What do you need an HRIS integration for?
- The main purpose of integrations in Leapsome is user provisioning. This means to automatically adding all your employees to Leapsome, create new users right after they joined, and transfer all relevant user demographic data available in your HRIS.
- Having your employee data in Leapsome in a timely and complete manner ensures users can login on their start-date, but this also allows the automation of on- and offboarding workflows based on hire dates, automated customization of functionalities and visibility based on teams and reporting lines, as well as analytics of your Leapsome data on the relevant demographic data points. Read here for more information on inviting/importing your user base.
- By using an HRIS integration, the HRIS remains your single source of truth for your employee directory while users and all demographic-relevant data is synced to Leapsome automatically. For many customers, there are different possibilities to set up their user provisioning depending on which HRIS their use, whether they use an IdP, and what technical resources and policies exist.
- Leapsome also offers integrations for other purposes, such as calendar integrations, and analytics APIs. For a full list, please refer to the Integrations overview. After configuring your user base, you may consider setting up single sign-on for a smooth and secure login experience on top.
How do I choose the best user provisioning integration setup for my use case?
📌 To decide which integrations you use for user provisioning to Leapsome, we recommend you ask yourself the following questions:
1. Data requirements: Which users and which user data do you require in Leapsome?
2. Data Availability: In which systems is this data stored?
3. Data Quality: Is this data correct and how often is it updated?
4. Integration Scope: To what extent are the source systems supported by Leapsome’s integrations?
5. Set-up complexity: Which internal resources do you have available to configure the HRIS integration?
Which users and which user data do you want to sync to Leapsome?
The user data you wish to synchronize from your HRIS with Leapsome will vary based on your specific use cases. The next section will give you an overview of which user attributes you will require, and which additional attributes may be relevant for which scenarios.
Required Attributes:
Technically speaking, only email address (unique identifier) and status (active, deactivated, etc..) are
required to create users and enable their access in Leapsome. For some specific integrations, additional attributes may be technically required.
For a full Leapsome experience, we however recommend including the following attributes: Name,
surname, primary manager, hire date, termination date, teams, job title, location, gender, date of birth.
These attributes ensure your user base is invited to the platform. In addition, they serve as the basis
for smart access management, automation of workflows related to the employee life cycle, and
customization of key functionalities of the Leapsome platform.
Optional, but recommended attributes:
Depending on your use case, additional data can be uploaded to Leapsome for a complete experience and data analytics:
- Level - relevant for competency framework and reviews, analytics
- Additional teams, e.g. sub-companies, project teams, or similar
Optional, Advanced Attributes
Depending on your company’s use cases and used modules, these additional data points may be relevant:
- Additional managers - relevant for matrix organizations, project-based workflows, or mentor programs
- Specific demographics in the form of custom attributes - relevant for analytics and defining custom targeting of workflows, e.g. module access or survey invitation participant selection
- Compensation data such as salary, bonus, and equity information
An additional overview of attributes and their purpose in Leapsome can be accessed here.
What is your company’s single source of truth for user/employee data for these users? In what systems is the data identified above available?
Next, we recommend to evaluate which currently used systems hold the above data and the respective scope of their integration to Leapsome.
HRIS with extended integration to Leapsome, e.g. Personio, BambooHR or HiBob
These integrations are easy set up without additional technical resources. Which users and attributes should be included can be customized; in most cases, the advanced attribute types mentioned above are also supported. A full list of available attributes can be found in the respective documentation of the integration.
HRIS with basic integration to Leapsome
These HRIS integrations are easily set up in a few steps without additional technical resources, e.g. these HRIS integrations. The difference to the extended integrations is the scope of included attributes, which can typically not be adjusted and/or are limited to specific attributes. You can find out whether your Leapsome supports a basic or extended integration to your HRIS by checking the included attributes in the respective documentation.
IdP (Identity Provider), e.g. Okta or AzureAD
Leapsome supports a straightforward connection to common IdPs with only limited technical resources required. Like the extended HRIS integration, you can freely decide which users should be synced. In addition, our IdP integrations allow you to fully customize your attribute mapping, allowing you to freely decide which attribute from your IdP should be the source for each Leapsome attribute. If the integration to your HRIS does not support an attribute you want to sync, you can consider syncing those from your HRIS to your IdP, and subsequently from your IdP into Leapsome.
HRIS supporting SFTP integration
The SFTP connection allows synchronization of almost all attributes available in Leapsome including custom attributes and compensation data. However, the setup requires technical resources and more caution than other integrations when making changes to the attributes included.
Do your systems and internal resources allow a custom-built integration using our SCIM API?
If none of the above-mentioned options meet your needs, you may consider a custom integration using our SCIM API. This option is highly flexible and includes almost all attributes. However, it can also require substantial technical resources for implementation.
Overview of available integrations and attribute scope
To support the decision process, you can access a detailed overview of which attributes are supported by which integration in this table. Setup documentation for the respective integrations is available under HRIS User Provisioning.
The data you want to sync is in more than one system, or none of the integrations offered cover all the data required?
If you have several systems for different user groups or not all attributes are available/integrated via one system, you may consider combining one or more integrations.
Use case 1: Your user base is split across systems, e.g. multiple HRIS for different sub-companies or locations.
You can connect multiple different systems simultaneously to Leapsome, e.g. Personio in addition to Rippling, to sync your complete user base. However, for all integrations except IdP, SFTP, and SCIM API, only one instance can be connected at once, e.g. you cannot connect two Personio accounts to one Leapsome account.
If you use this option, please ensure each user is only included in one of the systems to avoid one of the running syncs overwriting the other. Also, we recommend checking the logic of your user attributes, to ensure that, e.g., teams, location naming, or similar, or other custom attributes are consistent/comparable across systems. Similarly, please keep in mind that the integrations you aim to combine may support a different set of user attributes. In the previous example, users sent from Rippling will automatically be assigned a date of birth, while users from Personio won’t. You can use this table to identify differences.
Use case 2: For the same users, different attributes should be synced from multiple systems, e.g. user data from HRIS and picture from Identity Provider.
This option is particularly helpful if the available integrations to your HRIS do not support all attribute types required or if some data is only available in specific systems for data privacy reasons. Again, you can connect multiple integrations to sync to Leapsome.
One common combination is the set-up of an HRIS integration as well as connecting an IdP such as Azure AD or Okta. In these cases, the personal user data comes from the HRIS, but special attribute types such as profile pictures come from the IdP. In this case, please ensure to only map the additional attributes as well as the users’ unique identifiers when setting up your IdP.
Another common combination is to use one of our standard HRIS integrations with a limited scope of included attributes and customizability (e.g. integrations listed through merge.dev ) for creating users and managing status, and customizing user demographics through an SFTP connection or regular Excel import. By using partial imports of only affected users, and leaving columns and fields maintained through an integration empty, you can update the data without fear of overwriting the existing data: Leapsome only replaces data with ‘new’ values; empty values in your upload do not remove any existing values.
Important: If you decide to connect more than one system via an integration, please ensure that
- The email addresses match across the system, or, in case the emails do not match, ensure to include matching external IDs (e.g. your internal employee ID) in all systems. Otherwise, Leapsome may create duplicate users.
- For each attribute, there is only one source of truth. If there is more than one system syncing the same attribute and one is outdated, the correct values may be overwritten.
Summary
When deciding on which systems to connect to Leapsome for user provisioning, always start by asking yourself: Which data do you want to use in Leapsome, which of your used systems contains this data, and which integrations are available to send the data from these systems to Leapsome.
Which attributes are supported by which integration and their purpose in Leapsome can be found in this table. Setup documentation for the respective integrations is available in the HRIS User Provisioning section.
Bonus: Can I start using Leapsome without an integration, and enable it later?
It’s good to be cautious and considerate about how to integrate. If the data is not yet available in your desired source system, or you are waiting for technical resources to configure your selected set-up, this does not have to stop you from uploading your users already.
In this case, less is more: start with the data or connections you have available already. You can add additional data points any time later on.
As an alternative or addition to integrations, you can always create, upload, and update your user list via excel import or directly in Leapsome.
If you decide to enable an integration later on, switch from one integration to the other, or combine additional integrations, you can always do so. In this case, please keep the email address / external ID consistent to avoid duplicating users. Also, please confirm that teams, levels, and other attributes are spelled the same to ensure the existing values will be picked up. If you are planning a larger change in your HRIS integration setup, you may want to involve your Leapsome contact beforehand.