HR to ITSM
Workday to Zendesk integration: employees as users in the internal service desk, with a task on hire and termination
With an integration between Workday and Zendesk, every worker from Workday appears automatically as a user in your internal Zendesk, with company, department, language and manager, and the service desk gets a task with a due date for every hire and every departure. Zendesk has its own Workday app that shows the requester's details in the ticket; KoppelHet makes sure the users, organisations and tasks actually exist.
What the integration does
Anyone managing workers in Workday and using Zendesk as internal IT and HR service desk sees a requester's job and location through the Workday app in Zendesk, but whoever emails the service desk is created with just a name and an address. New colleagues are announced by email, and agents who leave keep their licence until someone notices.
- HR completes the hire in Workday, with start date, company, supervisory organization and manager.
- KoppelHet fetches the changed workers and adds the new colleague as an end user in Zendesk, in the organisation of their company, without a welcome email.
- Within the agreed lead time before the start, the IT group gets a task with the start date as due date and the details IT needs.
- A job change or move to another country updates the user, including the language Zendesk emails in.
- On a termination an offboarding task is created; if the leaver is an agent, KoppelHet suspends them after the last working day.
What to watch for with Workday and Zendesk
- Zendesk's Workday app shows Workday data next to the ticket, but does not create users, organisations or tickets. KoppelHet fills Zendesk itself, so the app also finds something for a colleague who has never emailed.
- Workday knows the language and country per worker. KoppelHet sets the user's language in Zendesk accordingly, so a colleague in Montreal gets automatic messages in French and a colleague in Utrecht in Dutch.
- Workday often records a hire weeks before the start. By default Zendesk sends a new user a verification email; KoppelHet creates the user without that email, so nobody receives mail from the service desk before their first working day.
- A supervisory organization in Workday sits deep in a tree, while a Zendesk user belongs to one organisation unless an extra setting is on. KoppelHet uses the company as organisation and puts the department in a dropdown field, so a reorganisation does not upset memberships.
- The department dropdown in Zendesk is always updated as a whole; a department that is left out disappears from all users. KoppelHet therefore always sends the complete list from Workday, even when only one department is added.
- Workday distinguishes employees and contingent workers, each with their own ID. Both can be added to Zendesk, with the worker type in its own field, so the service desk can apply different rules to contractors.
- If the work email changes in Workday, for example after a name change, Zendesk only adds the new address as an extra address. KoppelHet then makes the new address primary, so replies do not go to the old address.
- A deleted user cannot be recovered in Zendesk. KoppelHet therefore does not delete leavers, but suspends agents, so their licence is freed and the tickets they handled stay visible.
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
We already have Zendesk's Workday app. Why another integration?
The app shows what is in Workday once a ticket arrives. It does not create users, organisations or tasks and does not suspend anyone. The integration does that; the app can keep running.
Do colleagues who have emailed before get a second account?
No. Zendesk finds an existing user by email address or external_id. A colleague who already emailed from their work address gets their Workday ID added. Anyone who emailed from a private address goes on a list for the service desk.
Do we get a task at go-live for everyone already working?
No. The first run only sets up the users. After that only a new hire or a new end date results in a task.
Which Workday data ends up in Zendesk?
Only what the service desk needs: name, work email, language, company, department, worker type and manager. Compensation, date of birth and home address are not sent.
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 Get_Workers (Human Resources web service) with Updated_From and Updated_Through, or a RaaS report on change moment, with an Integration System User that only reads workers, organisations and locations.
- Zendesk is written through the Users API. The initial load uses create_or_update_many (at most 100 users per call, as a background job; Zendesk must enable bulk import first), then per user with create_or_update and skip_verify_email. Update User and Create Or Update User are limited to 5 requests per minute per user; at most 30 background jobs at once.
- Organisations through create_or_update on external_id, memberships through the Organization Memberships API (overwriting organization_id removes other memberships). Dropdowns through the User Fields API: custom_field_options are always sent in full. Tasks through the Tickets API with type task, due_at, requester_id, group_id and external_id; KoppelHet stores per worker which task already exists.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in Workday | Field in Zendesk | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Employee_ID of Contingent_Worker_ID | external_id | Fixed key; Zendesk treats it as case-insensitive |
Preferred_Name | name | |
Werk-e-mail (primair) | email, daarna primaire identity | A new address is added as an identity and made primary |
Company | organization (via organization_memberships) | |
Supervisory_Organization | user_fields: afdeling (dropdown) | |
Worker_Type | user_fields: soort worker | |
Manager | user_fields: leidinggevende (lookup naar gebruiker) | |
Location (land) | locale | |
Hire_Date of Termination_Date | Ticket type task met due_at, requester en group_id | |
Termination (agent) | suspended = true |
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