HR to ITSM
Workday TOPdesk integration: Dutch employees and onboarding tickets from Workday
With an integration between Workday and TOPdesk, all employees of the Dutch locations from Workday 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. A Hire or Termination in Workday results in an onboarding or offboarding ticket in good time, so IT and facilities can arrange laptop, badge and workplace.
What the integration does
When head office manages all workers in Workday and the Dutch sites use a locally configured TOPdesk, a new colleague only appears in TOPdesk once local IT enters them by hand. HR abroad often does not know that is needed.
- HR records a new colleague at a Dutch location in Workday. Workers in other countries stay out of TOPdesk.
- Departments and branches not yet in TOPdesk are created first.
- The worker appears as a person in TOPdesk, with employee number and manager.
- With a future start date an onboarding change is created straight away, so IT and facilities have time to prepare everything.
- 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 Workday and TOPdesk
- A Change Job from abroad to a Dutch location is a new colleague for this TOPdesk. The integration then creates an onboarding ticket for the Dutch workplace, with the existing Worker_ID.
- Contingent workers can get their own template, for example with accounts and badge but without a laptop. Which template applies follows from the worker type in Workday.
- If HR withdraws a hire before the colleague starts, the worker drops out of the data KoppelHet fetches. The service desk then gets an action on the open onboarding ticket, so the workplace is not set up for nothing.
- Workday holds workers from every country. The integration filters on Dutch locations or the Dutch company, so TOPdesk does not receive people who will never log a call there.
- Workday keeps both the moment of entry and the effective date. KoppelHet therefore also picks up changes entered retroactively, without reading every worker each time.
- Workday has contingent workers next to employees. Whether they go into TOPdesk is agreed per customer, because contractors often do log calls.
- The organisation in Workday is a deep tree, while departments in TOPdesk are a flat list of unique names. Two teams with the same name in different places therefore get the parent unit's name added.
- A manager in Workday may work in another country and then does not exist in the Dutch TOPdesk. The integration then leaves the manager empty or creates them without a Dutch branch, as the customer prefers.
- Workday names can be longer than TOPdesk allows. First name goes up to 30 characters and surname up to 50; longer names are shortened by the integration and listed in the platform.
- The onboarding change in TOPdesk comes from a template you maintain. The change type always comes from that template, and steps that ask for confirmation in TOPdesk are not run automatically.
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 hire date, and an offboarding ticket one week before the last working day. The change type always comes from the template.
Can we fill service desks in other countries too?
Yes, with a separate filter per country or per TOPdesk environment. Each environment then only receives the workers for its sites.
Does HR abroad need to change anything?
No. HR keeps working in Workday as today. Location or company must be filled correctly, though, because the integration filters on it.
Which data from Workday is needed?
Only worker data, organisations and locations. Pay and personal data such as date of birth stay in Workday.
What if TOPdesk already contains persons?
At the start we match existing persons once to their Workday employee number based on email address. Anything that cannot be matched goes on a list for the service desk.
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 Workday Web Services (Get_Workers with Updated_From, Updated_Through and Effective_From, contingent workers can be excluded) or a RaaS report on moment of change, with an Integration System User that only reads worker data, organisations and locations.
- TOPdesk is written through the TOPdesk REST API (Supporting Files for persons, departments and branches with the Workday ID as external link; Change for changes from a template). Worker_ID goes to employeeNumber, the manager is a reference to another person.
- 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 Workday | Field in TOPdesk | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Worker_ID | employeeNumber | Fixed key, also when the name changes |
Preferred name (first) | firstName | |
Preferred name (last) | surName | |
Email_Address (work) | email | |
Business_Title | jobTitle | |
Supervisory organization | department | Or the cost centre, if that is used as department in TOPdesk |
Location | branch | |
Manager | manager | |
Hire_Date | hireDate (contract) | On a rehire, the most recent hire date |
Termination_Date | employmentTerminationDate (contract) en archiveren | Archiving happens after the last working day |
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 |
Hire_Date of Termination_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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