Connecting your data sources · lesson 1 of 3
How ProFinda's integrations work, at a glance
In this lesson
- Describe the standard categories of systems ProFinda integrates with
- Explain how records are mapped and refreshed between source systems and ProFinda
Every field a user sees in ProFinda - name, team, skills, availability, current project - originated in another system. ProFinda does not generate this data; it maps, combines, and refreshes it from the systems your organisation already runs. Understanding this shape is the foundation for everything else in this course.
The three standard categories
Most organisations connect ProFinda to systems in three categories:
- HR systems - the source of identity, team structure, grade, and often a starting set of skills or certifications. Workday is the most common example among ProFinda customers.
- Finance systems - the source of confirmed billable time, rates, and sometimes project financials that feed utilisation reporting.
- Project or delivery systems - the source of current staffing, project assignments, and planned future work, which drives availability.
A single person’s ProFinda record is therefore a composite: identity from HR, confirmed activity from finance, current commitments from delivery systems. No single source owns the whole record.
Mapping and refresh
Each connected system maps its fields to ProFinda’s schema through a defined integration, agreed during setup and maintained by your platform team. This mapping decides, for example, which HR field becomes a person’s displayed job title, and which project system field determines whether they show as available next month.
Refresh happens on a schedule specific to each integration, commonly daily or overnight, rather than instantly. This means a change made in the source system - someone’s team changing in HR, for instance - will appear in ProFinda after the next scheduled sync, not the moment it is saved at the source.
The scheduled process that pulls updated records from a connected source system into ProFinda, replacing or updating the mapped fields for affected records.Why this shape matters for troubleshooting
Because every field traces back to a specific source system through a specific mapping, any data problem in ProFinda can, in principle, be traced back to where it originated. The next two lessons cover this in more depth: first the most common connected system, Workday, and then a practical method for diagnosing a sync problem when a field looks wrong.
- Identify which category of system - HR, finance, or delivery - owns the field that looks wrong.
- Check when that integration last refreshed, since a stale field is often just waiting for its next scheduled sync.
- If the field is still wrong after a fresh sync, the problem is in the mapping or the source record itself, not in ProFinda.
Key takeaways
- HR, finance, and project systems each feed a different part of a person's ProFinda record
- Records are mapped through a defined schema and refreshed on a schedule, not edited directly in ProFinda
- Knowing which system owns a field is the first step in tracing any data problem