Data-driven HR strategies need, well, data. But when that data is locked in multiple platforms, both strategy and process come to a screeching halt. Your HRIS (Human Resources Information System) is the beating heart at the center of your process, full of valuable data. But that data doesn’t do much good if it’s not portable.
HRIS integration closes the gap between your HRIS and other essential HR tools, from performance management platforms like 15Five to onboarding platforms like Sapling. As HR functions shift from traditional, reactive administrative roles to strategic pursuits, an HR team’s reliance on its HRIS and similar tools increases. They need better data, they need more of it, and they don’t have time to get it out of multiple platforms.
15Five has built-in integrations with some of the most popular HRIS platforms on the market, giving you access to all the data you need to improve employee experience and make stronger decisions.
In this guide, you’ll learn about integrating HRIS platforms with other essential tools, as well as how 15Five’s built-in integrations make this much simpler.
Key Takeaways:
- HRIS integration simplifies data management by connecting employee information across platforms for improved accuracy and efficiency.
- 15Five’s HRIS integrations eliminate manual updates and ensure seamless workflows between HR systems and performance management tools.
- A strong HRIS integration platform improves reporting, employee engagement, and goal tracking by centralizing data.
- Choosing the right HRIS solutions requires evaluating compatibility, scalability, and support for key business needs.
- 15Five’s HRIS Connector provides organizations with a straightforward way to leverage their existing HRIS tools while enhancing strategic HR initiatives.
Understanding HRIS integration
An integration is a piece of software that closes the gap between two or more systems, ferrying data between them. Integrations, like any kind of software, vary widely. Built-in integrations, like 15Five’s HRIS integrations, bring data over from connected systems right into the tools you already know. They might require some extra work to set up—usually from your IT or engineering team—but they’re usually quick to deploy and use.
Other integration solutions, like iPaaS (integration platform as a service), workflow automation, and RPA (robotic process automation) tools, require significantly more setup time and resources to get working just right. These will usually be deployed across the organization, rather than just for HR systems.
HRIS integration connects your HRIS of choice with other platforms HR teams typically use, like performance management platforms, payroll systems, benefits management software, and more. Integrating these systems is rapidly becoming essential. Here’s how:
- A single source of truth: With a fully integrated platform, you only have to check a single place when you need data about the employee experience. That saves time on manual work and improves visibility for everyone.
- More accurate data: When HR professionals need to manually move data between platforms for reporting and other tasks, they introduce the risk of data entry errors that can have outsized impacts on their processes. Integrations eliminate that risk.
- Smoother HR processes: HR professionals can do their work without needing to source data from multiple systems, while employees don’t have to check more than one platform for what they need.
- Better scalability: Manually checking multiple systems whenever you need data can work with a team of 10 employees. But as your organization scales to hundreds, or even thousands of people, HRIS integration is essential to keep your HR team productive as the administrative load increases.
Conversely, HR professionals working without HRIS integration typically face the following challenges:
- Multiple versions of the same data: With important data scattered across multiple platforms, it can be tough to know which version of a similar report is the most recent one. Are you looking at last month’s employee engagement survey results? Or this month's?
- Error-prone data: The more you rely on manual data entry and transfers in your process, the more opportunities you introduce for data entry errors.
- Disjointed HR processes: When HR professionals have to constantly switch tools for even simple tasks, projects take longer to complete, and workflows feel like they’re sapping your productivity rather than improving it.
- Little scalability: Scaling important HR tasks beyond a small team depends on robust HRIS integration and similar systems. Otherwise, HR teams can easily get crushed by administrative tasks, preventing them from being strategic partners for leaders and other stakeholders.
The role of HRIS integration in strategic HR
HRIS integration doesn’t just make administrative HR work easier; it’s an essential component of strategic HR. Strategic HR is about driving real, measurable impacts for employees by using people data to shape HR initiatives aligned with broader business objectives. Strategic HR (and HRIS integration) has a massive impact on performance management and employee engagement.
If your HRIS is your command center, performance management platforms are the terminals that give you the information you need to know exactly how to take action. When properly integrated, that means you’ll have all the performance data you need to know how to act and the results of these actions, all without leaving your HRIS. Similarly, your performance management platform is automatically populated with essential information about each employee, so you have complete profiles with regular updates, instead of disjointed data. This makes improving the employee experience and engagement more than just a guessing game.
HRIS integration allows you to get the data you need where you need it across the tools you use most. Here are just a few examples of situations where these integrations excel:
- Hiring and recruitment: Your HR tools give you up-to-date information on skill gaps and recruitment efforts, but this data is often locked in. With an HRIS integration, you can put it at a recruiter’s fingertips.
- Onboarding and offboarding employees: Both onboarding and offboarding employees involve a ton of administrative tasks and data. Integrating your HRIS with other relevant tools can automate some of this work, while ensuring you always have the data you need.
- User provisioning and deprovisioning: Keeping track of all the platforms employees have access to (and removing credentials when necessary) is simplified with the right integration.
- Org structure and role data: With HRIS integration, essential information about where employees fit into your org, as well as the exact tasks their roles involve, can enhance your work in performance management platforms and other tools.
Through these uses and more, HRIS integrations enhance your reporting and collaboration capabilities, giving you everything you need to make stronger, data-driven decisions.
15Five’s HRIS connector
15Five’s HRIS connector integrates HRIS platforms like ADP, Paycor, BambooHR, and Ceridian, so you can do more with these tools. Feed your performance management platform with essential data so you can get to insights and action faster. The HRIS connector allows 15Five to put all your people data at your fingertips, with no extra manual work involved.
In just a few clicks, you can connect 15Five to your HRIS and get employee data, employment information, group data, and more, all up to date, whenever you need it. Leverage your HRIS platform’s strengths (housing all your people data) and 15Five’s (performance management and driving business outcomes) without fragmented data or incomplete reports.
With 15Five’s HRIS connector, you get:
- Automatic provisioning/deprovisioning of users.
- Seamless employee data synchronization.
- Custom attribute creation from HRIS fields in 15Five.
- Detailed sync history and troubleshooting support.
- Configurable filters for users.
- Mapping options for groups and group types.
Key benefits of 15Five HRIS integrations
With the right HRIS integration, paired with 15Five, you’ll see some major benefits across all your workflows.
Better data accuracy
When your HR strategies are built on people data, you need as much data as you can get, and it needs to be absolutely accurate. HRIS integrations eliminate manual data entry errors and keep data up to date across all systems, meaning you’re never working with inaccurate or outdated information.
Time savings for HR teams
Manually adding, updating, and transferring data across multiple platforms can easily absorb hours of an HR team’s time. With 15Five’s HRIS integration, that work completely disappears.
Improved employee experience
As employees change roles or get access to updated benefits, information is updated automatically in the platforms they use, based on information in your HRIS. That makes onboarding, transitions, and even simple time-off requests much smoother.
Better performance management
Your performance management is more useful the more data it has, and your HRIS is where all that data ends up. Lead better initiatives, get stronger insights, and start acting faster, all from your performance management tool.
Scalable HRIS solutions
Integrations are essential for scaling any HR process. They eliminate manual work, centralize data from an ever-increasing workforce, and make all your tools more efficient, even as you grow.
Best practices for implementing HRIS integration with 15Five
To deploy any integration (even 15Five’s), you should follow these best practices.
Involve IT and HR stakeholders early
Even an integration that can be deployed in just a few clicks can have far-reaching impacts on your systems and processes. Draft a list of people who need to be involved in any integration process (e.g., HR team leads, department heads, your IT department) and loop them in before you do anything else.
Be clear on your integration goals
Not all integrations are built equally, and they’ll help you achieve different things. By being clear on your goals (and making them measurable), you can track the impact of your chosen integration and make sure you pick the right one.
Run a pilot project before a full rollout
Before you apply an integration across all your organization’s data, you should test its performance with a smaller dataset. Start with HR data from a single tool, a single department, or just for a short-term project. Once you’ve done that, you can see the integration’s impact and whether it’s worth rolling out more broadly.
Monitor and maintain integrations over time
Once you’ve deployed an integration, you’ll want someone with technical skills (or your IT team) to maintain it over time. This maintenance is typically minimal, only involving occasional troubleshooting.
Get more out of your HRIS with 15Five’s integration
The right HRIS integration can completely transform the way your HR teams work. Bring all your people data into your performance management platform of choice with 15Five’s HRIS integration. Drive better business results, align strategy across business functions, and more, all without leaving your favorite platform.
Find out more about 15Five’s HRIS connector here.
