BambooHR (via Apideck)

Access BambooHR through Apideck's HRIS unified API — one of 58 HRIS connectors that share the same method surface. Code you write here ports to Workday, Deel, Hibob and 54 other HRIS connectors by changing a single serviceId string. Apideck handles auth, pagination, rate limiting, and retries so you don't write per-tenant BambooHR plumbing.

Quick facts

• Apideck serviceId: bamboohr
• Unified API: HRIS
• Auth type: basic
• Apideck setup guide: Connection guide
• Gotchas: page
• BambooHR docs: https://documentation.bamboohr.com/docs
• Homepage: https://www.bamboohr.com

At a glance

• Implementation difficulty: moderate — API key authentication, with no partnership or app review
• Vendor partnership required: no (BambooHR Apps Marketplace Program) — Joining the optional BambooHR Marketplace Program adds a sandbox account and a Marketplace listing.
• Apideck-managed credentials: not available — Each consumer generates and supplies their own API key and subdomain.
• Account type required: Any BambooHR account (Core, Pro or Elite).
• Consumer access level: Account Owner recommended, otherwise a custom access level carrying the permissions your integration needs.
• Sandbox: available (signup) — Sign up for a free BambooHR trial and test against it. Joining the Marketplace Program additionally provides a dedicated sandbox account.
• Costs: No separate API fee, and no cost to you — API access is included in each consumer's own BambooHR subscription.
• Rate limits: Not published. BambooHR throttles at its discretion and returns Retry-After; from 14 September 2026 that response changes from 503 to 429.
• Authentication: The consumer's API key over HTTP Basic, not OAuth, plus their BambooHR subdomain.
• Webhooks: Virtual webhooks (Apideck polls BambooHR for employee created, updated and terminated events)

Important to know:

• An API key carries the permissions of the BambooHR user who created it. An under-privileged key returns a narrower set of employees and blank fields instead of an error, so missing data reads as a mapping bug rather than a permissions problem.
• BambooHR has retired its custom-report endpoint in favour of its Datasets API. This matters only if you planned to pull report-shaped data; the unified HRIS resources are unaffected.

Facts synced from Apideck's connector metadata API — GET /connector/connectors/bamboohr (overview field) is the live, authoritative version.

When to use this skill

Activate this skill when the user explicitly wants to work with BambooHR — for example, "sync employees in BambooHR" or "list time-off requests in BambooHR". This skill teaches the agent:

1. Which Apideck unified API covers BambooHR (HRIS)
2. The correct serviceId to pass on every call (bamboohr)
3. BambooHR-specific auth and coverage caveats

For the full method surface (parameters, pagination, filtering), use your language SDK skill:

• apideck-node, apideck-python, apideck-dotnet, apideck-java, apideck-go, apideck-php, or apideck-rest

For the raw OpenAPI spec:

• HRIS: https://specs.apideck.com/hris.yml · API Explorer

Minimal example (TypeScript)

import { Apideck } from "@apideck/unify";

const apideck = new Apideck({
  apiKey: process.env.APIDECK_API_KEY,
  appId: process.env.APIDECK_APP_ID,
  consumerId: "your-consumer-id",
});

// List employees in BambooHR
const { data } = await apideck.hris.employees.list({
  serviceId: "bamboohr",
});

Portable across 58 HRIS connectors

The Apideck HRIS unified API exposes the same methods for every connector in its catalog. Switching from BambooHR to another HRIS connector is a one-string change — no rewrite, no new SDK.

// Today — BambooHR
await apideck.hris.employees.list({ serviceId: "bamboohr" });

// Tomorrow — same code, different connector
await apideck.hris.employees.list({ serviceId: "workday" });
await apideck.hris.employees.list({ serviceId: "deel" });

This is the compounding advantage of using Apideck over integrating BambooHR directly: code against the unified HRIS API once, gain access to every connector in it. New connectors Apideck adds become available to your app without code changes.

BambooHR via Apideck HRIS

BambooHR is the reference SMB HRIS connector on Apideck. Full employee and org coverage; payroll coverage is read-only (BambooHR doesn't run payroll itself — it integrates with providers like TRAXPayroll).

Entity mapping

Coverage highlights

• ✅ Full CRUD on employees (incl. custom fields)
• ✅ Time-off requests — read, approve, reject
• ✅ Employee photos via employees/{id}/photo
• ✅ Sensitive fields (SSN, DOB) — requires elevated permissions on the API key
• ⚠️ Departments are derived from employee records, not a first-class BambooHR entity
• ⚠️ Payroll data — read-only; BambooHR surfaces summaries from integrated payroll providers
• ❌ Benefits enrollment — use Proxy
• ❌ Performance reviews — use Proxy
• ❌ Hiring / ATS-adjacent data — use a dedicated ATS connector

BambooHR-specific auth notes

• Auth type: API key (not OAuth). The user generates a key from BambooHR under "API Keys" in their account settings and pastes it into the Vault modal.
• Subdomain required: BambooHR API keys are bound to a company subdomain (e.g., acme.bamboohr.com). The user provides the subdomain alongside the key during Vault setup. Changing subdomain = reconfigure the connection.
• Key permissions = user permissions: the API key inherits the generating user's role. Sensitive fields (SSN, DOB, compensation) require admin-level access — limited keys get 403s on those fields. If sensitive data is missing from responses, check whether the key-generating user is an admin.

Common BambooHR quirks handled by Apideck

• Field naming — BambooHR uses camelCase (firstName, hireDate); Apideck normalizes to snake_case (first_name, hire_date).
• Custom fields — BambooHR custom fields are prefixed custom in the raw API. Apideck exposes them as a structured custom_fields[] array with id, name, value.
• Historical data — employment history surfaced as employments[] ordered by effective_date.
• Photo URLs — signed URLs that expire. Fetch-through rather than cache.

Example: sync all employees with custom fields

let cursor;
const all = [];

do {
  const { data, pagination } = await apideck.hris.employees.list({
    serviceId: "bamboohr",
    cursor,
    fields: "id,first_name,last_name,email,department,job_title,custom_fields",
  });
  all.push(...data);
  cursor = pagination?.cursors?.next;
} while (cursor);

console.log(`Synced ${all.length} employees`);

Example: approve a time-off request

The time-off-request endpoint is nested under employee (/hris/time-off-requests/employees/{employee_id}/time-off-requests/{id}). Check apideck-node for the canonical method signature.

await apideck.hris.timeOffRequests.update({
  serviceId: "bamboohr",
  employeeId: "emp_001",
  id: "req_123",
  timeOffRequest: { status: "approved" },
});

Escape hatch: Proxy API

When an endpoint isn't covered by the HRIS unified API, use Apideck's Proxy to call BambooHR directly — Apideck injects auth headers and handles token refresh. Set x-apideck-downstream-url to the target endpoint on BambooHR's own API:

curl 'https://unify.apideck.com/proxy' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${APIDECK_API_KEY}" \
  -H "x-apideck-app-id: ${APIDECK_APP_ID}" \
  -H "x-apideck-consumer-id: ${CONSUMER_ID}" \
  -H "x-apideck-service-id: bamboohr" \
  -H "x-apideck-downstream-url: <target endpoint on BambooHR>" \
  -H "x-apideck-downstream-method: GET"

See BambooHR's API docs for available endpoints.

Sibling connectors

Other HRIS connectors that share this unified API surface (same method signatures, just change serviceId):

workday, deel (beta), hibob, personio, adp-ihcm (beta), adp-workforce-now (beta), paychex (beta), paylocity, and 49 more.

See also

• Apideck connection guide for BambooHR
• HRIS OpenAPI spec · API Explorer
• apideck-connector-coverage — programmatic coverage checks
• apideck-best-practices — architecture, Vault, pagination, error handling
• apideck-node — TypeScript / Node SDK patterns
• BambooHR official docs