What can I learn from this page? | How to connect Elmo HRIS to Culture Amp: Guide to import/update user data. Includes setup, custom field mapping, troubleshooting, & syncing steps |
Who is this guide for? | Account Admins |
📌 Note: Elmo uses our full import process. When your data syncs, any employees not included in your data file will become inactive as former employees, with their End Date set to the import date. See: Importing your user data to Culture Amp for more information.
In this support guide we will explore how you can connect your Elmo HRIS to import and update your user data within Culture Amp.
Before You Start:
Please reach out to your Elmo account manager to ensure you have the required access to the Elmo API
Step 1: Connect Your Elmo Account
Once you have the required access to the Elmo API, you can now begin the set up on the Culture Amp side.
Sign in to Culture Amp with an account that has Account Administrator access.
Navigate to your Settings > Data Integrations page in the Culture Amp platform. Select the Elmo Logo.
3. Enter your ELMO username, API Key and Personal Access Token. If you are unaware of what any of the above values should be please reach out to your ELMO account manager
4. You now have a connection between ELMO and Culture Amp. If you are unable to validate the connection please ensure you are using the correct username, API Key and Personal Access Token, and you have confirmed with your ELMO account manager that you have access to the ELMO API.
Step 2: Choose the Fields to Sync
Custom Field Mapping
If you would like to customise the mapping of fields between ELMO and Culture Amp, please follow the HRIS Custom Mapping Instructions.
Alternatively you can use the default mapping explained in the Default field mapping section below.
Default Field Mapping
The following Mandatory fields will be automatically imported in Culture Amp
Name
Email
Employee Id
Manager email
Preferred name
Date of birth
Start date
End date
Select any additional from ELMO fields that you would like to be imported into Culture Amp
⚠️ Note: The ELMO user interface lets you add custom text, menu, and drop-down fields. However, ELMO's API does not support menu and drop-down fields, so Culture Amp cannot receive them through the integration. Only custom text fields will be sent to Culture Amp via the ELMO API.
You'll need to add the Culture Amp field called Manager as a field in Advanced Mapping (this will be automatically linked to the Elmo field called Manager ID). The platform then uses their ID's to automatically populate their email addresses in the Manager Email field in Culture Amp for hierarchy validation purposes.
The platform also pulls in the Manager Name info from the Manager ID too and that demographic field will therefore be reflected in the import summary.
The field names or content cannot be modified.
Remember when using the using the Advanced Mapping feature, if you have Employee Hierarchy enabled on your account with the managers email addresses as your manager identifier, the manager identifier demographic must be titled as 'Manager Email' in your Account Demographics.
Step 3: Optional - Create a Custom Field to Exclude Specific People
If you'd like to exclude specific people, create a custom field in ELMO called Exclude from Culture Amp. During the sync process, any employees with this field set to Yes will be excluded from being synced into Culture Amp. Any excluded employees with existing profiles in Culture Amp will transition to inactive users, marked as former employees with their End Date set to the date of import.
📌 Note: The default behavior for users left off your HRIS sync file is to set their end date to the import date, categorizing them as former employees. If you prefer that these users are treated as deactivated instead, just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist. They can adjust the default setting.
Step 4: Set Sync Settings and Save
We recommend leaving daily syncs disabled for now. The best practice is to first do a manual sync where you get to review how the integration data will change your employee data, before confirming those changes. After you have confirmed that data is importing correctly, you can enable daily syncs.
Enter the email address of a person that should be contacted in case of any integration errors.
Select the Save integration button to save your settings
Step 5: Manually Sync Data
You can now sync your user data into Culture Amp! We strongly recommend running a manual sync after setting up your integration to confirm everything is working correctly. You’ll be prompted to do this when you save your integration. Otherwise you can run a manual sync by navigating to the Settings > Data Integrations page and clicking the Sync Button or via your Settings > Users > Import Users
From here, Culture Amp will step you through the same verification process as if you were uploading users via the Import Users process. Once you’ve reviewed your data and clicked ‘Import data’, the sync will run in the background and could take anywhere from a couple of seconds to a few minutes. No data will be imported until you click ‘Import data’.
Troubleshooting Integration Issues
Switching from CSV Uploads to the Integration
If you already have existing data in Culture Amp as a result of doing CSV uploads or using a different integration, then there are a few things to pay attention to:
When doing your first sync via the integration, you could see errors related to matching employees. Please review the troubleshooting information in the ‘Duplicate employees in Culture Amp’ section below.
If your additional demographics have a different name in your HRIS than they are currently titled in Culture Amp, they will be created as a new demographic after your first sync. We would recommend keeping this in mind if you trend results in surveys for demographic groups over time. When you run your next survey, you can reach out to the Culture Amp product support team to do a once-off mapping of the previous demographic name to the new demographic name. To avoid confusion from users about which demographic to use, we would recommend navigating to the Settings > Account Demographics page and deleting the old demographics after your first sync (this will not impact any previous survey results or comparisons).
Duplicate Employees in Culture Amp
Culture Amp will match employees in your HRIS to employees in Culture Amp based on the employees email address. If the same employee has a different email address in Culture Amp and your HRIS, duplicate employees will be created in Culture Amp. To reconcile the duplicates please follow the steps below
Resolving Duplicates Before Changes Are Applied to Culture Amp
Feedback on all employees to be created/updated/deactivated will be provided on the ‘Review’ screen during the first sync. Ideally, you would then abort the sync and update employee emails in Culture Amp to match your HRIS data.
In Culture Amp, employees' email addresses can be updated via a user modal: Go to the Users page and click on the name of the employee you want to update, then update the email of the employee. Repeat for all duplicated employees. After that, you can try integration sync again.
Resolving Duplicates After Changes Have Been Applied to Culture Amp
If you did not address the duplicates on the first sync and duplicate employees have been created, it is possible to resolve the duplicates by:
Deactivating the newest employee profile and removing the email from the profile, e.g. by assigning a fake ID/email to allow saving.
Update existing user records to match employee emails in your HRIS. This will allow us to retain the history on the existing employee record.
Sync Blocked to Protect Employee Privacy
Your automated daily sync might be blocked if Culture Amp suspects that one of your employees may have had their details mixed up with another. You will receive a notification of this via email.
If a combination of an employee's Name, Date of Birth, or Email is changed, the sync will be blocked. This is to prevent an employee from accidentally getting access to another employee's private information, such as performance reviews.
If you've intentionally changed the employee's details, you can run a manual sync to push through the change. Simply click 'Import data' from the Users page and select 'Sync'. Culture Amp will guide you through the rest.
Investigating and Resolving Any Data Issues
Once the first integration has been performed and the integration history has been created, the first step when investigating data issues is to check the import summary for your most recent import. This will provide information about the state of your integration.
To find this information, go to your Settings > Import History page and select your most recent import.
If there was a problem with your last import, you will either be able to view errors on this page or you will be prompted to run a manual sync to identify any problems.
💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.