HR data to BI
HiBob to Power BI integration: people data and work history from Bob in Power BI
With an integration between HiBob and Power BI, employees, work history, departments and leavers from Bob sit in a fixed Power BI model, across all countries. Departments and job titles arrive as readable names instead of internal codes, and leavers keep counting, so turnover and growth per team are right in Power BI.
What the integration does
Anyone using HiBob for all employees often wants to see growth and turnover per team in Power BI, next to revenue and customer figures. The reports in Bob only show the current position, and an export to Excel contains codes instead of department names.
- HR creates an API service user in Bob with read access to the required fields and to the work history.
- Every day KoppelHet fetches all employees, including those who have left.
- The work history per employee comes along, with effective date and the previous department and job title.
- Codes for department, job title and site are translated to the names from Bob.
- KoppelHet refreshes the Power BI model; team leads see only their own team.
What to watch for with HiBob and Power BI
- By default Bob only returns active employees. People who have left then drop out of the count and turnover looks like zero. KoppelHet also requests inactive employees, and the service user gets access to that group for it.
- Department and job title are stored in Bob's work history as a reference to a list value, not as a name. KoppelHet fetches the lists separately and puts the names in the model, so a renamed department appears in Power BI with the new name and the history simply continues.
- The employee search in Bob returns everything in one response, without pages, and is limited to 50 requests per minute. With large numbers KoppelHet first requests only the IDs and then the data in batches, so the run stays within that limit.
- Bob silently leaves out fields the service user has no access to. An empty column in Power BI is then not a data error but a permissions issue. KoppelHet compares the requested and received fields on every run and reports the difference.
- Every row in Bob's work history has an effective date and a flag for whether it is the current row. KoppelHet uses the effective date to determine per month who was in which team, so a team change halfway through the year splits the growth figures of both teams correctly.
- Bob can deliver saved reports through the API in CSV or JSON. If HR already has a report in Bob that the team relies on, KoppelHet can fetch that report instead of rebuilding the figures, so Bob and Power BI show the same thing.
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 Power BI not call the HiBob API itself?
Technically yes, but then Power BI has to handle permissions, the per-minute limit, list values and history itself. That quickly becomes a fragile report. KoppelHet supplies a fixed model that Power BI only refreshes.
Does compensation data from Bob go along?
Only if the report needs it and the service user may see it. By default we leave it out.
What about the GDPR?
You are the controller and KoppelHet is the processor, under a data processing agreement. The service user only gets read access to the fields the report needs.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- HiBob People API: POST /v1/people/search with fields (up to 400), showInactive set to true and humanReadable where needed; no pagination, 50 requests per minute. Work history through GET /v1/bulk/people/work with cursor pagination (limit up to 200), with effectiveDate, endEffectiveDate, isCurrent, department, title, site and reportsTo. List values through the metadata API.
- Saved reports through GET /v1/company/reports/{reportId}/download (csv, xlsx or json) or asynchronously through download-async. Authentication with an API service user (ID and token); permissions through a permission group, including View history on the Work table.
- Power BI semantic model in import mode, refreshed through the Power BI REST API. Row-level security on department and team.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in HiBob | Field in Power BI | Notes |
|---|---|---|
root.id | Medewerkersleutel | |
work.startDate en internal.terminationDate | Tabel dienstverbanden en verloop | |
Work-tabel (effectiveDate, department, title, site, reportsTo) | Tabel werkhistorie | |
Lijstwaarden uit de metadata (department, title) | Dimensie afdeling en functie | Codes translated to names |
work.reportsTo | Leidinggevende | |
isCurrent | Huidige regel in de werkhistorie |
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