image-id}.{image-extension}
Work Assignment Management
Add Work Assignment
- POST/hr/v3/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments
- GET/hr/v3/workers/{aoid}/work-assignments/meta
Workers - Biological Data Management
Change Birth Date
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.birth-date.change
Change Gender
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.gender.change
Change Race
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.race.change
Change Worker Gender Identity
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.gender-identity.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.gender-identity.change/meta
Workers - Demographic Data Management
Change Birth Name
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.birth-name.change
Change Legal Name
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.legal-name.change
Change Preferred Name
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.preferred-name.change/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.preferred-name.change
Change Worker Marital Status
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.marital-status.change
Change Worker Military Classification
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.military-classification.change
Change Worker Military Status
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.military-status.change
Workers - Personal Communication Management
Add Worker Legal Address
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.legal-address.add
Add Worker Personal Address
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-address.add
Add Worker Personal Email
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.email.add
Add Worker Personal Fax
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.fax.add
Add Worker Personal Landline
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.landline.add
Add Worker Personal Mobile
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.mobile.add
Add Worker Personal Pager
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.pager.add
Change Worker Legal Address
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.legal-address.change
Change Worker Personal Address
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-address.change
Change Worker Personal Email
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.email.change
Change Worker Personal Fax
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.fax.change
Change Worker Personal Landline
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.landline.change
Change Worker Personal Mobile
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.mobile.change
Change Worker Personal Pager
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.pager.change
Remove Worker Legal Address
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.legal-address.remove
Remove Worker Personal Address
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-address.remove
Remove Worker Personal Email
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.email.remove
Remove Worker Personal Fax
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.fax.remove
Remove Worker Personal Landline
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.landline.remove
Remove Worker Personal Mobile
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.mobile.remove
Remove Worker Personal Pager
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.pager.remove
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.personal-communication.pager.remove/meta
Workers - Work Deployment Management
Change Standard Hours
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.standard-hours.change
Change Worker Type
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.work-assignment.worker-type.change
Workers - Custom Data Management
Change Worker Custom Percentage
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.percentage.change/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.percentage.change
Change Worker Custom Telephone
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.telephone.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.telephone.change/meta
Manage Worker Custom Amount
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.amount.change/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.amount.change
Manage Worker Custom Code
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.code.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.code.change/meta
Manage Worker Custom Date
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.date.change/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.date.change
Manage Worker Custom Indicator
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.indicator.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.indicator.change/meta
Manage Worker Custom Number
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.number.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.number.change/meta
Manage Worker Custom String
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.string.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.custom-field.string.change/meta
Workers - Identification Management
Add Worker Government ID
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.government-id.add
Change Worker Government ID
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.government-id.change
Workers - Person Custom Data Management
Change Person Custom Amount
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.amount.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.amount.change/meta
Change Person Custom Code
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.code.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.code.change/meta
Change Person Custom Date
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.date.change/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.date.change
Change Person Custom Indicator
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.indicator.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.indicator.change/meta
Change Person Custom Number
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.number.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.number.change/meta
Change Person Custom Percentage
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.percentage.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.percentage.change/meta
Change Person Custom String
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.string.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.string.change/meta
Change Person Custom Telephone
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.telephone.change/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.person.custom-field.telephone.change
Worker Leaves
Worker leaves: Processing an employee's leave requests, changes, and return and leave cancellations.
Cancel Worker Leave
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.cancel/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.cancel
Change Worker Leave
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.change/meta
Request Leave Of Absence
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.absence.request/meta
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.absence.request
Request Return From Leave Of Absence
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.return.request
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.leave.return.request/meta
Worker Leaves
- GET/hr/v2/workers/{aoid}/leaves
Workers - KSAOC Management
Change Worker Highest Education Level
- POST/events/hr/v1/worker.highest-level-education.change
- GET/events/hr/v1/worker.highest-level-education.change/meta
ADP API Use Cases
- Easy to use, intuitive interface and highly customizable with efficient customer support
- Access best-practice guides, HR forms, policies, and an employee handbook template
- Automation of processes like onboarding, status change, offboarding
- Providing employees access to to their pay, benefits and time information, offering true self service
- Real time mobile phone access to important information like time off, benefits data, etc. with a mobile application
- Tracking and monitoring of key metrics like labor costs, overtime, actual vs. scheduled hours, turnover rate for better HR services
Top Customers
- Jelly Belly, gourmet jelly belly candies and confections manufacturer
- Amazon, a vast Internet-based enterprise
- The Boston Globe, an American daily newspaper
- Dell Technologies, a provider of desktop personal computers, software, and peripherals
- Sunstone Partners, a growth-oriented private equity firm
ADP API FAQs
Here is a comprehensive list of questions that can help you navigate ADP API for success:
- How to obtain ADP API Client Secret for OAuth? Answer
- How to get ADP API past SSL error? Answer
- How to update ADP API Worker Information? Answer
- How to get Powershell ADP API Token? Answer
- How to Solve ADP API Connection Problem(Error : Status-58)? Answer
- How to change a person's custom string using ADP's API? Answer
- How to get access_token from ADP Api using rest? Answer
- What is the latest API updated or released for ADP Workforce Now? Answer
- What is the release plan for ADP Workforce Now APIs? Answer
- What are latest API updated or released for RUN Powered by ADP? Answer
- What APIs will be released or enhanced for RUN Powered by ADP soon? Answer
- How to integrate ADP employee data in Wordpress? Answer
- How to read properties from an ADP project by C#? Answer
Common Integrations with ADP API
While there can be multiple integrations and use cases for ADP API, here is a list of the top SaaS companies or products that can integrate with ADP API to facilitate customer success:
- Learning Management Solutions
- Rewards, Recognitions, and Performance
- Communication and Collaborations
- Employee Travel and Booking Tools
- Workforce Planning and Org Chart Solutions
How to integrate with ADP API
Here is a comprehensive resource for anyone who wishes to integrate with ADP API and streamline and optimize their HR and allied operations.
Get started with ADP API
The pricing for ADP API is not publicly available. However, the platform does offer a demo for interested customers. At the same time, ADP provides tailor-made pricing based on specific company requirements. Thus companies can share the required information to get access to competitive pricing, across different tiers based on the features they need. You can request pricing here.
To make the integration process smooth with ADP, you can get started with Knit, one API for all your integrations. Sign up with Knit or book a demo here with one of our experts - Book Demo
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Product
Feb 8, 2024
Ultimate Guide for Assessment API Integration
11
mins
As hiring needs for organizations become more complex, assessing candidates in a holistic and comprehensive manner is more critical than ever. Fortunately, multiple assessment software have surfaced in the recent past, enabling organizations to carry out assessments in the most effective and efficient manner. Leveraging technology, gamification and other advances, such tools are able to help organizations ensure that a candidate is a perfect fit for the role, skills, company culture and all other parameters.
However, to make the best use of assessment software, it is important to integrate data and information from them across other platforms being used for operational efficiency and faster turnaround in recruitment and onboarding. Here, assessment API integration plays a major role.
When organizations integrate data from the assessment API with other applications, including ATS, HRIS, interview scheduling, etc., they are able to optimize their recruitment workflow with a high degree of automation.
In this article, we will discuss the different aspects of assessment API, its integration use cases, key data models and the different ways in which you can accomplish seamless integration.
Assessment API Data Models
To ensure that you understand the different assessment APIs well, it is important to comprehend the data models or fields that are commonly used. One of the major reasons that the knowledge of data models is imperative is to facilitate data transformation and normalization during data sync. Here are the common data models for assessment APIs:
Candidate name
This data model focuses on the name of the candidate to whom a particular assessment will be administered and all records pertaining to the candidate will be stored. It can also be associated with a unique candidate ID to prevent any confusion in case of duplication of names.
Candidate profile
The next data model captures the profile of the candidate. From an assessment software perspective, the focus is on a candidate’s professional profile, prior work experience, qualifications, certifications, competencies, etc. Such details help in determining the right assessments for each candidate based on their experience and the role for which they are being assessed.
Candidate contact information
This data field keeps the details or contact information for all candidates, including phone number, email address, etc. The contact information ensures that the candidate’s can be easily informed about their assessment schedule, any changes in the schedule, results, status, etc. it facilitates smooth communication between the assessment software and the candidate.
Candidate profile picture
Most assessment software capture candidate pictures to ensure authenticity during assessments or training. Candidate profile pictures in assessment software databases help the latter to prevent proxy attendance during interviews or assessments and address any potential foul play.
Job type
The next data model captures the nature of employment or the type of job. Today, in addition to full-time employees, organizations are increasingly hiring consultants, gig workers and even contractual employees. The assessment requirements for each one of them can be varied. Thus, the assessment software has a data model to capture the job type to ensure appropriate assessments.
Job information
Assessment API captures job information or job details as an important data model. Put simply, this model has all details about the role being assessed for, the requirements, skills, competencies, and other aspects which need to be assessed. As a data model or field, job information contains all aspects of the job that need to be matched when candidates are assessed.
Job department and managers
Next in line is the data model which focuses on the job department and managers. This particular field captures the department for which the candidate has applied for and the hiring managers. The details of hiring managers are important because the results of the assessment tests have to be sent to them.
Assessment stages
Most assessment software have a few stages that a candidate undergoes. It can start from a normal personality test and go on to psychometric evaluations, coding tests, to personal interviews. As a data model, assessment stages help hiring managers understand where the candidates stand in the hiring pipeline and how close or far they are from closing a particular role at hand.
Assessment list
The next data model captures all the types of assessments that are available as a part of the assessment software. This field has a repository of different assessments that can be administered.
Scorecard
Once the assessment is administered, an important data model is the scorecard. This captures how the candidate performed for a particular assessment. The scorecard format or type can be different and unique for each assessment type. In some, it can be an absolute and objective score, while some others might give a more subjective outcome, determining the suitability of the candidate for the role.
Assessment result
The assessment result as a data model captures the final verdict for the candidate. More often than not, hiring managers can update the result as selected, rejected or any other based on the scorecard and other evaluations undertaken, post which the data can be integrated into the next workflow software.
Assessment attachment
This data field or data model captures any attachments that come along with a particular assessment test. Some tests might require candidates to submit their assessments as an attachment or external document. This field contains all such attachments which can be consulted during final hiring decisions.
Assessment status
The assessment status data model captures the status of the assessment test for a particular candidate. It captures if the test has been provided to the candidate, whether or not they have completed the same, etc.
Top Assessment Applications
Now that there is a clear understanding of the different assessment software data models, let’s quickly look at some of the top assessment applications available in the market today, which can be integrated with different software like ATS, HRIS, LMS, etc.
Assessment API Integration: Top Use Cases
Assessment software is a part of the larger ecosystem of software that companies today use to manage their people's operations. Invariably, there are several other tools and software in the market today, which when integrated with assessment APIs can lead to operational efficiency and smooth HR and related processes. There are several categories of tools out there which either feed data into assessment APIs (write APIs) or get access to data from assessment APIs (read APIs). Integration ensures that such data syncs are automated and do not require any manual interview, which can be prone to errors, time consuming and operationally taxing. Here are some of the top use cases for assessment API integration across different software.
Assessment API integration for ATS tools
Assessment API integration is very critical for ATS or applicant tracking systems. ATS tools and platforms have all the required information about candidates, including their name, profile, pictures, contact information, etc. Assessment API integration with ATS tools ensures that the assessment read API can get access to all these details automatically without any manual intervention. At the same time, integration also facilitates real-time information updation in assessment tools, which can set up assessments for new applicants almost immediately. This leads to faster turnaround. Furthermore, the assessment write APIs can feed information back to the ATS tools with the assessment results and scorecards to help update the candidate’s status in the recruitment flow.
Examples: Greenhouse Software, Workable, BambooHR, Lever, Zoho
Assessment API integration for candidate screening tools
Candidate screening tools help organizations determine whether or not a candidate is ideal or right for the role in question. Integration with assessment software ensures that data about a candidate’s performance in an assessment test is automatically synced for screening managers to assess the skills, competencies and abilities of the candidate and its relevance to the open position. Furthermore, assessment API integration with candidate screening tools ensures that the latter have real time access to candidate assessment results for immediate hiring decision making, based on evidence backed data for smart hiring.
Examples:
Assessment API integration for HRIS tools
Assessment API integration with HRIS tools is a no brainer. Once a candidate clears the assessments and is offered a job at an organization, it is essential to capture the results from the assessments in the HRIS platform. Here, the assessment write APIs play an important role. They help HR teams get access to all the relevant information about an employee based on different personality, psychometric, behavioral, cognitive tests to help them capture employee records which are robust and comprehensive. Automated integration of data from assessment tools to HRIS platforms ensures that no human error or bias crawls in when assessment data is being entered into HRIS portals. Furthermore, since many parts of an assessment test can be sensitive, such integration ensures that data exchange is confidential and on a need to know basis only.
Examples: BambooHR, Namely, SAP SuccessFactors, Gusto
Assessment API integration for interview scheduling tools
Most companies today leverage interview scheduling tools to automate their entire interview processes, including blocking calendars, managing schedules, etc. For interview scheduling tools, integration with assessment APIs is important to ensure that all interviews with candidates can be scheduled effectively, keeping in my mind both interviewer and interviewee schedules. Interview scheduling tools can leverage assessment read APIs to understand the assessment availability and dates to schedule the interview. Furthermore, once the interview is scheduled, assessment write APIs can help provide updates on whether or not the candidate attended the interview, status, next steps to help interview scheduling tools effectively conduct interactions with candidates as needed.
Examples: Calendly, Sense, GliderAI, YouCanBookMe, Paradox
Assessment API integration for LMS tools
While most assessment software have use cases in the pre-employment stages, their utility can also transcend into post employment phases as well. The LMS tools can easily leverage assessment read APIs to understand the type of assessment tests available which can be used for internal training purposes. Furthermore, candidate performance in pre-employment assessment tests can be used as a baseline to define the types of training required and areas for upskilling. Overall, this integration can help identify the learning needs for the organization and clarify the assessments available for further investigation. At the same time, once the assessments are administered, the assessment write API can automatically sync the relevant data and results for post employment assessment on whether or not employees participated in the assessments, results, gaps, etc. to the LMS tools for better decision making on employee training and development.
Example: TalentLMS, 360Learning, Docebo, Google Classroom
Assessment API integration for talent management tools
Talent management and workforce planning tools are integral when it comes to succession planning for any organization. Assessments conducted, both pre and post employment can greatly help in determining the talent needs for any organization. Talent management tools can leverage assessment read APIs to understand how their existing or potential talent is performing along areas critical to the organization. Any gaps in the talent or consistent poor performance in a particular area of assessment can then be identified to adopt corrective measures. Assessment API integration can help talent management tools effectively understand the talent profile in their organization, which can further help in better succession planning and talent analytics.
Examples: ClearCompany, Deel, ActivTrak
Unified Assessment API Integration: All You Need to Know
There are several ways companies can achieve assessment API integration to suit their use cases. Right from building integrations in-house for each assessment tool to practices like workflow automation tools, there are several ways to integrate. However, as the number of customers and integration needs increase exponentially, going for a unified assessment API for integration is the best move. Here are a few instances when choosing a unified API for assessment software integration makes sense. Use unified assessment API when you:
- Wish to integrate with multiple assessment software based on your customer needs and developing point to point integration with each one is not viable
- Have a large customer base and their integration requests for new assessment software is increasing
- Need to deliver integrations in a short span of time and you lack dedicated engineering bandwidth in-house
- Want to achieve assessment API integration at a lower cost with faster time to market
- Don’t want to take the burden of ongoing maintenance and management of each integration
- Want to skip the effort that goes into reading through API documentation for each integration
- Want to normalize data across assessment platforms and ensure that this transformation process is 10X faster than you internal processes
- Want to ensure complete security, especially due to the nature of sensitive information in question
- Seek real-time sync and exchange of data for immediate action or the flexibility to customize syncs as per your needs
- Want to skip the process of learning about different authentication keys, rate limits, etc. for different APIs
Now that you know a unified assessment API is the best and the most effective for you to build integrations with assessment software, go through the following questions to choose the best unified assessment API for your organization.
What are the data models?
The ideal unified API normalizes and syncs data into a unified data model and facilitates data transformation 10x faster. While most fields are common and a unified model works, choose a unified assessment API which also gives you the flexibility to add some custom data models which may not align with the standard data models available.
What are the rate limits?
Each unified API will offer rate limits, which is the number of API requests or data sync requests you can make in a given period of time. Having an optimum rate limit is extremely important. Having a very high rate limit, in which many requests can be made can lead to potential DDoS attacks and other vulnerabilities. Whereas, having a very low rate limit, where only a handful API requests can be made, might lead to inefficiencies and data inaccuracies. Therefore, gauge the rate limits offered to check if they align with your needs or if they can be customized for you.
How secure is the integration process?
Next, any unified assessment API you choose should be high on security. On the one hand, check for compliance with all certifications and global standards. On the other hand, look out for comprehensive data encryption, which involves encrypting data at rest and in transit. When looking at security, do check the level of authentication and authorization available.
What kind of post integration support is available?
Building integrations is followed by the operationally and technically draining tasks of managing integrations. Integration maintenance and management can take anywhere between 5-10 hours of your engineering bandwidth. Therefore, choose a unified assessment API provider which provides you with maintenance support. You should be able to manage the health of all your integrations with a robust track of all API calls, requests, etc.
What is the sync frequency?
As data sync is the most important part of assessment API integration, check the sync frequency offered by the unified API. While real-time sync, powered by a webhook architecture which ensures real-time data transfer, without any polling infrastructure is ideal. It is equally important to have something which can be customized and allows you to set the sync frequency as per your needs.
How easy is it to scale?
The key purpose of a unified assessment API is to scale as fast as possible and ensure all customer assessment tools are integrated with. Therefore, you must check the breadth of assessment API integrations being offered. At the same time, explore how open and forthcoming the unified API provider is to custom integrations for you if needed. This also needs to be weighted against the time taken for each new integration and any cost associated with the same.
Can it take a high data load?
Finally, as you add more assessment API integrations and the number of customers using the same increase, the data load for sync will experience an exponential rise. Thus, your unified assessment API must facilitate guaranteed scalability with quality sync, irrespective of the data load. Without the same, there are chances of data corruption.
Knit: Unified Assessment API
As a leading unified assessment API, Knit has the right tick mark for all the considerations mentioned above and much more. Here’s why you should consider Knit for your assessment API integration needs:
- Unified data model which normalizes data with option to customize some fields
- Double encryption of data with encryption for PII and user credentials
- Compliance with SOC2, GDPR, ISO27001
- No storage of a copy of any data that passes through Knit
- Webhook architecture for real time data sync irrespective of data load
- Option to customize sync frequency whenever needed
- Availability of OAuth, API key or a username-password based authentication
- Bi-directional data sync to read and write from any assessment software
- Detailed Logs, Issues, Integrated Accounts and Syncs page for integration management
Book a demo today to learn about the other ways in which Knit can be your ideal unified assessment API partner, how it works and anything else you need to know!
Wrapping up: TL:DR
Integrating with assessment APIs can help different companies and platforms unlock value to better streamline their operations. Assessment API integration can facilitate bi-directional sync of data between assessment tools and other applications. While there are several ways to achieve such integration, a unified API is one of the top contenders as it facilitates data normalization, high levels of security, guaranteed scalability, seamless maintenance and management and real time data syncs.
Product
Jan 8, 2024
Everything you need to know about HRIS API Integration
11
mins
As organizations grow in revenue and people strength, a lot of data comes into existence that needs to be managed well for business success. With more people being onboarded, most HR teams struggle to manage all processes, especially where employee data is concerned.
Invariably, different HR tools and software or HRIS (Human Resources Information Software) get adopted to automate certain parts of the workflow.
Research shows that larger companies with over 500 employees often choose HRIS to consolidate systems.
With the increasing number of HR tools and overall use cases, organizations need to integrate these software with one another and their core application to ensure seamless flow of information. Here, HRIS integration plays a major role.
This article seeks to provide a complete understanding on HRIS API integration, focusing on different concepts, data models, use cases and how to achieve it in the most efficient and effective way.
Key Concepts
Here are some of the key concepts or terminologies you should understand before moving onto more details on the applications, use cases, etc.
Directory
Directory platforms essentially are the single source of truth for all employees, especially the new joiners. It ensures that when an employee joins, they have access to all the resources, tools and software they need. Employees can leverage the Directory to familiarize themselves with different aspects of the organization.
Payroll
Payroll refers to everything related to the compensation aspect for employees. It helps companies calculate the salary due to employees at the end of every month, taxes, benefits, etc. It ensures that employees are accurately compensated based on their agreements, while also complying with statutory laws and policies.
Benefits
In most structured organizations, employees are entitled to additional benefits beyond the compensation. This includes health insurance, accidental insurance, retirement plans, provident fund (India), paid time off, etc. All these come under the benefits section of an employment contract and need to be carefully monitored.
Recruitment, retention and retirement
Any HRIS API that you come across will address all or some aspects of the employee lifecycle. Here, you should understand the basics of recruitment, which involves attracting and hiring the best talent for your open roles, retention, which focuses on ensuring that you are able to prevent attrition and turnover for your employees by facilitating the right culture, fair pay, etc. and finally, retirement or exit, either due to completion of tenure, age or any other reason.
Learning and development
Another concept that requires attention is learning and development. It caters to understanding the learning and training needs for your employees, both hard and soft skills and adequately providing the right upskilling opportunities for professional success.
HRIS Integration: Top Use Cases
Let’s quickly understand how HRIS integration across HR software and tools leads to an exemplary employee experience as well as facilitates operational efficiency for HR teams. Most of the use cases of HRIS integration follow the read and write HRIS APIs which ensure automatic syncing of data between the HRIS platforms and allied applications. Put simply, manually entry of data across applications and updates can be prone to human errors. However, even a single inaccuracy in updating data can lead to serious consequences, including faulty payroll creation, absence tracking, etc. Furthermore, manual data entry might lead to unauthorized data access, especially for sensitive employee information. Here’s a quick snapshot of how HRIS integration can be used across different scenarios.
HRIS integration for ATS tools
ATS or applicant tracking system can leverage HRIS integration to ensure that all important and relevant details about new employees, including name, contact information, demographic and educational backgrounds, etc. are automatically updated into the customer’s preferred HRIS tool without the need to manually entering data, which can lead to inaccuracies and is operationally taxing. ATS tools leverage the write HRIS API and provide data to the HR tools in use.
Examples: Greenhouse Software, Workable, BambooHR, Lever, Zoho
HRIS integration for payroll software
Payroll software plays an integral role in any company’s HR processes. It focuses on ensuring that everything related to payroll and compensation for employees is accurate and up to date. HRIS integration with payroll software enables the latter to get automated and real time access to employee data including time off, work schedule, shifts undertaken, payments made on behalf of the company, etc.
At the same time, it gets access to employee data on bank details, tax slabs, etc. Together, this enables the payroll software to deliver accurate payslips to its customers, regarding the latter’s employees. With automated integration, data sync can be prone to errors, which can lead to faulty compensation disbursal and many compliance challenges. HRIS integration, when done right, can alert the payroll software with any new addition to the employee database in real time to ensure setting up of their payroll immediately. At the same time, once payslips are made and salaries are disbursed, payroll software can leverage HRIS integration to write back this data into the HR software for records.
Examples: Gusto, RUN Powered by ADP, Paylocity, Rippling
HRIS integration for employee onboarding/ offboarding software
Employee onboarding software uses HRIS integration to ensure a smooth onboarding process, free of administrative challenges. Onboarding tools leverage the read HRIS APIs to get access to all the data for new employees to set up their accounts across different platforms, set up payroll, get access to bank details, benefits, etc. With HRIS integrations, employee onboarding software can provide their clients with automated onboarding support without the need to manually retrieve data for each new joiner to set up their systems and accounts. Furthermore, HRIS integration also ensures that when an employee leaves an organization, the update is automatically communicated to the onboarding software to push deprovisioning of the systems, and services. This also ensures that access to any tools, files, or any other confidential access is terminated. Manually deprovisioning access can lead to some manual errors, and even cause delays in exit formalities.
Examples: Deel, Savvy, Sappling
Ease of communication and announcements
With the right HRIS integration, HR teams can integrate all relevant data and send out communication and key announcements in a centralized manner. HRIS integrations ensure that the announcements reach all employees on the correct contact information without the need for HR teams to individually communicate the needful.
HRIS integration for LMS tools
LMS tools leverage both the read and write HRIS APIs. On the one hand, they read or get access to all relevant employee data including roles, organizational structure, skills demand, competencies, etc. from the HRIS tool being used. Based on this data, they curate personalized learning and training modules for employees for effective upskilling. Once the training is administered, the LMS tools again leverage HRIS integrations to write data back into the HRIS platform with the status of the training, including whether or not the employee has completed the same, how did they perform, updating new certifications, etc. Such integration ensures that all learning modules align well with employee data and profiles, as well as all training are captured to enhance the employee’s portfolio.
Example: TalentLMS, 360Learning, Docebo, Google Classroom
HRIS integration for workforce management and scheduling tools
Similar to LMS, workforce management and scheduling tools utilize both read and write HRIS APIs. The consolidated data and employee profile, detailing their competencies and training undertaken can help workforce management tools suggest the best delegation of work for companies, leading to resource optimization. On the other hand, scheduling tools can feed data automatically with HRIS integration into HR tools about the number of hours employees have worked, their time off, free bandwidth for allocation, shift schedules etc. HRIS integration can help easily sync employee work schedules and roster data to get a clear picture of each employee’s schedule and contribution.
Examples: QuickBooks Time, When I Work
HRIS integration for benefits administration tools
HRIS integration for benefits administration tools ensures that employees are provided with the benefits accurately, customized to their contribution and set parameters in the organization. Benefits administration tools can automatically connect with the employee data and records of their customers to understand the benefits they are eligible for based on the organizational structure, employment type, etc. They can read employee data to determine the benefits that employees are entitled to. Furthermore, based on employee data, they feed relevant information back into the HR software, which can further be leveraged by payroll software used by the customers to ensure accurate payslip creation.
Examples: TriNet Zenefits, Rippling, PeopleKeep, Ceridian Dayforce
HRIS integration for workforce planning tools
Workforce planning tools essentially help companies identify the gap in their talent pipeline to create strategic recruitment plans. They help understand the current capabilities to determine future hiring needs. HRIS integration with such tools can help automatically sync the current employee data, with a focus on organizational structure, key competencies, training offered, etc. Such insights can help workforce planning tools accurately manage talent demands for any organization. At the same time, real time sync with data from HR tools ensures that workforce planning can be updated in real time.
Examples: ClearCompany, Deel, ActivTrak
HRIS API Data Models
The different HRIS tools you use are bound to come with different data models or fields which will capture data for exchange between applications. It is important for HR professionals and those building and managing these integrations to understand these data models, especially to ensure normalization and transformation of data when it moves from one application to another.
Employees/ Employee Profiles
This includes details of all employees whether full time or contractual, including first and last name, contact details, date of birth, email ID, etc. At the same time, it covers other details on demographics and employment history including status, start date, marital status, gender, etc. In case of a former employee, this field also captures termination date.
Employee Contact Details
This includes personal details of the employee, including personal phone number, address, etc. which can be used to contact employees beyond work contact information.
Employee Profile Picture
Employee profile picture object or data model captures the profile picture of the employees that can be used across employee records and purposes.
Employment Type
The next data model in discussion focuses on the type or the nature of employment. An organization can hire full time employees, contractual workers, gig workers, volunteers, etc. This distinction in employment type helps differentiate between payroll specifications, taxation rules, benefits, etc.
Location
Location object or data model refers to the geographical area for the employee. Here, both the work location as well as the residential or native/ home location of the employee is captured. This field captures address, country, zip code, etc.
Leave Request
Leave request data model focuses on capturing all the time off or leave of absence entries made by the employee. It includes detailing the nature of leave, time period, status, reason, etc.
Leave Balance
Each employee, based on their nature of employment, is entitled to certain time off in a year. The leave balance object helps organizations keep a track of the remaining balance of leave of absence left with the employee. With this, organizations can ensure accurate payroll, benefits and compensation.
Attendance
This data model captures the attendance of employees, including fields like time in, time out, number of working hours, shift timing, status, break time, etc.
Organizational Structure
Each organization has a hierarchical structure or layers which depict an employee’s position in the whole scheme of things. The organizational structure object helps understand an employee’s designation, department, manager (s), direct reportees, etc.
Bank Details
This data model focuses on capturing the bank details of the employee, along with other financial details like a linked account for transfer of salary and other benefits that the employee is entitled to. In addition, it captures routing information like Swift Code, IFSC Code, Branch Code, etc.
Dependents
Dependents object focuses on the family members of an employee or individuals who the employee has confirmed as dependents for purposes of insurance, family details, etc. This also includes details of employees’ dependents including their date of birth, relation to the employee, among others.
KYC
This includes the background verification and other details about an employee with some identification proof and KYC (know your customer) documents. This is essential for companies to ensure their employees are well meaning citizens of the country meeting all compliances to work in that location. It captures details like Aadhar Number, PAN Number or unique identification number for the KYC document.
Compensation
This data model captures all details related to compensation for an employee, including total compensation/ cost to company, compensation split, salary in hand, etc. It also includes details on fixed compensation, variable pay as well as stock options. Compensation object also captures the frequency of salary payment, pay period, etc.
Unified HRIS API Integration: Get Started
By now, it would be clear to you that there are several HRIS tools in the market today that companies use and need to integrate with one another to ensure smooth exchange of data and consistency in records across platforms. However, manually implementing integrations between APIs of individual platforms can be extremely time consuming and resource intensive. In such a case, you can rely on a unified API like Knit, which gives you a single HRIS API to integrate with. Once you integrate with the HRIS API, you automatically get integrated with all the HR platforms you use.
Before moving on to the best practices to choose the right Unified HRIS API integration platform, here are some quick reasons why you should choose one:
- Requires integration with a common unified API to connect with a plethora of HRIS software used by different customers
- Supports common integration logic, endpoints, pagination which is easy to understand
- Normalizes and transforms data into a unified data model with possibility of having custom fields for smooth data sync
- Can facilitate real time data sync between the application offered and HRIS software with instant alerts
- Tales care of integration maintenance and management with logging and error detection
- Significantly lower cost and time requirements, ability to integrate with multiple HRIS platforms within days to a few weeks
- Common documentation and need to understand only one API than toggling between documentation of all HRIS APIs
- Need to deal with only one form of authentication, rate limits, pagination, etc.
Here are some points that you should always consider while choosing the right unified HRIS API for your company:
Understand the documentation
Start by gauging whether or not the unified API provides comprehensive and easy to understand documentation for integration. One of the key reasons to choose a unified API is to prevent the effort of navigating through individual documentation for each integration you need. Therefore, getting the right documentation, which covers everything you need is important. The documentation will also help you understand the integration logic being followed, including REST vs SOAP, and end points like GET, POST, and PATCH, provision of free sandbox, etc.
Which authentication model is followed?
Next, understand the authentication model that the unified API provides. Essentially, there are a few major types of authentication, including,
- Basic Auth that requires an API key or password for access
- OAuth 2.0 which relies on token exchanges
- Username-password based authentication
The right authentication and authorization is important since it will directly impact the privacy and security of the data you exchange between integrations.
What are the rate limits?
Rate limits are simply the number of API requests that can be made in a defined period of time. They are generally set to prevent cyber attacks like DDoS attacks which come in the form of exponential unleashing of API requests. Having a lower threshold of rate limit, but with expected high rate of requests can lead to unexpected unified API behavior. Ensure that your unified API provider can customize rate limits to address your and your customer needs.
Do you get post integration support?
HRIS API integration doesn’t end with building the integrations. There is a lot which goes on once the integrations are under use. There can be errors in data transformation, zombie APIs, API keys breaking or expiring, bad data being returned, long running syncs, troubleshooting challenges, and more. Your unified API needs to provide you with exceptional maintenance and management support, taking care of any challenge that comes along. At the same time, the error messages should be easy to decipher for your customer success team to ultimately address the queries.
How secure are the integrations?
Undoubtedly, security of your HRIS API integration is critical to your business operations. Thus, choose a unified API provider which is security-first. Gauge the level of encryption it offers, We have already talked about authentication. Don’t forget to check for security protocols, certifications and compliances which are adhered by the unified API for maximum resilience.
Knit: Unified HRIS API
Knit is a unified HRIS API provider that enables companies to implement native HRIS integrations to streamline and optimize HR processes. When you integrate with Knit, you get:
- One unified API to connect with all HRIS tools you need
- Single unified data model for seamless data normalization and exchange
- Compliance to the highest security standards like SOC2, GDPR, ISO27001, HIPAA
- Option to authenticate the way you want, including, OAuth, API key or a username-password based authentication
- 100% webhooks architecture that send out notification whenever updated data is available
- Guaranteed scalability and delivery of HR data irrespective of data load
- High level of security as Knit doesn’t store a copy of your data
- Option to read and write data from any app from any HRIS category
- Option to limit data sync and API calls to only what you need
- Double encryption when in transit and when at rest with addition PII layer
- Detailed Logs, Issues, Integrated Accounts and Syncs page to easily monitor HRIS integrations
- Custom fields to manage any non-standard HRIS data
Knit, as a unified HRIS API ensures a high ROI for companies which seek to integrate their diverse HRIS applications to make their HR processes effective, without sinking their organizational budgets.
Wrapping up: TL:DR
To conclude, it is quite evident that HRIS integration is a must have for any growing HR team which is looking to work with several HR tools to manage different parts of the process. However, building and managing integrations in-house can be quite intensive in terms of investments and engineering team involvement. Fortunately, with a unified HRIS API, companies only need to integrate once with a unified API key and connect with all HRIS applications, with high levels of security, guaranteed scalability, seamless data normalization, integration management and real time sync.
