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Important considerations for people data integrations
There are lots of things to consider when interfacing people data due to its complexity and sensitivity;
Why is it needed?
- What is the data being used for?
- Is the purpose of the data compatible with the stated business purposes for using employee's data?
- Has the purpose been assessed by information security?
- Is the data flow purely outbound or is there an inbound (return) data feed)?
- What is the purpose of each data attribute? Does it drive process or calculations?
What is the population scope?
- Is it all types of people including contractors, casuals and contingent workers as well as employees?
- Does it need to include people who are away on leave or otherwise inactive?
- Which parts of the organisation are in scope?
- Which locations/regions/countries are in scope?
- When is a new starter included - as soon as they are known about or only on their start date?
- When is a leaver included - as soon as the leave date is set or only of the date is past?
- What changes of existing employees need to be included?
What is the data frequency?
- How often is the data required? (Daily, working day, weekly, hourly, near real time)
- When in the day is the data required?
- How long does it take to process the data?
- What is the timing of the data update and is it automated?
- Which are the dates that drive the updates (effective date, change date etc)
What data is required?
- Which attributes are required?
- Are any data sensitive?
- What transformations are required?
- How is data to be deleted indicated?
- How is null data provided?
- How much data is sent? (per person)
- What determines which events are included or excluded?
- How to ensure changes are processed in the correct sequence?
How is the data transferred?
- Is a full set of data provided each time?
- If only changes are sent - how is the initial data set?
- How are retrospective transactions handled?
- How is sensitive data encrypted?
- How are 'empty files' dealt with - is this an error?
- What is the method of transfer (API, sFTP etc) and file format (csv, xml)?
- Is there a need for metadata or reference data to be separately provided?
- How is the end to end integration monitored?
- How are errors notified and to whom?
- How are errors dealt with?
- What could go wrong and how are risks managed?
Common complexities
The following difficult scenarios are quite common where people are concerned;
- Changes in organisation structures impacting many people at one time
- Line manager leaves resulting in change to reporting manager in their subordinates
- Late notification of a leaver - date left is well in the past
