Sapling - Integrating with Sapling without a Native Integration

Introduction 

Sapling taps into your existing HR technology stack with numerous integrations across your ATS, payroll, HRIS, LMS, performance management, identity provider, and many more solutions. Sometimes, though, you may have a system you want to connect that's not currently listed in Sapling's native integrations.

This article steps through the range of options you have to still create a connected ecosystem across your people programs and tools, including the following topics:

• Imports and Exports
• Webhooks (and Zapier)
• Public API

Imports and Exports

Getting Data Out

The simplest way to get data out of Sapling is through Reports. If you need to move data from Sapling into another system (e.g. your payroll system), you can likely do so through a regularly scheduled report in Sapling. Here's a typical flow:

1. Build a report in Sapling that includes the fields and filters you need for your other system
2. Create a delivery schedule for that report to show up in someone's inbox
3. When that report is delivered, the recipient downloads the report, applies any additional data or formatting changes, and then imports into your other system
4. Alternatively, you could deliver the report to an email address that could pass the data into an SFTP site for more automated use elsewhere

Most commonly, you'll leverage the Profile Info or Field Changes report types. With both, you'll be able to choose the fields you need to include and filter the resulting data by date ranges, locations, and more.

With Profile Info reports, you can get the current value across all fields for any of your employees in Sapling. This is typically helpful if your other system requires you upload a "full census" or "full data file"; effectively, you can use this to replace or overwrite all of the employee data in your other system.

With Field Changes reports, you can get a snapshot of all changes across all fields for any of your employees in Sapling. This is typically helpful if your other system requires you upload a "delta" or "changes only file"; effectively, you're sharing just the updates that have happened in Sapling since your last import into the other system.

Getting Data In

If you have data from another system that you need to push into Sapling (e.g. candidates becoming Pending Hires, or employee data changed in another HR system), you can use Sapling's Bulk Data Uploads tool to create or update data from a CSV file.

Webhooks (and Zapier)

Incoming Webhooks

If your other system is able to handle incoming webhooks, you may have more automated options available through Sapling's Webhooks feature.

Webhooks are like the voicemail in integrations, with one system calling another system to leave a message. The receiving system listens to the message and does something with the information it contained, or calls back for more detail.

So, what does that metaphor look like in real life?

If your other system supports incoming webhooks, you could have Sapling let the other system know when a new hire starts their first week, or when an address has been changed, or even when someone has hit their work anniversary. That other system could then update itself or take other actions based on that information.

Check the admin or integration controls of your other system to determine if it can support incoming webhooks; you may need to reach out to their support team for additional guidance on what URL you can use for configuring Sapling's Webhooks to deliver to your other system.

Zapier in the Middle

Another option your other system may support is connection through Zapier. With Sapling's Zapier integration, you can connect Sapling Webhooks to thousands of other apps and services with Zapier providing the connection service in the middle.

So even if your other system doesn't overtly support incoming webhooks, they may be part of the Zapier ecosystem; if so, you can connect Sapling through that platform. Again, check with your other system's support team for help, or run a quick search for that product name on Zapier's site.

Public API

If you have software development capacity available (either in-house or through a contracted service), you could also make use of Sapling's Public API to programmatically get data from Sapling or update data inside Sapling relating to your other system.

Especially when used in conjunction with Webhooks (which can also be configured programmatically), Sapling's Public API provides easy access to all employee and task data. You'll need to create an API key which expires every 90 days to call the API correctly.

It's important to note that our Public API is still in beta so some things may change without advance notification (we try to avoid this but it may need to happen at times).

Pushing new hires into Sapling's Pending Hires bay

We've made it easy to leverage the Sapling Public API to push new hires from your existing ATS or other pre-hire system into Sapling. Follow along in the guide here.

Check with your Customer Success Manager if you have other questions on how you can best integrate other systems with Sapling when there isn't an out-of-the-box integration already available.