Personio: HRIS Integration

Setting up Integration in Personio

If you use Personio as your HRIS, Pento offers integration using Personio's API, which helps to reduce time spent entering employee details for payroll.

Generating the API credentials

To set up the integration in Personio, an admin user has to generate the API credentials in the Personio account.

To generate the API credentials, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Log into Personio

2. Navigate to the Settings page

   

3. Navigate to the API Credentials page

   

4. Click Generate new credential, and the form below or similar will be shown:

5. Fill the Name field with a name that will help you remember what the credentials are used for (e.g. "Pento integration")

6. In the Integration dropdown, choose Other

7. Select the Read checkbox for Employees row

1. In the Readable employee attributes dropdown, click Select All to map any employee attributes in Pento.

2. Click Generate new credential. A Client ID and a secret will be generated.

   

    

Connecting to Personio in Pento

To connect to Personio, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Settings from the left sidebar
2. Under the Integrations heading, select Overview
3. You will see an icon for Personio; select Integrate

   

4. Once you have selected Integrate, the following pop-up will appear:
   

5. Please enter the Client ID and Secret generated by Personio

6. Select Integrate

You should now be fully connected.

Settings

Once connected, you should be directed to the Integration settings screen; you must set up your settings and map the fields you require between Personio and Pento.

Pause syncing

Please toggle on Pause syncing if you need to update data directly in Pento and do not want it to be overwritten by the data in Personio. You can unpause the sync at any point; however, if you do not update the data in Personio, the values in Pento will be overwritten with the values from Personio. 

Termination and Holiday pay pension settings.

Please toggle on Include holiday pay in pension calculations if you wish for termination pay & termination holiday pay to be included in pension calculations by default. Do not toggle this option if it varies from employee to employee.

Excluding employees from being synced

To enable this, please refer to our below article

Sending payslips via Personio

Please toggle on Send additional payslips via Personio if you wish for employees to receive their payslips via Personio in addition to email. If this option is enabled, you can choose a folder we send the payslips to:

Mapping Fields

You will also see mapping fields similar to the below screenshot. The fields on the left represent the fields in Pento, whilst the fields on the right represent the fields in Personio. You can map any field from Personio to Pento, including custom fields. Once mapped, the data will sync from Personio to Pento.

Adding a new custom field from Personio into Pento

If you have created a new attribute/field in Personio that you would like to flow to Pento, you will need to add it to your API credentials in Personio first.

To do this, please follow the steps below:

1. Login to Personio
2. Navigate to API credentials
3. Click the token you are using for Pento
4. Expand Readable employee attributes
5. Find the new attribute and select it
6. Save settings

That's it, and you should now be able to see the new field/attribute in Pento. 

How to amend your Settings

You may need to amend your settings in Pento to enable or disable synced fields, amend the payslips and/or termination pay settings, and remove and/or add any employee filters. To do this, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Settings from the left sidebar
2. Under the Integrations heading, select Personio
   
   

How the sync works in Pento

Understanding how the data is synced from Personio to Pento is helpful to ensure your Employee's details are accurate and up to date.

Syncing is executed when Pento is first connected to Personio (described above); each time, the integration setting is updated in Pento and every hour.

Pento will check for any changes to the mapped fields on employees.

How Employee data is synced

Employee data is synced using any ID field you choose, i.e. If there is an employee with the same ID on Pento and Personio, the employee data in Pento will be populated with the employee data from Personio for the fields defined in the Mapping settings. Any fields defined as Do not map will not be synced.

New Starters

Any new employees should be added to Personio using a unique and previously unused Employee ID. Once you have added them to Personio, as long as the Employee ID is not present on any active or terminated record in Pento, a new employee record will be created for them.

For further guidance, refer to our help article How to Add a New Starter to Pento.

Syncing individual employees

If you are connected to Personio, but an employee's data is not syncing, you can pull through the updates by syncing an individual employee. To do this, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Employees from the left sidebar 
2. Search for the relevant employee
3. To the right of the employee details, select "Actions"
4. Select Sync now

You will also see a timestamp with the last time and date an employee was synced. Once you have triggered Sync now, you will see a successful banner and an updated timestamp.

You can also sync individual employees if you have paused syncing in your Personio settings in Pento. 

Sync Indicator ⚡️

The sync indicator highlights which fields are linked to other systems, like your HRIS or HMRC. Basically, it's a heads-up that if you change something in Pento, it'll get updated with the latest info from those other systems the next time Pento syncs up with them.

If a field doesn't have an integration option or it's set to Do Not Map, there won't be a sync indicator next to it.

You can see the indicator in your employees' profile:

In the Salary tab:

And on the payslip:

Frequently Asked Questions

I updated my employee data in Personio. Why hasn't it synced with Pento?

Syncing is executed every hour; if you have made changes after a sync has been completed, you may need to wait for it to update. If you are unable to wait, you can force the sync through by syncing individual employees.

Alternatively, it could be that the information in Personio was entered in an invalid format for Pento; see further guidance on accepted formatting here. If this still doesn't pull the changes through, you will need to contact support, who will be able to assist.

Employees are showing as Pending in the Employees list.

Employees will only show as Ready once all the required information has been synced. Please refer to our help article How to ready your employee for payroll and ensure the data is entered in Personio.

I need to finalise my payroll, but some employee data is yet to sync. What should I do?

If you are unable to wait for a sync to execute and syncing individual employees has not worked, you can update Pento directly. However, once the sync has been completed, the information on Pento will be overwritten with the data from Personio. If it is invalid, it will update the fields in Pento to blank.

Alternatively, you can pause syncing in your integration settings, update Pento directly and unpause the sync once the payroll has been submitted. You will need to make sure any changes you made to Pento are updated in your HRIS if you require them to be synced going forward. 

I updated Pento but not Personio.

As Personio is the source of truth for Pento, please ensure that any changes you make on Pento are the same in Personio.

Why don't my salaries sync?

As we use the Personio API to pull information into Pento, we're limited by what we can or cannot do, and at the moment, their API doesn't disclose salaries. If you'd like to see this as an option, we recommend you share your interest with the Personio team.

Why can't I use the payslip uploading feature?

For this feature to be usable, the permissions in Personio need to be set as enabled for Read and Write for Documents. If these are not enabled, you can turn them on in your admin settings inside Personio. If you need more help enabling this, the customer support team at Personio should be able to help.

Why doesn't my new custom field show in Pento?

For new custom fields to show in Pento, they need to be added to the API key. If you've added a new custom field, you should be able to edit your existing API key, and the readable employee attributes section will show your new custom field. Once you've selected your new custom field and clicked save, that new custom field will show in Pento.

Once I have confirmed Payroll, does the information still sync from my HRIS?

No further changes can be made if payroll is awaiting approval or confirmation. This means any changes affecting the payslip calculations are not synced, e.g. salaries. Once the payroll has been processed and paid, the sync will be ren-enabled and salaries backdated as appropriate. Data that does not affect the payslip values, e.g. bank details, will continue to be synced regardless of the payroll status.