HR to ITSM
HiBob to Zendesk integration: joiners and leavers from Bob as user and task in the internal service desk
With an integration between HiBob and Zendesk, every new colleague from Bob appears with their work email as an end user in your internal Zendesk, with department, site and manager, and IT gets an onboarding task weeks before the start. A departure in Bob is followed by an offboarding task and the user is suspended after the agreed date, also on garden leave.
What the integration does
Organisations with HiBob for HR and Zendesk as internal service desk for IT and People often see new colleagues appear in Zendesk with their private address, because they sent a question before starting. After a reorganisation in Bob the departments in Zendesk are no longer right, and triggers on department send tickets to the wrong group.
- HR creates the new employee in Bob, with start date, department, site and manager.
- HiBob sends a signed notification; KoppelHet fetches the employee, even if they have not started yet.
- As soon as the work email is known, the colleague is added as an end user in Zendesk, and IT gets an onboarding task with the start date as due date.
- A new department, site or manager in Bob updates the user.
- On a departure an offboarding task is created; on the agreed date the user is suspended.
What to watch for with HiBob and Zendesk
- Bob often also asks for a private address for a new employee, and Zendesk recognises users by email address. KoppelHet only creates the user with the work email, so the colleague does not appear as a different user after their start than before it.
- A dropdown option in Zendesk has a visible name and a fixed value. KoppelHet uses the Bob ID of the department as the value, so a renamed department in Bob only gets a new name and triggers on that department keep working.
- HiBob does not show employees who have not started yet in search results by default. KoppelHet requests them on purpose, so the onboarding task in Zendesk is ready weeks before the start.
- Bob records garden leave as a departure. Per termination reason we record whether the Zendesk user is suspended on the last office day or only at the end of the contract.
- During a restructure Bob sends a notification per changed field, sometimes several per colleague within a minute. Zendesk only allows a few changes per minute per user, so KoppelHet merges the notifications for the same colleague into one change.
- An agent who leaves in Bob is suspended in Zendesk, not deleted. Their licence is freed, and the tickets they handled stay visible.
- KoppelHet only processes notifications with a valid HiBob signature. A forged notification cannot suspend a colleague or create a task.
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
What if a colleague emailed from a private address before their start?
Then a user with that address already exists in Zendesk. KoppelHet creates the new user with the work email and puts the duplicate on a list, so an agent can merge them.
Is salary or personal data from Bob sent to Zendesk?
No. The service user in Bob can only see name, work email, department, site, manager and dates. Salary and personal details do not enter the integration.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- HiBob is read through signed webhooks (including employee.created, employee.updated, employee.joined and employee.left) and the People API (people search with showInactive), with a service user that can only see the required fields.
- Zendesk is written through the Users API (create_or_update on external_id, skip_verify_email, suspended) and the User Fields API (custom_field_options with name and value; the full list on every update). Tasks through the Tickets API with type task, due_at, requester_id and group_id.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in HiBob | Field in Zendesk | Notes |
|---|---|---|
root.id | external_id | |
root.displayName | name | |
Werkadres | email | Never the private address |
work.department | user_fields: afdeling (dropdown, waarde = Bob-id) | |
work.site | organization of user_fields: site | |
work.reportsTo | user_fields: leidinggevende (lookup naar gebruiker) | |
work.startDate | Onboardingtaak (type task) met due_at | |
Vertrek met laatste werkdag en reden | Offboardingtaak en suspended = true |
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