HR to ITSM
BambooHR TOPdesk integration: Dutch employees and onboarding tickets in the service desk
With an integration between BambooHR and TOPdesk, new Dutch employees from BambooHR are persons in TOPdesk, with department, branch and manager, and KoppelHet creates an incident or change for the right operator group for every new colleague, job change or departure. This also works when HR is on another continent: the Dutch service desk gets an onboarding ticket with start date and branch for every new colleague, and an offboarding ticket one week before departure.
What the integration does
Anyone who manages employees worldwide in BambooHR and has an IT team with TOPdesk in the Netherlands often only hears about new colleagues when a manager asks. Leavers stay in TOPdesk for months.
- HR in the US enters a new Dutch colleague in BambooHR.
- KoppelHet picks up the change straight away and checks whether the location is in the Netherlands. Only then does the employee go to TOPdesk.
- The employee appears as a person in TOPdesk, with department, branch, job title and manager.
- The IT team sees an onboarding change based on your TOPdesk template and arranges laptop, badge and workplace.
- One week before the last working day an offboarding ticket arrives for laptop, badge and access; after the last working day KoppelHet archives the person.
- The onboarding incident is in the new colleague's name and goes to the operator group of the branch, with the start date as target date and job, department and manager in the text. If the service desk wants fixed tasks, it becomes a change from a template.
- A new job or department results in a change ticket, so IT adjusts access and equipment.
What to watch for with BambooHR and TOPdesk
- HR fills in the hireDate in BambooHR at hiring, often weeks ahead. KoppelHet only creates the onboarding ticket within the agreed lead time before that date, so a hire three months out is not already in the Dutch queue today.
- A terminationDate only appears in BambooHR when HR processes the departure. If that date is less than a week away, the offboarding ticket arrives immediately, with the date as target date.
- If a colleague moves from the US to a Dutch location, they are new to TOPdesk. An onboarding ticket for the Dutch workplace follows, even though the employee has existed in BambooHR for years.
- BambooHR also reports a change in job or employment status as a change. That way a transfer from another country to the Netherlands shows up just as well as a new hire.
- BambooHR can bundle several employees in one notification. KoppelHet processes each employee separately, so one error does not hold up the rest.
- Instant notifications from BambooHR do not follow custom tables. If the cost centre sits in such a table, for example, the periodic check picks up that change.
- BambooHR's standard notifications follow a fixed list of fields. If the location must be followed too, KoppelHet sets up its own notification that does follow that field.
- BambooHR is often set up for a US headquarters. Dutch employees are found through the location, and only those locations become branches in TOPdesk.
- Dutch surnames with a prefix are often stored in one BambooHR field, such as van den Berg. TOPdesk has a separate field for prefixes; KoppelHet only splits it if you want, so sorting in TOPdesk works.
- The integration looks in with the rights of one BambooHR user. We ask for a separate user that only sees the data for TOPdesk, without pay.
This integration is also part of joiner, mover, leaver.
How we build and run it
- The integration runs on the KoppelHet platform, hosted in a data centre in the EU.
- Every sync and every error is visible in the functional log; on an error your administrator is notified.
- A change that cannot go through is not half-applied but queued for another attempt.
- KoppelHet is ISO 27001 certified. Data travels encrypted and stays on the platform no longer than needed.
- After go-live we manage the integration and adjust it when your process changes.
- The integration fits next to your existing integration layer. Only the fields in the design are transferred; the platform keeps no register of its own.
Implementation and price
This is not an app you switch on. We build the integration for your organisation on our platform, with building blocks we reuse on every project. So it is custom work that does not start from scratch.
A consultant prepares the intake and analyses both systems. We then record the mapping and exceptions field by field, test in the test or acceptance environment and go live at a moment you choose. Costs are a one-off amount for the setup and a monthly amount for platform, monitoring and support.
Frequently asked questions
Can we also have tickets created for onboarding and offboarding?
Yes. For every new Dutch colleague an onboarding incident or change arrives four weeks before the hireDate by default, and an offboarding ticket one week before the terminationDate. The ticket is in the employee's name and goes to the branch's operator group.
Does HR in the US need to change anything?
No. The location must be filled correctly, though, because the integration uses it to decide whether someone belongs in the Dutch TOPdesk.
What if someone relocates from the US to the Netherlands?
As soon as the location in BambooHR becomes Dutch, the person appears in TOPdesk, with an onboarding change for the Dutch workplace.
Are persons deleted in TOPdesk when BambooHR deletes an employee?
No. An employee deleted in BambooHR is archived in TOPdesk and put on a list, because deletion often happens by mistake or for a duplicate entry.
Can the service desk see why a person was changed?
Yes, the KoppelHet platform shows per change what came from BambooHR and what was updated in TOPdesk.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- BambooHR is read through webhooks, with the changed endpoint on timestamp as a safety net (inserted, updated, deleted since a given time).
- BambooHR only sends webhooks to HTTPS addresses and can bundle several employees per message. Webhooks do not monitor fields in custom tables. A global webhook monitors a fixed field list; a webhook created through the API can monitor any field the API user has access to.
- TOPdesk is written through the TOPdesk REST API (persons, branches, changes). Key is employeeNumber; manager through supervisorId, which holds the supervisor's employeeNumber.
- The BambooHR API key belongs to a user and carries that user's permissions; no access to compensation.
- Tickets through the TOPdesk REST API: incidents with POST /tas/api/incidents (callerLookup to the person, briefDescription, request, category, operatorGroup, targetDate and externalNumber), or changes with POST /tas/api/operatorChanges from a template (template and requester). KoppelHet stores per employee which incident or change has already been created, per hire and per end date.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in BambooHR | Field in TOPdesk | Notes |
|---|---|---|
employeeNumber | employeeNumber | Not BambooHR's internal id, which only exists in the API |
preferredName of firstName | firstName | |
lastName | surName | |
workEmail | email | |
jobTitle | jobTitle | |
department | department | |
location | branch | |
supervisorId | manager | supervisorId is the supervisor's employeeNumber, supervisorEId the internal id |
hireDate | hireDate (contract) | |
terminationDate | employmentTerminationDate (contract) en archiveren | |
Indiensttreding, wijziging of vertrek | Melding (incidents) of wijziging uit sjabloon (operatorChanges) | Chosen per event at the start |
Gesynchroniseerde persoon | callerLookup of requester | The ticket is in the employee's name |
hireDate of terminationDate | targetDate en briefDescription | For example Onboarding 01-11-2026: name |
Functie, afdeling en leidinggevende | request (tekst van de melding) | |
Vestiging of afdeling | operatorGroup en category | Operator group per branch |
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