Employee time-off sync with BambooHR integration

Remote now syncs approved future time-off data from BambooHR to Remote. This allows Customers to make BambooHR the source of truth for worker time-off reporting when using Remote and to automatically sync time-off info from BambooHR over to Remote. Customers can also map different time-off types between BambooHR and Remote and set their preferences for data synchronization across platforms. In this article, we will explain:

• Prerequisities
  • Is the BambooHR integration right for me?
  • How to achieve aligned balances for time off in BambooHR and Remote
• How to configure the time-off integration
• How to fix errors in time off syncs
• Disable the time-off integration 
• Integration Recommendations
• Guidance for employees

Is the BambooHR integration right for me?

Before you enable the integration, it's important to understand who the integration is available for and how the data is synced to make sure it's a good fit. Below are key things to know about the time off integration, to help you decide if it is the right choice for you:

• Data synced: Approved time-off requests with time-off start dates in the future, as well as updates and cancellations of future time off requests
  • The integration does not sync past time-off that has already occurred, as there could be too many differences between the two systems and Remote can't verify which was used as the source of truth for requests. For past time off (new approved requests, changes, cancellations), employees must manually update both BambooHR and Remote to ensure payroll accuracy.
  • We do not sync time-off requests that have not been approved in BambooHR.
    
  • We only sync time-off requests for employees that have been synced through our integration, and that are active (fully onboarded in Remote).
• Direction of sync: One-way from BambooHR to Remote 
• Customer types covered: EOR and GP customers
  • Time off for contractors is currently excluded from the integration.
• As part of the integration setup, you will complete a mapping of time-off types between the two systems.

How to achieve aligned balances for time off in BambooHR and Remote

Please note that in addition to approved time off requests synced through the integration, the following things are taken into account for the calculation of balances in Remote and in BambooHR:

• public holiday calendars
• history of time off requests since the start of employment
• yearly allowances per leave type
• carryover rules for unused time off 

If having aligned balances in two systems is important for you, please consider aligning the time off policies in both systems before enabling the integration or soon after.

For EOR employees, Remote should be the source of truth about public holidays per country, statutory regulations about carryover rules and minimum entitlements for paid time off, sick leave, etc. Remote's data will be used for payroll calculations. Feel free to use Remote's information about public holidays, carryover rules and yearly entitlements and copy them into BambooHR. This cannot be achieved through API integration and would need to be done manually.

If you do not resolve differences in time off data right now, a more thorough check and alignment will be required at the time of offboarding to ensure correct payment for any unused paid time off.

If it is not important for you to have the same balances in BambooHR as in Remote, you can skip this alignment.

How to configure the time-off integration

If you have not set up the BambooHR integration, first follow the setup steps and then continue to the following section.

If you have already added the BambooHR integration in Remote and would like to include the time-off integration feature, follow the below steps:

Map time off between BambooHR and Remote:

Your company may have different types of times-off between BambooHR and Remote, so it’s important to map the types so that data will sync correctly from BambooHR to Remote. For example, maternity leave may be called “FMLA” in BambooHR and “Maternity Leave” in Remote, so it is important to map the two types in Remote.

1. Go to the Company Settings, click Integrations and select the BambooHR integration card. To set up the correct mapping, go to Settings tab in the BambooHR integrations page
2. Click Configure mapping.
   
   
3. Select the time-off type from BambooHR and map it to the corresponding type in Remote.
   
   
   As part of this mapping, you can also map to custom leave types in Remote (e.g. if you offer your employees extra leave days such as self-care days or day off for their birthday).
   
   
4. Once your desired time-off types have been mapped, click Save.

Enable auto-syncs for approved time-off requests

5. Use the toggle in the Enable sync for time off requests to enable the integration.

6. Perform an instant sync by clicking the Sync button. 

7. Review any errors that need to be corrected in the Time off tab.

How to fix errors in time off syncs

My balances in BambooHR and Remote do not match. What should I do?

Please check the following in both systems:

• public holiday calendars
• history of time off requests since the start of employment
• yearly allowances per leave type
• carryover rules for unused time off 

We sync approved time off requests with time-off dates in the future. In addition to the approved time off requests, all of the above components go into the calculation of balances in each system. Mismatch in any of them may lead to a difference in balances in the two systems.

Make sure employees are active and are synced through the integration

We only sync time-off requests for employees that have been synced through our integration, and that are active (fully onboarded in Remote). You can check which employees are synced through the integration by going to the People tab. If some employees you think should be synced are missing, please follow these troubleshooting steps.

Errors in time off syncs

In some cases we can automatically process incoming data from BambooHR, e.g. due to contradicting data. You can review any skipped time-off requests due to an error in the Time off and Events section. Employees will need to fix the time-off request in the system (BambooHR or Remote) where they made the error.

You can review typical error messages below and how to resolve them:

1. Timeoff with type [TYPE] was not synced due to unexisting mapping for this timeoff type

• Description: This error shows when we try to sync a time-off request with a BambooHR type that is not mapped to a Remote type.
• Solution: Make sure to go through the time-off type mapping process when setting up the BambooHR integration, and link the BambooHR time-off type to an existing Remote type.

2. Error when timeoff_type is not allowed for a given country

• Description: This error will show when a mapped timeoff type is not allowed on the EE’s country.
• Solution: Map the timeoff type to an allowed type for the EE’s country and do a manual sync to fix the problem.

3. Error when time off overlaps a single Remote time off

• Error message: All errors will start with: Timeoff couldn't sync because timeoff [EXISTING REMOTE TIMEOFF SLUG] already exists with different and can contains those different indicators:
  • end_date: [EXISTING REMOTE TIMEOFF END DATE]
  • number of taken hours: [EXISTING REMOTE TIMEOFF NUMBER OF HOURS]
  • start_date: [EXISTING REMOTE TIMEOFF START DATE]
  • status: [EXISTING REMOTE TIMEOFF STATUS]
  • timeoff_type: [EXISTING REMOTE TIMEOFF TYPE]
• Description: This error will show when an overlap is found and there’s some conflicts we couldn’t fix ourselves.
• Possible solutions:
  • If possible, update either Remote or BambooHR time off so fields can match and sync again
  • If not possible: cancel the overlapping time off and sync again

4. Multiple existing time off were found, so we couldn't sync this time off, their identifiers are the following: [REMOTE TIMEOFF SLUG, REMOTE TIMEOFF SLUG…]

• Description: This error will show when multiple Remote time off were found when syncing the timeoff
• Solution:
  • If possible, update either Remote timeoffs or BambooHR timeoff so there’s only one perfect overlap
  • If not possible: cancel the overlapping timeoffs and sync again

5. Time off with more than 8 hours a day requested: %{timeoff_days: [\"maximum hours requested for a day reached\"]}

• Description: This error will show when a user requests more than 8 hours of time off in one day. In Remote, 8 hours is the maximum duration of time off possible in one working day.
• Solution:
  • Ask the employee to update their time off request and specify the correct number of hours

If after following the steps above, you could not resolve the issue, please reach out to our support team at help@remote.com and provide the following:

• Screenshot of the Time off tab with the syncing error you want to investigate. Hover over ‘Failed’ tag to see the error explanation
• Screenshot for this time off request in BambooHR

Disable the time-off integration 

• If for some reason you want to disable time-off integration, you can do it without disabling the employee data integration for BambooHR. Simply turn the toggle in the Enable sync for time-off requests section off. But if you disable the employee data integration, time-off will stop syncing as well. We will not delete any previously synced time-off in Remote.
  
  

Integration Recommendations

• We recommend periodically checking the People, Time off and Events tabs to review any time off requests that could not be processed automatically. It is a good practice to do that once a month before payroll cutoff date. Ideally, those errors would need to be fixed before the payroll cutoff date.
• At this time, the time-off sync only applies to full-time EOR and Global Payroll employees, not contractors.
• When employees attempt to request time-off in Remote, a product notification will direct them to use BambooHR for such requests. Approved time-off will then automatically sync to Remote. We will not disable the function to add time-off in Remote since it might be necessary for correcting past time-off instances.
• Time-off should not be added directly to Remote to avoid future discrepancies.
  

Guidance for employees

If your company is using time-off integration from BambooHR to Remote, it means that any of your future BambooHR time-off requests will be synced to Remote.

You may still need to use Remote to log time-off in the following cases:

• To fix the history of your time-off (as Remote only syncs future time-off through the integration)
  • Example: As of May 1, 2024 your company enabled the BambooHR time-off integration. On May 9 you realised that you forgot to add your time off for April 5. You should add this time off request in both platforms, but going forward you will only need to make the time off requests in BambooHR.
• To update or cancel time-off requests, especially if you want to make updates or to cancel time-off in the past. Please submit such request in Remote, as it has high impact on payroll.
  • Example: As of May 1, 2024 your company enabled the BambooHR time-off integration and you had added time-off for April 1-9 2024 in Remote and BambooHR and it was approved. However, you only ended up taking off April 1-5 so you need to correct the dates for accurate payroll processing. You need to make that update in both BambooHR and Remote so that your payroll is processed accurately.
• To fix contradicting future time-off requests
  • Example: You have future time-off request in Remote that partially overlaps with dates of the time-off request in BambooHR. In Remote you already have a request for June 1-3 while BambooHR has a request for June 1-5 . You will need to manually correct one of the requests.
  • You have future time-off request in Remote and BambooHR for the same dates but with different time-off type. You will need to manually correct one of the requests.

When you submit your requests in BambooHR, please avoid requests for partial hours (e.g. requests for 3.5 hours or 5.2 hours of time-off). Remote only allows to take time-off for round number of hours. All other requests will be rounded the following way, leading to discrepancies in your time-off balance in BambooHR vs Remote:

• If time-off requests is < .5 hour, round to 0. I.e. 4.2 hours → 4 hours and 4.7 hours → 5 hours
• If time-off request is >= 0.5 hour, round to the higher full number