UtilPro
Description
This article describes the integration between UtilPro and Skills Workflow.
UtilPro is the agency's HR and payroll system. This integration takes care of user provisioning: the people who exist in HR are the people who exist in Skills Workflow, with the department, typology and reporting line HR already maintains — so nobody has to keep a second list current.
It also carries the working-time rules — required daily and weekly hours, maximum hours, overtime thresholds — which is what allows timesheets, capacity and resourcing in Skills Workflow to be measured against each person's real contract rather than an assumed standard.
Data Exchange Technology
Data moves as CSV files over an SFTP server. The server is set up by the agency, which provides the credentials to Skills Workflow.
Files are separated by purpose:
- Files carrying data go in the Data directory.
- Files requesting a process go in the Process directory.
Once a file has been handled it is moved into a Success or a Failure folder, so it is never processed twice and the agency can always see what happened to a given delivery.
What Is Exchanged
Users — delivered at least once a day, based on UtilPro data. Each file supersedes the information in the previous ones.
The record carries three kinds of information:
| Group | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Identity and access | Username, e-mail, SSO account, external identifiers, active status |
| Organisation | Company, department, division, typology and typology group, user type, and the person's responsible |
| Working time | Maximum hours, required daily and weekly hours, overtime threshold and paid-overtime flag, hire date, start date and expiration date |
The start date is distinct from the hire date: it is the date from which the person is expected to fill in timesheets in Skills Workflow, which is often later than the day they joined.
What the Agency Needs to Provide
- An SFTP server with the Data and Process directories, and credentials for Skills Workflow.
- The UtilPro user export delivered into the Data directory, following the agreed file naming convention.
- Agreement on which identifiers link a person, department and typology across the two systems.
Good to Know
- UtilPro is the source of truth for the people data it sends. Manual changes in Skills Workflow to those fields will be overwritten by the next file.
- The file name suffix is a timestamp, which determines processing order when several files are waiting.
- A file that fails is moved to the Failure folder and can be corrected and re-delivered.
For the file naming rules, CSV template and field-by-field descriptions, see the Technical Reference.