Zalaris Payroll for HiBob

Section 1

Overview of the integration

What the app does, what it connects, and what you get out of it.

Zalaris Payroll for HiBob connects your HiBob Payroll Hub to the SAP payroll system that Zalaris operates for your organisation. When a payroll sync is requested in HiBob, the app collects the relevant employee master data, delivers it to your payroll system, and writes the outcome for every single record back into HiBob — so you always see, in HiBob, which employees went through cleanly and which need attention.

Employee data moves one way — from HiBob into payroll. The only thing that returns is the processing result for each record.

What you get

One source of truth

Employee master data is maintained once, in HiBob. Payroll receives exactly what HiBob holds — no export files, no manual re-entry, no version drift between systems.

Hands-off syncing

A sync request raised in HiBob is picked up and processed automatically. Large populations are handled in batches, so a full-company run completes without supervision.

Visible results

Every record comes back with a status. Where payroll could not accept one, the reason is shown against that employee — so you can correct it in HiBob and re-run, or, where the change belongs on the payroll side, coordinate it with your Zalaris payroll team.

What is synchronised

The app transfers the employee master data your payroll service needs in order to run payroll — personal, employment, contractual and organisational information held in HiBob, together with the payment details required to pay your employees. The exact scope is agreed with your Zalaris payroll team during implementation and is set up before the app is installed.

Aspect	How it works
Direction	HiBob → SAP payroll for employee data. Payroll → HiBob for processing results only.
Trigger	A sync request raised in HiBob's Payroll Hub.
Scope per run	The records included in that sync request — an incremental change set or a full population, depending on the request.
Result	A status per employee record, written back into HiBob — Synced once payroll has accepted it, otherwise Pending with a message.
Written into HiBob	Sync statuses only. The app never modifies employee master data in HiBob.

Who this guide is for. HiBob administrators and HR/payroll operations staff at organisations whose payroll is run by Zalaris. No technical knowledge is required — the technical configuration is done by Zalaris before you begin.

Section 2

Before you begin

Five things that must be in place. Installation will not complete without them.

Requirement	Who arranges it	Notes
Payroll Hub licence in HiBob	You, with HiBob	The Payroll Hub module must be enabled on your HiBob account.
Active Zalaris payroll service	You, with Zalaris	Your payroll must be run by Zalaris on SAP, with the integration included in your service agreement.
HiBob administrator account	You	The person installing needs permission to install apps from the HiBob Marketplace.
Zalaris PeopleHub account	Zalaris	The same person needs a PeopleHub account with the access rights to complete the connection. Your Zalaris contact sets this up.
Zalaris-side setup complete	Zalaris	Your company must be prepared on the Zalaris side before installation. Your Zalaris contact confirms when this is done.

Do not install before Zalaris confirms. If you install the app before your company has been prepared on the Zalaris side, the connection step will fail with "Unable to complete registration". Nothing is damaged — but you will need to remove the app and install it again once Zalaris confirms. Ask your Zalaris contact for the go-ahead first.

Section 3

Installing the app in HiBob

Installed from the HiBob Marketplace, by one administrator, once. Takes about five minutes.

The install path end to end. Steps 1–4 happen once; from then on the integration runs on its own.

Find the app in the HiBob Marketplace

Sign in to HiBob as an administrator, go to Marketplace and search for Zalaris. Open the listing for Zalaris API for HiBob and review the overview before installing — it summarises the direction of data flow, how the sync is triggered, and what the integration covers.

The Zalaris API for HiBob listing. The overview panel confirms you have the right app before you install it.
Open the app and select Install

Open the app listing and choose Install. HiBob shows you what the app will be allowed to do — the permissions it needs to read employee data for payroll and to report the sync result back. Review them and confirm.

Read the permission list before approving. It is the complete set of data the app can reach — the app cannot access anything beyond it.
Sign in to Zalaris to complete the connection

HiBob hands you over to Zalaris to finish the connection. Sign in with your Zalaris PeopleHub account. This step links your HiBob company to your payroll service at Zalaris — it is what tells the integration which payroll system your data belongs to.
Check the confirmation

When the connection is created you see a confirmation that registration completed. That is the Zalaris side finished — there is nothing further for you to set up at Zalaris. Configuration now continues in HiBob.

If you see a failure message instead, do not repeat the installation more than once. Note the message shown and contact Zalaris — see Troubleshooting.
Configure payroll cycles and field mapping in HiBob

With the connection in place, set up the integration in HiBob's Payroll Hub. Two things need to be configured:
- Payroll cycles — the pay periods your payroll runs on, so sync requests cover the right population for the right period.
- Field mapping — which HiBob field feeds which payroll field.
Both must follow the mapping workbook supplied by Zalaris, agreed with your Zalaris team during the payroll implementation project. The workbook is the authoritative definition of what is transferred and how it is interpreted by payroll.

Do not improvise the mapping. A field mapped differently from the workbook is the most common cause of records being rejected by payroll later, and the mismatch is not visible until data is actually sent. If a field you need is not in the workbook, raise it with your Zalaris contact rather than mapping it yourself.
Confirm with Zalaris before the first live run

Tell your Zalaris contact that the installation is complete. They verify the connection from their side and confirm whether your integration is pointing at the test or the production payroll environment before you run a live payroll sync.

Section 4

Setup on the Zalaris side

What Zalaris prepares for you, and the one setting you should know about.

Almost all of the setup is done by Zalaris before you install, as part of your payroll implementation. You do not configure connection details, credentials or endpoints anywhere — there is no admin screen for you to fill in.

Prepared by Zalaris

Your company is registered in the Zalaris integration platform.
The connection to your SAP payroll system is established and tested.
Access for your payroll data is granted and secured.
The data scope — which information is transferred — is agreed and configured.
Your PeopleHub administrator account is created and given the right to complete the app registration.

Your part

Make sure Payroll Hub is enabled on your HiBob account.
Keep employee master data complete and accurate in HiBob — it is the source.
Install the app as described in Section 3.
Configure payroll cycles and field mapping in HiBob, following the Zalaris mapping workbook.
Decide when payroll syncs are raised in HiBob's Payroll Hub, and by whom.
Review sync results and correct any records payroll could not accept.

Test and production environments

Your connection runs against either a test or a production payroll environment. During implementation you normally start on test, so that data can be validated without touching a live payroll. When you are ready to go live, Zalaris switches the connection to production.

This is worth checking. A sync running against the test environment completes successfully and the records show as Synced in HiBob — but the data does not reach your live payroll. If a sync looks clean and payroll says the data never arrived, confirm with your Zalaris contact which environment your connection is pointing at.

Raising a sync in HiBob

Syncs are raised from HiBob's Payroll Hub, where you select Zalaris as the payroll provider for the relevant population and cycle. HiBob's own documentation covers Payroll Hub configuration; from the integration's point of view, any sync request HiBob raises for your Zalaris connection is picked up and processed.

Section 5

How the data sync works

What happens between raising a sync in HiBob and seeing the result.

One sync request, start to finish. Nobody needs to do anything between step 1 and step 5.

#	Stage	What happens
1	Sync requested	You raise a payroll sync in HiBob's Payroll Hub. HiBob assembles the set of employee records to be sent.
2	Zalaris is notified	HiBob notifies the Zalaris integration that a sync request is ready. The notification is digitally signed, so Zalaris can prove it genuinely came from HiBob. It is accepted and queued immediately, which is why HiBob shows the request as accepted within seconds.
3	Records are collected	Zalaris retrieves the records for that sync request from HiBob in batches. Large runs are paged automatically, so a sync covering thousands of employees is handled the same way as one covering ten.
4	Delivered to payroll	Each batch is delivered to your SAP payroll system over a private, encrypted connection. Payroll validates each record and reports back per employee whether it was accepted.
5	Result written back	Zalaris writes the outcome for every record back into HiBob against the sync request. Accepted records move to Synced; anything not yet accepted stays Pending, with a message explaining why.

Timing

HiBob acknowledges the sync request within seconds. That acknowledgement means accepted for processing, not finished.
Actual processing runs in the background. A small change set typically completes in under a minute; a full-population run can take several minutes.
Statuses update in HiBob progressively as each batch is processed — you do not have to wait for the entire run to see the first records move to Synced.

If something goes wrong mid-run

If the payroll system is temporarily unreachable — for example during a maintenance window — the sync request is not lost. It is held and retried automatically, with increasing intervals between attempts. If it still cannot be processed after repeated attempts, it is set aside for the Zalaris support team, who are alerted and pick it up. You do not need to raise the sync again unless Zalaris asks you to.

Re-running is safe, but rarely the answer. Re-raising a sync for the same population does not create duplicate employees in payroll — records are matched on their identifier, so a repeated sync updates rather than duplicates. But a record that is Pending because delivery timed out is already queued for automatic resending, and raising the sync again only lengthens the queue. Re-run after you have corrected data, not to chase a pending record.

Section 6

Checking a sync in HiBob

Where the results appear and how to read them.

Day to day, results are visible in HiBob, against the sync request in Payroll Hub. That is where most people work.

For deeper investigation, your HR administrators can additionally be given access to Zalaris' integration monitoring in SAP. There they can view the integration log for a sync and re-push or restart individual records that were placed on hold. Access is set up on request — ask your Zalaris contact, who will also arrange the short handover on how to use it.

Monitoring access is optional and is normally given to one or two people who handle payroll data issues. Everyone else works entirely in HiBob.

Status	What it means	What to do
Synced	The record reached your payroll system and was accepted. That employee's data is up to date in payroll.	Nothing.
Pending	The record has not completed yet. This is the normal state immediately after a sync is raised, and it is also where a record stays if it could not be delivered or payroll did not accept it. Check whether a message is shown against the record.	See the three cases below.

Reading a Pending record

Pending is not by itself a problem — what matters is the message shown against the record, and how long it has been pending.

Pending, and…	What it means	What to do
no message, raised recently	Still being processed. Normal.	Wait. Large runs take several minutes.
a delivery or timeout message	The record could not be delivered on the first attempt. It is held in HiBob's queue and will be sent again by itself.	Nothing — do not resend. See the note below.
a message about the data	Payroll could not accept the record — usually information that is missing, invalid, or conflicts with existing payroll data.	Correct the employee in HiBob and include them in the next sync. Some corrections belong on the payroll side instead — your Zalaris payroll contact will say which.

Do not resend a record that timed out. If a record is Pending and the message says it was not delivered because of a timeout, it is already held in HiBob's queue and will be resent automatically. Raising the sync again does not speed this up — it adds a duplicate request to the queue and makes the backlog take longer to clear. Leave it, and check again later.

Messages about the data come from your payroll system, not from HiBob, so they use payroll terminology. If one is unclear, your Zalaris payroll contact can translate it — quote the sync request and the employee identifier.

Section 7

Troubleshooting

The situations customers actually hit, and what resolves them.

Symptom	Most likely cause	What to do
Installation ends with "Unknown client" or a similar rejection	Your company has not been prepared on the Zalaris side yet, or the PeopleHub account used is not the one linked to your payroll service.	Do not retry repeatedly. Contact your Zalaris payroll contact, confirm your company is ready, then remove and reinstall the app.
Installation ends with "Unable to complete registration"	The authorisation between HiBob and Zalaris could not be completed — usually a timed-out or already-used approval.	Remove the app in HiBob and install it once more, completing the sign-in without long pauses. If it fails again, contact support with the time of the attempt.
Reinstalled the app and syncs stopped working	The previous connection was still registered, so the new one did not take effect.	Contact Zalaris support and say you reinstalled. They clear the old connection so the new one is used. This cannot be resolved from within HiBob.
Records stay Pending with a timeout or delivery message	Delivery did not succeed on the first attempt. The records are held in HiBob's queue for automatic resending.	Do not raise the sync again. Leave it and check later. If they are still Pending after several hours, contact support with the sync request identifier.
Every record in a run stays Pending	Something systemic rather than data-related — commonly access to the payroll system, or a configuration change on either side.	Contact Zalaris support. Do not correct records one by one; the cause is not in your employee data.
Some records stay Pending with a message about the data	Normal data validation. Payroll requires information that is missing, malformed, or conflicts with existing payroll data.	Read the message on each record, fix the employee in HiBob, and include them in the next sync. This does not need support.
Records show Synced but payroll has no data	Your connection is pointing at the test environment rather than production.	Ask your Zalaris contact to confirm the environment and switch it to production when you are ready to go live.
A field arrives in payroll empty or wrong	The field mapping in HiBob does not match the Zalaris mapping workbook.	Check the mapping for that field against the workbook. If the workbook does not cover it, raise it with your Zalaris contact — do not map it yourself.
Nothing has synced since a particular date	The app may have been removed in HiBob, or the person who installed it had their access changed.	Check the app is still installed and active in HiBob's Marketplace. If it is, contact support with the date syncs stopped.
A brand-new employee will not sync	Payroll usually needs a minimum set of information — identification, employment start, contract and payment details — before an employee can be created.	Complete the employee's record in HiBob and include them in the next sync.

Before you raise a ticket

Having these to hand resolves most tickets on first contact:

Your company name and Zalaris payroll customer number.
The sync request identifier shown in HiBob, and roughly when it was raised (with time zone).
Whether the problem affects one record, some records, or everything.
Whether the records are Pending or Synced, and how long they have been in that state.
The exact message text shown — a screenshot is ideal.
Whether anything changed recently: the app was reinstalled, a HiBob configuration was updated, or a new population was added.

Section 8

Security and data handling

How your employee data is protected in transit and what access the app holds.

Area	How it is handled
Authorisation	The app uses OAuth 2.0. Access is granted by your HiBob administrator during installation and is limited to the permissions shown on the approval screen. No HiBob passwords are ever shared with or stored by Zalaris.
Credential storage	The access granted at installation is held in an encrypted, access-controlled secure store within Zalaris' SAP Business Technology Platform tenant. It is never written into configuration files, logs or messages.
Data in transit	Every connection — HiBob to Zalaris, and Zalaris to your payroll system — is encrypted with TLS. The link to the payroll system runs over a private, dedicated connection rather than the open internet.
Authenticity	Notifications from HiBob are digitally signed and the signature is verified before anything is processed. Unsigned or incorrectly signed requests are rejected outright.
Data retention	Employee data passes through the integration in order to reach payroll; it is not retained there as a separate copy. Processing logs are kept for a limited period for support and audit purposes.
Separation between customers	Each customer's connection, access and payroll destination are held separately. Data from one customer can never be delivered to another customer's payroll system.
Revoking access	Removing the app in HiBob revokes its access immediately. See Uninstalling.

Zalaris processes this data as a processor on your behalf, under the data processing terms of your payroll service agreement. Your Zalaris contact can provide the current data processing documentation on request.

Section 9

Uninstalling and reconnecting

Uninstalling

Open Marketplace in HiBob, find the Zalaris app, and remove it. Access is revoked immediately and no further data is transferred. Data already delivered to payroll is unaffected — removing the app does not undo previous syncs.

Tell Zalaris before you uninstall. Removing the app stops payroll data reaching your payroll system. If it is removed shortly before a payroll run, payroll may be processed on outdated information. Always agree the timing with your Zalaris payroll contact first.

Reinstalling

If you need to reinstall — after a change in HiBob, or to resolve a connection problem — contact Zalaris support before you do. The previous connection has to be cleared on the Zalaris side first. Reinstalling without that step results in an installation that appears to succeed but does not receive syncs, which is the single most common reason for a stalled integration.

Correct reinstall sequence

Contact Zalaris support and tell them you need to reinstall.
Wait for confirmation that the old connection has been cleared.
Remove the app in HiBob.
Install it again, following Section 3.
Confirm with Zalaris that the new connection is active before the next payroll run.

Section 10

Support

Who to contact, and for what.

Your Zalaris payroll contact

Your assigned Zalaris project manager or payroll consultant is your first point of contact for anything about installation, going live, environment switching, field mapping and the messages payroll returns on individual records.

Zalaris support portal

Raise a ticket for technical problems — failed installations, syncs that do not complete, or an integration that has stopped.

Which channel to use

Situation	Contact
Individual records stuck Pending with a data message	Correct in HiBob first; your Zalaris payroll contact if the message is unclear
Installation fails, or the app will not connect	Support portal
Syncs have stopped, or a run never completes	Support portal
You need to reinstall the app	Support portal — before you uninstall
Switching from test to production	Your Zalaris payroll contact
Changing which data is transferred	Your Zalaris payroll contact
HiBob Marketplace, Payroll Hub setup, or HiBob permissions	HiBob support

Response times. Support response and resolution times follow the service levels in your Zalaris service agreement. If a payroll deadline is at risk, say so when raising the ticket so it can be prioritised.