🔓 Access level in Planday: Administrator or HR Manager with access to all departments in Planday.

⏱️ Set up time: 10 min.

⏱️Reading time: 5 min.

Overview of the SageHR integration

The SageHR integration syncs your employee data from SageHR to Planday. Data flows one way only — from SageHR to Planday and SageHR is the single source of truth. Changes made directly in Planday to synced fields will be overwritten on the next sync.

Planday checks for changes in SageHR automatically every 3 hours.

Key functionalities of the SageHR integration:

Syncs new employees
Updates employee profiles
Creates or maps employee groups
Creates or maps departments
Deactivates terminated employees
Imports approved leave

Step 1: Setting up the integration in SageHR

Generate your SageHR API Key:

Log into SageHR.
Click your username in the top-right corner, then select Settings.
In the left sidebar, click Integrations, then select API from the dropdown.
Click Enable API access.
Copy the API key shown next to Your API key. You will need this in the next step.

Note: Ensure your SageHR account has the Settings Administrator role. If you cannot see Settings in the dropdown menu after clicking your username in SageHR, you do not have this role. Ask your SageHR admin to grant it or complete the setup on your behalf.

A more detailed guide on the prerequisites in SageHR can be found here: Integration between Planday and Sage HR

Step 2: Complete the setup in Planday

Set-up:
You can connect an HR integration from any of these pages in Planday:

Planday-Web > Settings > Integrations > Overview > SageHR > Set up
Planday-Web > People Employees > Create employees > Connect with HR system

When prompted, enter your SageHR subdomain (the part before .sage.hr).
Authenticate: Enter the API key you generated in SageHR.
Configure Filter: Select any filters to apply to manage which employees are imported from SageHR to Planday.
Review and confirm: Review the data to be synced and confirmed.

Once confirmed, Planday will run an initial sync. Depending on the size of your employee directory, this may take a few minutes.

Note: You must have the teams feature enabled in SageHR in order to connect

Step 3: Onboarding wizard: flexible entity mapping

After connecting and filtering, a guided wizard walks you through how your SageHR data maps into Planday.

Wizard step 1 — Configure entity mapping

Choose how each SageHR entity type maps to Planday:

SageHR entity	Can map to
Departments	SageHR doesn't support departments
Teams	Planday Departments, Planday Employee Groups, or skip
Work locations	SageHR doesn't support work locations
Positions / job titles	Planday Employee Groups, or skip

Note: If all entity mappings are skipped, the integration will create one default department and one default employee group automatically.

Wizard step 2 — Map departments

Review which SageHR entities will create or update departments in Planday. Confirm or adjust the assignments before continuing.

Wizard step 3 — Map employee groups

Review which SageHR entities will be used to assign employees to groups in Planday. Confirm or adjust the assignments.

Wizard step 4 — Configure absence and employee settings

Choose whether to enable the automatic import of approved absence data from SageHR.

Wizard step 5 — Review and confirm

Choose whether new employees added through the integration should automatically receive an invite email to Planday.
Review all your configuration choices. Once you confirm, the integration status moves to pending and the first full sync begins. The integration is marked as complete once the initial sync finishes.

Data mapping between SageHR and Planday

Standard fields are mapped automatically. The table below shows the default field-to-field mapping.

SageHR fields that Planday map

SageHR Field	Planday
First name (legal)	First Name
Last name (legal)	Surname
Email	Email (username)
Date of birth	Birthday
Hire date	Hire date
Termination Date	Termination date
Profile Picture	Profile Picture
Team	Customizable
Position/Job Title	Customizable
Address	Address
City	City
Postcode	Postcode

Note: Mapping of custom fields is not supported in this integration.

Mapping Logic - Department mapping

Planday maps Departments from SageHR based on the entity assignments you configured in the wizard.

Note: Planday Departments are only created for groups that contain employees currently being imported.

Key Functionality & Data Sync

How to import employees from SageHR to Planday

The SageHR integration is designed to be a "single source of truth" system, where SageHR manages all employee data, which is then synced to Planday.

Prevents Data Duplication

The integration uses persistent external IDs to link profiles between the SageHR and Planday, which prevents the creation of duplicate employees if data is changed in Planday - but not in SageHR. An employee is mapped on the email when the sync happens - but even if the email is changed following the original link being created - the ID will persist and the email will be overwritten in Planday to match that of SageHR.

One-Way Data Sync

Data flows one-way from SageHR to Planday. Any manual changes made to synced employee fields within Planday will be overwritten during the next sync to maintain data integrity.

Note: There’s one exception to this which is the email (username) in Planday. Email changes must be made directly in Planday.

Sync Frequency

The integration automatically syncs data every three hours. A manual "Sync now" button is also available in the integration settings.

Note: The automatic sync is a partial sync (only syncs changes), whereas the “sync now” option is a full sync. If some data has not updated try forcing a manual sync before reaching out to support.

Filtering

You can select specific departments, locations, employment types etc. from SageHR to sync. The filtering is done when the integration is set-up.
To change filters, you need to disable the integration and re-enable it.

Reconnecting the Integration (Data Link Loss)

If you deactivate and then reactivate the integration, all prior user links between SageHR and Planday are permanently removed. The system treats the reconnection as a new integration setup.

Note: When the integration is deactivated, existing links are preserved for up to 90 days before being permanently removed. Reconnecting within this window reduces the risk of data loss. After the 90-day period, all prior links are permanently deleted.

Why does this cause duplicates?

This loss of links becomes critical when the primary identifier (e.g. Email/Username) has been changed in SageHR but has not yet been updated in Planday.

Since the Email in Planday is an exception to the One-Way Data Sync rule, the email change in SageHR will not automatically update the corresponding Planday profile. If the integration is deactivated and reactivated in this state, the system will not recognize the profiles as the same user and will re-create the user as a duplicate in Planday.

How to import leave data from SageHR to Planday

When Absence Sync is enabled for your SageHR integration, approved leave recorded in SageHR is automatically imported into Planday. SageHR remains the single source of truth for all absence data; Planday simply reflects what has been approved in SageHR.

How leave is displayed in the schedule

Visual leave indicators: Approved absences from SageHR are shown on the schedule as a leave bar (blue bar) so managers can quickly see when an employee is unavailable.
Existing shifts are left as is: If an employee already has a shift in Planday on a day where SageHR reports approved leave, that shift is either not automatically converted to an Open Shift or left as is, depending on the integration setting. The setting can be updated by going to Planday Web > Settings > Overview > SageHR > Set up.
Approved leave only: Only approved absences from SageHR are synced into Planday; pending absences are ignored.

Handling of partial leave days

A note will be added to the leave in Planday clarifying that the employee is off for only part of the day.

SageHR leave configuration

Direction of sync: Leave sync is one-way (SageHR to Planday). All accruals, approvals and policy checks happen in SageHR.
Enable/disable: Leave Sync is controlled via a toggle in the integration settings, and each imported absence event is logged in the Integration Sync Log for traceability. Leave sync is on by default.

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SageHR integration - Setup guide with Planday