Accounts in applications
Workday to Slack integration: Slack account on the first working day, manager and team from Workday
With an integration between Workday and Slack, every new worker from Workday gets a Slack account on their first working day with job title, team, manager and start date, in the time zone of their location. Contingent workers from Workday become a guest that expires by itself at the end of their assignment, and on departure or rehire Slack follows the dates in Workday.
What the integration does
Anyone running HR in Workday and using Slack as their main workplace often creates accounts by hand from a periodic report, so new colleagues sometimes start their first day without Slack. Contingent workers keep a full account after their last day, and after a reorganisation the user groups no longer match.
- HR completes the hire in Workday, often weeks before the start date.
- On the first working day, in the time zone of the location, KoppelHet creates the Slack account with start date, job title and manager, or reactivates the old account on a rehire.
- The worker joins the user group of their supervisory organization and moves along on a team change.
- A contingent worker becomes a multi-channel guest, with their contract end date as expiry date.
- At the end of the last working day KoppelHet deactivates the account.
What to watch for with Workday and Slack
- Workday often records a hire weeks ahead, but Slack has no account that is ready without being active. KoppelHet therefore only creates the account on the start date, in the time zone of the Workday location, so a colleague in Toronto and one in Utrecht can both sign in on their own first morning.
- Slack has a profile field for the start date. KoppelHet fills it with the hire date from Workday, so Slack shows who has just started, without anyone typing it in.
- Workday manages contractors as contingent workers with a contract end date. Slack can create a multi-channel guest with an expiry date through provisioning. KoppelHet sets the Workday contract end date as the expiry date, so access also stops if nobody completes the termination.
- On a rehire Workday keeps the old employee ID. Slack refuses a new account if the email address already belongs to a deactivated user. KoppelHet finds the old Slack user through the employee ID and switches it back on.
- Slack expects the Slack ID of an existing user as manager, while Workday knows the manager as a worker. With a new manager and a new team on the same day, KoppelHet creates the manager first and then sets the reference on their team members.
- After a reorganisation in Workday workers move to another supervisory organization. KoppelHet adjusts user group membership; the Slack administrator sets the @ mention once, because Slack does not allow it through provisioning.
- Company, cost centre and division from Workday become custom profile fields in Slack. Slack allows at most fifty. KoppelHet only sends the fields colleagues really need in Slack, so there is room left for fields the organisation creates itself.
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
Doesn't Slack already run through Entra ID or Okta for us?
It can, and then that connection is where HR data comes in. Workday directly to Slack fits when start date, contingent workers with an end date and teams from Workday must be right in Slack and the identity provider does not pass them on.
Can a new colleague be in Slack before their first day?
If you want that, yes, for example a week ahead for a welcome channel. The account is then active straight away; we agree that per organisation.
What happens to a leaver's messages?
Slack does not delete users, it deactivates them. Messages and files stay according to the retention policy of your Slack environment.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- Workday is read through a RaaS report or Workday Web Services with an Integration System User, on completed business processes (Hire, Rehire, Change Job, Contract Contingent Worker, Terminate).
- Slack is written through the Slack SCIM API with an OAuth token with the admin scope, created by an Owner or Admin; on an Enterprise organisation installed at organisation level. Users with POST, PATCH and DELETE /Users (deactivate), reactivation with active = true; startDate through urn:scim:schemas:extension:slack:profile:1.0; guests through urn:scim:schemas:extension:slack:guest:1.0 (type multi, expiration); user groups through /Groups.
- The SCIM API is only available on Slack Business+ and Enterprise and returns HTTP 429 on too many calls; user lists are retrieved in pages of at most 1,000.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in Workday | Field in Slack | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Employee_ID of Contingent_Worker_ID | enterprise.employeeNumber | Fixed key; it stays the same on rehire |
Naamgevingsregel | userName | At most 21 characters |
Preferred_Name | name.givenName, name.familyName en displayName | |
Werk-e-mail | emails | |
Business_Title | title | |
Company en Cost_Center | enterprise.organization en enterprise.costCenter | |
Manager | enterprise.manager.managerId | Looked up as the manager's Slack ID |
Hire_Date | profile.startDate | |
Location (tijdzone en land) | timezone en preferredLanguage | |
Supervisory_Organization | Lidmaatschap user group | |
Contract_End_Date (inhuur) | Gast met expiration |
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