Freshservice integration with Personio

Introduction

The integration between Freshservice and Personio allows enterprise service teams to automate service delivery across the organization. The integration allows HR teams to automate critical employee workflows and enable seamless data sync between their HR system and Freshservice.  

Key features possible with the Freshservice and Personio integration:

• Employee data sync between Freshservice and Personio
• OOTB workflows to automate employee onboarding and offboarding

Prerequisites

1. To enable this integration, you need an active Personio account. You will need your Client ID, Client secret, Personio partner ID, and Personio application ID.
2. You need account administrator privileges within Freshservice to initiate this integration.

Installation and configuration

1. Go to your Settings. Search for Apps using the search bar. 
2. Click on Connector Apps. From the list of apps, click on Personio Connector. 
3. You can install the app by clicking on the ‘Install’ button, which will direct you to the configuration page.
4. Enter the Domain URL and the API Key to connect your Freshservice account. Click Next.
   
5. Enter your Client ID, Client secret, Personio partner ID, and Personio application ID to connect your Personio account. Click Connect and once the connection is established successfully, click Install.
   

How to check the list of all available recipes

After installation, go to Settings > Connector Apps. You will see your installed Personio Connector app listed here. You have two options here

a. Configure App: Use this to edit the default recipes, view Overview dashboard metrics, and configure your Widget settings. These are explained in the upcoming section.

b. Settings: If you wish to go back to your configuration page and disconnect or re-authenticate Personio or Freshservice use this option.

Click on the Configure App option. It will take you to a tab with Overview and Recipes. Click on the Recipes tab to see the list of all available recipes.

List of all the default recipes available

Here is the list of all default recipes available for the Freshservice integration with Personio

How to preview, edit, activate, and stop the recipe 

You will be able to preview, edit, activate, and stop the available recipes.

Preview recipe: 

Click on the Preview button next to the recipe that you want to view. The recipe window will open and you will be able to view the steps involved in the recipe with pre-configured triggers, actions, and conditions.

On the left hand panel, you will be able to view the Recipe status, jobs executed, dependencies, and activity timeline.

Start recipe: 

You can activate the recipe in two ways:

From the main recipe page, click on the Start button corresponding to the recipe you want to activate

Click on the Preview button. Within the recipe window, you will see an option to Start the recipe.

Edit recipe:

Follow the below steps to edit the recipe:

Click on the preview button next to the recipe to open the recipe window.

If the recipe is active, stop the recipe by clicking on the Stop recipe button. Now click on Edit recipe button.

Stop recipe:

You can activate the recipe in two ways:

From the main recipe page, click on the Stop button corresponding to the recipe you want to stop

Click on the Preview button. Within the recipe window you will see an option to Stop the recipe.

How to customize a recipe:

Each recipe has the following components: Trigger, Actions, and Conditions. You can customize any part of the recipe depending on your specific use case by just clicking them.

Let’s take one of the default recipes as an example and see how you can customize it further.

Recipe - Personio Onboarding Sync

Trigger - The trigger acts as the starting point for any recipe. For this recipe, the trigger is a new employee hired on Personio. You can customize the trigger in the below mentioned ways.

• You can either add optional fields or add a trigger condition. 
• You can view the list of optional fields available for the particular trigger by clicking on the ‘optional field available’ button.
• The trigger condition can be added by clicking on the ‘+’ option below the trigger conditions section. You can select if you want to set up an AND or OR condition.
• You can set the trigger data by choosing from a list of available attributes. For example - you can select the employee department as one of the conditions.

Condition - The condition acts as a checkpoint within the recipe flow and executes a specific set of actions based on the condition matched. Here, the recipe checks if the employee status is active in Personio. If it is present, it stops the workflow. If it is not present, it creates a new onboarding request in Freshservice. You will be able to check and edit the following conditions.

• The data field and the value to be checked for any particular condition. You can pick the data field from a list of available attributes and set the value that needs to be met. For example - you can set the condition as ‘execute only if the employee status is active'.

Action - The recipe performs a specific set of actions based on the conditions met. Based on the conditions mentioned above, the recipe creates an onboarding request in Freshservice. You can customize the following parts of the action:

• You can choose to perform any action from the existing set of actions available under the ‘All Actions’ tab.
• You can map values from Personio to the corresponding fields in Freshservice.
• You can add more fields from the available set of optional fields 

After making all the necessary changes, you can save the recipe directly or test the recipe first to check if it is working correctly.

How to check failed recipe/jobs

To view and troubleshoot the reason for a failed job under a recipe please follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Click on the Preview button of the specific recipe from the main recipe page.
2. In the recipe window, navigate to the Jobs tab
3. You will see the list of all the jobs executed under a particular recipe here
   
4. You can filter to check just the failed jobs by using the Status filter on the top panel
   
5. You can click any particular job to view further details about how the job was executed
6. If you click on a job that has failed, you will be able to view the error details that will help you identify the cause of failure
7. You can resubmit the job once you review and fix the issue. 

Overview dashboard

The Overview tab also helps you understand the total number of tasks that you've consumed (based on which your billing for the app will happen). It also helps you have a consolidated view of the number of successful job vs. failed jobs for a given recipe.

Widget Settings

1. Once you have activated the workflows as per your need, you can move to Widget Settings. From the Overview dashboard page, you can navigate to the widget settings tab.

2. The widget will be turned off by default. To enable this setting, turn on the Personio widget toggle.

3. This set-up is two-pronged

    a. Toggle to enable the visibility of the widget inside the ticket details page

    b. The list of fields that need to be shown on the widget

4. You can understand how the widget will be displayed from the sample image shown on the right-side panel for your reference.

5. Once the data between Personio and Freshservice starts syncing up, you can choose to display a select set of these user fields for your Freshservice agents to quickly access in the format of a widget.

6. Based on the fields that you select here, the Personio widget will be available on each ticket for quick context of the agent to process the ticket. 

7. Once you check and select the fields that you want to be synced between the apps, you can click on Save.

8. The widget will now be active and available to use within the Freshservice tickets

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are tasks? And how is that relevant for billing and payment when the customer starts using the live app?
   A task is any operation that happens between two apps. Ex: To create a onboarding request in Freshservice, one task is consumed to check if the employee status is active, one task to search the employee data in Freshservice. One workflow can have multiple tasks as a part of it.
2. Is there a possibility to trial the integration once it's live?
   Yes. You will be given 500 tasks for free to trial any connector app. Once your 500 tasks have been consumed, you can purchase the add-on to get additional tasks.
3. How will I monitor my task consumption?
   You will be able to see the available tasks & tasks consumed from within the overview dashboard in the app. You will get an email whenever you are close to consuming all your tasks.
4. What happens when I consume all my tasks?
   Once you exhaust this limit, all your workflows will stop working. If you are signed up for auto-recharge, there will be an auto-purchase of tasks once all tasks have been consumed so there’s no delay in service.
5. How do I pay for these tasks? What is the price point for the apps under Connector Apps?
   $80 recurring add-on for 5000 tasks. You can buy multiple packs and it will be tied to your parent billing period.
6. How can customers purchase additional packs for the data sync app?
   Customers can purchase the add-on via the subscription page or by reaching out to their CSM/Support.
7. Will my additional pack be carried forward?
   No. All additional packs have validity until the end of your billing cycle regardless of the date of purchase.
8. Does the session expire every month?
   Tasks refresh at the end of the billing cycle. The number of tasks depends on what you have purchased.
9. Do I have to purchase tasks for each app under Connector Apps separately?
   No, the tasks can be consumed across multiple apps that you use.
10. What happens in case a sync fails?
    Failed jobs will be available on your customer dashboard. We can also investigate it from our end and ensure that the error is fixed and your data is up to date.
11. Who do I reach out to if I have any queries regarding these apps?
    You can reach out to support@freshservice.com. Our team will evaluate your requirements/query and get back to you.