HR to ITSM
Personio TOPdesk integration: employees and onboarding tickets from HR
With an integration between Personio and TOPdesk, new colleagues from Personio 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. As soon as HR puts someone in onboarding in Personio, an onboarding incident or change follows within the agreed lead time, so laptop and access badge are ready on day one.
What the integration does
Organisations that register employees in Personio and manage workplaces and access badges through TOPdesk start onboarding in Personio without the service desk noticing. It only hears on the first working day that someone has joined.
- HR enters a new colleague in Personio and starts onboarding.
- KoppelHet picks up the change and takes the most recent contract as the basis for position, office and department.
- Colleagues at a Dutch office then appear as persons in TOPdesk.
- Well before the start date the service desk sees an onboarding change based on your TOPdesk template.
- 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 Personio and TOPdesk
- The type INTERNAL or EXTERNAL in Personio decides which ticket follows. An external may get accounts only and no laptop, with its own category in TOPdesk.
- If a probation period is not extended, the employment in Personio gets an end date. KoppelHet then creates an offboarding ticket a week ahead, as with any departure.
- Custom attributes in Personio do send a notification on change. If HR records there what equipment someone needs, it appears in the text of the TOPdesk ticket.
- Not every change in Personio triggers an immediate notification. That is why a periodic comparison runs next to the notifications to catch missed changes.
- Someone can have several contracts in Personio. KoppelHet uses the most recent one for TOPdesk.
- Personio holds a probation end date and a contract end date. TOPdesk has exactly those two fields, so the service desk sees when a fixed-term contract expires.
- Personio distinguishes own employees from externals. Externals can go into TOPdesk without an onboarding change, or stay out entirely; that is agreed per customer.
- Personio mixes departments and teams. KoppelHet only uses the departments for the department field in TOPdesk.
- An employee can be split over several cost centres in Personio. TOPdesk has one cost centre per person, so the one with the largest share counts.
- Onboarding in Personio starts before the start date. The TOPdesk change can then be ready while the person does not yet have access to the self-service portal.
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. By default an onboarding incident or a change from your template arrives four weeks before the start date, and an offboarding ticket one week before the employment end date. An extension gives no offboarding.
What may the integration see in Personio?
Only the personal and contract data TOPdesk needs. Salary and private data stay excluded.
Can a colleague abroad also go into TOPdesk?
Yes, if they use the Dutch service desk. We then include that office too.
Does TOPdesk write anything back to Personio?
No. Personio remains the source. HR changes a person in Personio, not the service desk in TOPdesk.
What if an employee returns after leaving?
KoppelHet then finds the archived person and reactivates them, old calls included.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- Personio is read through webhooks (Person.created, Person.updated, Employment.updated; not every attribute change sends Person.updated, custom attributes do) and the Personio API v2 (employments with the most recent first), with a periodic comparison.
- Fields include position.title, org_units (type department), office, supervisor, cost_centers (highest weight to budgetHolder), employment_start_date, probation_end_date (to endProbationPeriod) and employment_end_date. Status ONBOARDING and type INTERNAL or EXTERNAL.
- TOPdesk is written through the TOPdesk REST API. The Personio credential only has read access to persons and employments.
- 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 Personio | Field in TOPdesk | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Person id | employeeNumber | |
Voornaam | firstName | |
Achternaam | surName | |
E-mail | email | |
position.title | jobTitle | |
org_units (department) | department | |
office | branch | |
supervisor | manager | |
cost_centers | budgetHolder | With several cost centres, the one with the highest weight counts |
employment_start_date | hireDate (contract) | |
probation_end_date | endProbationPeriod (contract) | |
employment_end_date | employmentTerminationDate (contract) | |
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 |
employment_start_date of employment_end_date | 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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