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Setting Up the BambooHR Connector

Expose BambooHR employee and time-off data to your team's AI assistants via MCP.

April 25, 2026
4 min read

Path: Connectors → BambooHR → Configuration

What this connector does

The BambooHR connector exposes your HR data — employees, departments, locations, supervisors, optional compensation, and time-off requests — as an MCP tool. Your team's AI assistants can answer "who's out next week?" or "find me the supervisor for sara@acme.com" without anyone leaving the chat.

It also feeds Wazzi's Data Sources for any Centers products that consume employee data (e.g., Operations Center for crew assignments).

Wazzi authenticates using HTTP Basic auth — your API key as the username, the literal string x as the password. That's BambooHR's own pattern, not a Wazzi quirk.

Before you start — getting your BambooHR API key

You'll need:

  • A BambooHR account with permission to generate API keys (typically Admin or HR role).
  • Your BambooHR company subdomain — the part before .bamboohr.com in your URL. If you sign in at https://acme.bamboohr.com, your subdomain is acme.
  1. Sign in to BambooHR and click your profile photo (top-right) → API Keys.
  2. Click Add New Key. Name it something like "Wazzi MCP".
  3. Copy the generated key. You can't view it again — if you lose it, you'll need to regenerate.

Compensation data is gated. Wazzi's BambooHR connector requests annualSalary alongside other employee fields. If your API user doesn't have the Compensation Information permission in BambooHR, that field comes back blank — everything else still works. Grant the permission via BambooHR → Settings → Permissions if you need it.

Reference: BambooHR's official API key documentation lives at documentation.bamboohr.com → Getting Started.

What this connector unlocks for your team

Once configured, members with the right MCP permissions can ask Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor things like:

  • "List active employees in the Engineering department."
  • "Who is sara@acme.com's supervisor and what's her job title?"
  • "Pull up the time-off requests for next week."
  • "Find everyone in the Austin office."

The exact set of available actions depends on which MCP toggles you've flipped on for the user's group — see Managing Permissions.

Steps — configuring BambooHR in Wazzi

1. From the Connectors catalog, click Configure on the BambooHR tile.

You'll land on BambooHR's Configuration tab:

BambooHR connector Configuration tab

2. Fill in the fields.

  • Company Domain — your BambooHR subdomain (e.g., acme for acme.bamboohr.com). Don't include .bamboohr.com.
  • API Key — paste the key you generated.

3. Click Test Connection.

Wazzi calls a lightweight BambooHR endpoint to verify the credentials. Success returns a 200; failure shows the error.

4. Click Save Configuration.

BambooHR moves to the Active section of the catalog and the dot turns green.

Troubleshooting

  • "Test Connection failed: 401 Unauthorized." Key is wrong or revoked. Generate a new one in BambooHR and update the field. Make sure you didn't accidentally include surrounding whitespace when pasting.
  • "Test Connection failed: 403 Forbidden." Key is valid but the user behind it lacks permission to read the requested data. In BambooHR → Settings → Permissions, check that the API user can view employee data.
  • "Test Connection failed: 404 Not Found." Company subdomain is wrong. It's the part before .bamboohr.com only — not the full URL.
  • annualSalary returns blank for everyone. The API user doesn't have Compensation permissions in BambooHR. Grant them or accept that compensation data won't be exposed.
  • Time-off requests don't show up. The Time Off feature might not be enabled on your BambooHR plan, or the API user lacks Time Off permissions.

Best practices

  • Use a dedicated BambooHR service account. Create a non-human user in BambooHR for API access; tie the key to that user. Easier to revoke, doesn't tie credentials to a real employee's tenure.
  • Limit Compensation access. If you don't need salary data, don't grant Compensation permission to the API user. Defense in depth.
  • Watch your group's MCP permissions. Even with read-only API access on the BambooHR side, employee data is sensitive. Grant Wazzi MCP read permissions only to groups that genuinely need it.
  • Document the rotation cadence. BambooHR API keys don't expire automatically — set yourself a quarterly reminder.

Frequently asked questions

Does Wazzi store the API key in plaintext?
No. The key is encrypted at rest with per-org keys and decrypted only at request time.

Will this connector write to BambooHR?
Currently the connector exposes read endpoints only (employees, time-off). Write actions are not yet supported.

Does it sync photos?
Photos are returned as URLs — BambooHR generates them automatically based on employee ID. Wazzi doesn't store the image bytes.

What if my BambooHR plan doesn't include the API?
BambooHR includes API access on Advantage and Pro plans. Essentials may need an upgrade. Check with your BambooHR account rep.

What's next

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