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How to Sync HRIS Data from HiBob

How to sync HRIS data from HiBob

Jared Ellis avatar
Written by Jared Ellis
Updated over a week ago

What can I learn from this page?

How to sync HRIS data from HiBob

Who is this guide for?

Account Admins

Update: HiBob is deprecating their current API by the end of 2023. As such, all current HiBob integration users in CultureAmp need to re-authenticate with HiBob using their Service User credentials.

📌 Note: HiBob 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.

Culture Amp can import all your employee data directly from HiBob. The set-up process is straightforward and can usually be completed in a short period of time without technical support. In this guide we will explore how you can connect HiBob to import and update your user data within Culture Amp.


How It Works:

  • Employee Data will flow from HiBob into Culture Amp. Changes to employee data in Culture Amp will not flow back to HiBob.

  • Any employees that are already in Culture Amp but are not imported from HiBob will be deactivated.

  • You will be able to configure which demographics to import into Culture Amp, in addition to the mandatory fields.

  • If you want to include demographics in Culture Amp that are not in the HiBob integration, you can create and maintain the demographics directly in Culture Amp. The nightly Integration sync will not overwrite them, as long as there are no HiBob demographics with the same name.


Before You Start:

Ensure that you have access to the following accounts when setting up the integration:

  • Access to a HiBob API token for your HiBob user. Information on how to get this can be found here

  • Culture Amp account with Account Administrator access


Step 1: Connect Your HiBob Account

Once you have the required access to HiBob, you can begin the set up on the Culture Amp side.

  1. Sign in to Culture Amp with an account that has Account Administrator access.

  2. Navigate to your Settings > Data Integrations page in the Culture Amp platform. Select the HiBob Logo.

  3. Follow these instructions to create an access token in HiBob

  4. Your new Service User credentials have no permissions set by default. To enable necessary permissions, create a new Service Users permissions group and add your Service Users to the group, follow these instructions.

  5. When setting permissions for your Service Users group make sure to enable all view permissions in People’s Data. This allows Service Users to have access to all company fields from HiBob.


    If you want to include PII fields such as Date of Birth, you'll also need to enable edit permissions for the Personal sections.

  6. Copy the Service User ID and Token you just created in HiBob into the respective fields on Culture Amp.

  7. Click the Validate Credentials button.

  8. You now have a connection between HiBob and Culture Amp and can set up the integration.


Step 2: Choose the Fields to Sync

Custom Field Mapping

  • If you would like to customize the mapping of fields between HiBob and CultureAmp, 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 into Culture Amp

  • Name

  • Email

  • Employee Id **

  • Manager email

  • Preferred name

  • Date of birth

  • Start date

  • End date

You can also select any additional fields that you would like to be imported into Culture Amp:

4.Choosefieldstosync.png

Hierarchy Mapping

If you've enabled hierarchy on your account and are using the advanced custom mapping option, ensure your Manager mappings are set up correctly:

  • Map Reports to (with a lowercase 't') in CA to Manager in HiBob (HiBob work field)

  • Map Manager's Email (or equivalent demographic in CA) → Manager's email in HiBob (lowercase 'e')

Using any other mapping combination may lead to the exclusion of the Manager's Email data from the sync.

📌 Note:

  • HiBob-generated Employee Ids will be used for employees who do not have information in the Employee Id field within their HiBob profiles.

  • HiBob will map the below by default

  • Culture Amp Name Field will be pulled from the Full Name demographic in HiBob

  • Culture Amp Preferred Name Field will be pulled from the Display Name demographic in HiBob

  • HiBob Category Tables:

    • Data contained within Category Tables (other than default tables) cannot be accessed via the HiBob integration at this time. This means any field created on a custom Category Table will not be available as part of the integration in Culture Amp.

    • The recommended workaround would be to create a custom field in Category Fields.

Step 3: Optional - Create a Custom Field to Exclude Specific People

If you'd like to exclude specific people, create a custom field in HiBob 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.

To create a custom field in HiBob, take a look at this article from HiBob’s help center.

We recommend creating the custom field with these options:

  • What is the field called?

    • Exclude from Culture Amp

  • What type of field should this be?

    • List with 2 options Yes or No

We’ll read this field and include/exclude people on every sync.

7.optionalcustomfield.png

📌 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 contact Culture Amp Support, and we 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.

  1. Enter the email address of a person that should be contacted in case of any integration errors.

  2. Select the Save settings button to save the integration


Step 5: Manually Sync Data

After setting up a connection between HiBob and Culture Amp we recommend that you perform a manual sync to confirm that the data is syncing correctly.

1. The easiest way to trigger a manual sync is to click the Sync button on the modal you see after saving your integration settings.

2. if you would like to skip the sync for now and do it at another time, select the Skip sync button. A manual sync can be performed at any time by following the steps below:

  • Settings > Data Integrations > Sync data

  • OR, Settings > Users > Import users

3. Click the Get Started button

4. At the bottom of the page in the Sync with HiBob section. Select the Sync button (Ignore the Select Import and Import your user data sections as these are not applicable for an integrated sync)

5. Culture Amp will validate the data being imported, if there are no concerns select Next

6. Review data. If there are any issues or errors with the changes that are going to be made in Culture Amp, please see the Troubleshooting integration issues section below or reach out to Product Support

7. Select the Import data button to import the employees into Culture Amp.

8. Culture Amp will import the data, select the Go to Users button

9. Review the users that have been imported


Step 6: Set Up Daily Sync

After you have done your first manual sync and are confident that data is coming in correctly, enable a daily sync on your HiBob integrations settings.

To update the integration go to Settings > Data Integrations > Configure > Edit

Scroll down to Step 3: Set sync settings, toggle Turn on daily syncs.


Troubleshooting Integration Issues

Why isn't the Manager's Email field syncing in the HiBob integration?

If you've enabled hierarchy on your account and are using the advanced custom mapping option, ensure your mappings are set up correctly:

  • Map Reports to (with a lowercase 't') in CA to Manager in HiBob (HiBob work field)

  • Map Manager's Email (or equivalent demographic in CA) → Manager's email in HiBob (lowercase 'e')

Avoid using any other combination, as this will result in the Manager Email data being excluded from the sync.

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 HiBob integration, you could see errors related to matching employees. Please review the troubleshooting information in ‘Duplicate employees in Culture Amp’ section below.

If your additional demographics have a different name in HiBob 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 from HiBob. 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 HiBob to employees in Culture Amp based on the employees email address. If the same employee has a different email address in Culture Amp and HiBob, duplicate employees will be created in Culture Amp. To reconcile the duplicates please follow the steps below

Resolving Duplicates Before Changes Have Been 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 HiBob 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 clean the data the following way:

  • Deactivate the newest employee and remove email from it, e.g. by assigning a fake ID/email to allow saving.

  • Update existing user records to match employee emails in HiBob. 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 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 Account Admin Settings > Import History 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.

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