Visma and Workday HCM integration

What moves between them

The primary flow is from Workday into Visma. Employee master records, cost centers, and payroll-related dimensions flow from Workday to Visma on a regular schedule tied to your payroll cycle, ensuring headcount in Visma matches active workers in Workday and cost allocations are valid GL dimensions. Supplier and procurement reference data can be aligned in both directions to validate purchasing and invoice allocations. Because Workday's SOAP API surfaces financial data and Visma's REST API updates GL accounts, payroll accruals and allocation rules are configured once and executed by either system as appropriate.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector manages Visma's OAuth 2.0 client_credentials flow, including token refresh and the required ipp-company-id header on every call. For Workday, it detects whether the requested entity is HCM-only (accessible via REST) or financial (SOAP-only) and routes to the correct endpoint, handling both OAuth 2.0 (REST, 60-minute token expiry, refresh token rotation) and WS-Security (SOAP, stateless per-request auth). It polls both systems on a schedule you define, since neither Visma nor Workday provides native webhooks for connectors. Workday's 429 rate-limit responses trigger exponential backoff with the Retry-After header, and ml-connector tracks both the Visma API rate limit (500 calls per hour for test clients) and Workday's pagination limits (approximately 2000 records per request via SOAP). Cost centers and GL dimensions are validated on the Visma side before payroll allocations post, preventing GL account validation errors.

A real-world example

A mid-market Nordic manufacturing company uses Visma.net ERP for financial management and GL posting, and Workday HCM for payroll and workforce management. Before the integration, the finance team received a monthly employee census from Workday, manually verified cost centers and departments in Visma, and entered payroll accruals into the GL by hand, reconciling headcount discrepancies during month-end close. With Visma and Workday HCM connected, employee changes post to Visma cost centers automatically on each payroll cycle, GL dimensions are validated in real time, and payroll accruals post on schedule without re-entry or manual verification.

What you can do

• •Synchronize employee master records, positions, and organizations from Workday to Visma cost centers and departments on a schedule tied to your payroll cycle.
• •Align cost centers and GL accounts between Workday and Visma so payroll allocations post to valid GL dimensions without errors.
• •Bridge Visma OAuth 2.0 client_credentials authentication with Workday's dual-API surface (REST for HCM data, SOAP for financial data).
• •Poll both systems on your defined schedule with automatic retry on rate limits and full tracking of API token expiry.
• •Keep employee headcount in Visma synchronized with active Workday workers, capturing hires, terminations, and role changes.

Questions

How does ml-connector handle Workday's dual-API surface (REST and SOAP)?

Workday surfaces HCM data via REST and financial data via SOAP only. ml-connector detects which endpoints cover the entity you need and automatically routes to the correct API surface, handling separate authentication (OAuth 2.0 for REST, WS-Security for SOAP) and pagination rules for each.

Since neither system has native webhooks for cloud connectors, how does the sync stay current?

ml-connector polls both Visma and Workday on a schedule you define, typically aligned to your payroll cycle. Visma supports the lastModifiedDateTime parameter for incremental pulls, while Workday supports date-filtered queries on most resources (though Supplier_Invoices does not). Rate limits are respected with exponential backoff on HTTP 429 responses.

What happens if Visma cost centers or GL accounts are invalid when payroll posts?

ml-connector validates that cost centers and GL dimensions exist in Visma before payroll allocations are allowed to post, preventing GL validation errors. If a mismatch is found, the record is held with a full audit trail, allowing you to correct the mapping and replay without data loss.