Below we explore some of the learnings that we've had when building integrations from Deputy to other third party applications. These ideas and recommendations are not mandatory but considered best practice when build an integration to Deputy.

The typical Deputy user

Deputy users are in general not the most tech savvy and the more streamlined you can make your integration setup process, the better. However by its nature Deputy can be a very technical solution to integrate with, so your job and how you get the most success with an integration, is to balance that complexity with a smooth user experience. One key thing to note about Deputy users is that in general they want to be in Deputy as least as possible, helping them achieve that with a solid, feature rich integration is key to helping them gain that efficiency.

Key facets of an integration

What users expect at a baseline out of your integration is really dictated by what type of application you are integrating to Deputy. There is three main key integration types with Deputy: Timesheets, Point of Sale, People Sync. Each of which has different use cases and reasons for integration.

Even if your integration type is not mentioned below don't think you cannot integrate with Deputy. These are just the most common that we see, but you very well may have the next break out app, and bring something entirely new to the table for our users.

Below is a table of what users typically expect at a baseline from these integrations.

Integration Type	Best Practice Feature Set	Why users connect these integrations
Timesheets	Retrieving timesheets Retrieving timesheets costs Reading the status of timesheets (Draft/Approved/Pay Approved/Discarded) Updating the status of timesheets (for example Mark as Paid)	Customers generally connect an integration to timesheets to retrieve that data for payroll purposes. Sometimes customers will only want the hours to come in and have the payroll as the source of truth for costs, whilst other times they will import the hours and costs related to timesheets. One of the key features you can add to an integration like this is writing back to Deputy when something about that Timesheet changes, for example setting the Timesheets as paid because the payroll has been done.
People Sync	Two-way sync of employee data between Deputy and your application Adding new users/records to Deputy when new people profiles are added in your system Filtering employees by location for example (Not all locations may be connected to Deputy due to type of work etc. For example salaried HQ employees) Leave balance sync Leave request sync Mapping Locations Pay rate sync	Synchronising people between Deputy and other applications can be an area where users experience huge efficiency gains. Not having to worry about adding users to Deputy when new employees are onboarded for example into an HRIS, allows a business owner to focus on what matters to them. It is important if possible to establish a two-way sync. While there will always be one side that is considered the source of truth, being able to retrieve changes, and also set changes inside a Deputy employee profile is extremely valuable. One thing that remains true for many Deputy users, is that their entire workforce is generally not in Deputy. This is usually due to the fact they have salaried, non-timesheet based staff and so there is no need to roster them or capture time data. Due to this it is very important as part of a people integration that you allow people to segment out groups of people from the integration. This is generally handled by mapping Locations/Divisions from your application to those which are present in Deputy. It is also best practice to allow people to map more than one Location/Division from your app to the same Location in Deputy as its possible your system has a slightly different hierarchy system. By doing this it also allows you to set primary workplaces and the like for employees which can help with payroll (for example knowing the primary location of an employee can help you determine what payroll centre they may be paid from in your app, especially when shared across multiple locations via rostering). It is also best practice to offer leave sync. Either your app or Deputy can be the source of truth for leave but in our US and European geographies we now offer a leave policy builder feature which will see some users want Deputy to remain the source of truth. It is best practice in many ways for a user to have choice in this decision as opposed to being forced one way or the other. The other people leave feature from integrations which is always welcomed by users is leave request sync, and in many cases this should also be two-way. The Deputy mobile app on Android and iOS is incredibly popular, and generally the way employees working for companies using Deputy request leave from their job. Once approved this appears on the roster and ultimately becomes a timesheet when the leave date is reached. We do have APIs for leave request which does allow you to write leave requests to Deputy, but you should expect to find many users that would like Deputy to remain the source of truth for leave requests thanks to the mobile app. Be prepared to have a two-way sync. Something that can really make your integration stand out from the crowd in this space is offering pay rate sync, especially in an ongoing fashion. Not many integrations offer this currently. Our APIs allow you to set pay conditions directly into employee profiles including pay rates.
Point of Sale	Employee Sync POS Terminal mapping Sales sync (Real time) Choice between Net or Gross sales	Point of Sale integrations are becoming more and more popular with Deputy. With our business insights feature, mutual users are able to view real time (or near real time) sales which allows them to make decisions such as "Do I still need those casuals this afternoon?" Where another HRIS is not connected, users tend to import employees from their point of sale system as well. In terms of sales sync this should be as close to real time as possible with a minimum sync of being at least every hour. Whilst the Point of Sale data can be useful historically for future forecasting purposes, many of the use cases for the Point of Sale integrations is related to assessing data in real time. One of the key features customers always request as part of the Point of Sale integrations is the ability to import Net or Gross sales. Offering this feature is a key

Example integration walkthrough

Below we step you through our BambooHR integration and how it relates to some of the best practices mentioned in the table above.

Marketplace

If you have an in-product marketplace, this is where your customers journey to connect to Deputy begins. Providing as much information as possible about what the integration does and where possible a video of the integration running and its setup procedure. Once your integration is complete, reach out to us via this form https://forms.gle/uZL4MtEHTuV6yCPNA and we will add your integration to the Deputy marketplace as well.

Location mapping

The first part of the Deputy integration with BambooHR tasks the users with mapping the Deputy locations to their BambooHR Locations/Divisions/Departments. As you can see we offer three ways/groupings from BambooHR that users are able to match up to Deputy locations. Wherever possible it is best to not make assumptions about how users may have grouped their employees and instead offer flexibility. You will also notice users can choose Don't connect this location which allows us to cater for users who have a group of employees they would like to roster in Deputy and another group or location they may not require that. Flexibility is key.

Employee sync information

Next up we inform the user of what data fields in BambooHR match up to that in Deputy. This can save you many support tickets or assist your tech support teams figuring out where data may be missing and why, if it is. Along with this another option is provided here to allow users to select whether they want to import all groups of employees from BambooHR or specific groups.

As an example in our BambooHR integration when you select Specific groups of employees you can then filter on items like Employment Status , Division, Pay Group etc. This allows a user of this integration to really hone in on groups of employees they need in Deputy and as much as you can provide this to your users, the more efficiency and success you will gain with your integration.

Sync Settings

You should never make assumptions about whether a user wants an ongoing sync with your application or not. As you can see in the above screen the integration with BambooHR asks the user to determine whether they would like ongoing sync and explains to the user what that means. As you can see the BambooHR integration does perform a sync every 15 minutes. You do not have to check for changes that frequently, however it should be more than once a day as we have had feedback from customers that a daily frequency is not enough for an integration like this.

Leave Details

Again we do not make assumptions about our users desires with the BambooHR integration offering them the ability to sync leave balances and requests or not. When the user chooses they want leave sync to be turned on, a clear explanation on screen is provided as to what that actually means and then leave types can be matched up from Deputy to BambooHR.

Flexibility is again key and having the ability to not sync particular types of leave remains important.

Summary

Integrating your application with Deputy can be an accelerator to your growth, but by following the best practices detailed above you set your application up for the greatest chance of success. As always here at Deputy we're happy to help you, and even help co-design the integration to ensure the best outcome for our mutual users. If you have any questions or want to arrange a call to discuss your integration feel free to reach out to [email protected] and we'll get back to you.