HR to ITSM
Sympa to ServiceNow integration: users from the datacards and catalog requests on joining and leaving
With an integration between Sympa and ServiceNow, every employee from Sympa becomes a user in ServiceNow, with department, location and manager, and a new employee or end date in Sympa orders the onboarding or offboarding item from the ServiceNow catalog. KoppelHet reads Sympa through a dedicated API interface with only the fields ServiceNow needs, within the limit of one hundred requests per hour.
What the integration does
Organisations that use Sympa as HR system and ServiceNow for the IT service desk often export employees by hand or only get them into ServiceNow through the directory. A reorganisation recorded ahead in Sympa then reaches ServiceNow too early or too late, and approvals go to the wrong manager.
- Your Sympa administrator creates an API interface with the fields the integration needs.
- Every fifteen minutes KoppelHet requests the datacards changed since the previous round.
- Departments and locations go to ServiceNow first, then the users with their manager.
- A new employee within the onboarding lead time orders the onboarding item.
- An end date orders the offboarding item; after that date the user is set to inactive.
What to watch for with Sympa and ServiceNow
- An API interface in Sympa may make one hundred requests per hour by default, reading and writing combined. Per round KoppelHet only requests changed datacards, in large pages, and delivers them to ServiceNow in one import set, so the limit is not hit even during a reorganisation.
- Sympa answers read requests from a reporting database that is usually updated within a minute, but sometimes only after half an hour. KoppelHet therefore lets each round overlap the previous one by half an hour, so a change that reaches that database late still lands in ServiceNow.
- The Sympa administrator decides which fields an API interface returns. The interface for ServiceNow only gets name, work email, job, org unit, location, manager and the dates, so national ID and salary cannot even be requested.
- A field that refers to another datacard, such as the manager, can show a target field of that datacard in Sympa. KoppelHet has the manager's email address returned and uses it to look up the user in ServiceNow, so approvals reach the right person.
- Tables with validity dates in Sympa can be requested as they apply on a given day. KoppelHet requests the organisation row that applies on the effective date and only puts the new department in ServiceNow on that day, so a reorganisation does not affect assignment weeks too early.
- Every API interface in Sympa has one field that uniquely identifies a datacard. KoppelHet picks the employee number for it and uses the same number as key in ServiceNow, so a rehire reactivates the same user.
- The activity log of the Sympa API only shows the ten most recent requests. KoppelHet therefore keeps its own record per round of which datacards were fetched and what was put in ServiceNow, so a question from the service desk can still be answered days later.
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 does our Sympa administrator need to do?
Create a read-only API interface with the agreed fields once, and issue an API key. After that HR notices nothing of the integration.
Are one hundred requests per hour enough?
For joiners and leavers yes, because KoppelHet only fetches changed employees. If more is needed, Sympa can raise the limit for the interface.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- Sympa through the Sympa Integration API (OData v4) on a dedicated interface with X-ApiKey or basic authentication; $filter on modified, $top and $skip, at, since and until for table rows with validity, target fields on datacard fields such as the manager. One hundred requests per hour per interface by default; reads come from the reporting database with a delay of up to thirty minutes.
- ServiceNow through the Import Set API (insertMultiple with run_after for cmn_department and cmn_location before sys_user, coalesce on employee_number) and the Service Catalog API (POST /api/sn_sc/servicecatalog/items/{sys_id}/order_now with variables and sysparm_requested_for).
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in Sympa | Field in ServiceNow | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Personeelsnummer (uniek veld van de interface) | employee_number | Coalesce key |
Voornaam en achternaam | first_name en last_name | |
Werk-e-mailadres | email | |
Functie | title | |
Organisatie-eenheid | department (cmn_department) | |
Locatie | location (cmn_location) | |
Leidinggevende (doelveld e-mailadres) | manager | |
Begin- en einddatum dienstverband | Onboarding- en offboardingitem, active |
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