Field mappings: Bring your own HRIS fields into Kinfolk

Last updated: October 30, 2026

Who this article is for

Superadmins

Overview

Field mappings let you choose which fields Kinfolk pulls from your HR system for each employee, such as Work Location, Department or Shift pattern. Each mapping reads one field from your HR system and stores its value on every employee in Kinfolk on their 'User' profile.

Once a field is mapped, you can use it across Kinfolk: in audience filters, runbook personalization tags, forms and letter templates (it appears under Mapped fields in the template's Variable menu) and workflows.

A few behaviors are worth knowing up front. A new or changed mapping doesn't fill in values straight away. Values arrive when that employee is next updated from the HR system, or when you run a full employee sync yourself with Sync employees. Some mappings are set up by Kinfolk for your organization and show Managed by Kinfolk. You can view these, but only Kinfolk support can change them. And a field can only be mapped once, so a field another mapping already reads won't be offered again.

Steps

How to create a field mapping

  1. Go to Settings > Field mappings and click Create new mapping.

  2. Under Which field in your HR system?, start typing a field name and pick it from the list. Fields are grouped under Employee record, Custom fields and, for UKG Pro, UKG Pro org levels. Workday customers can also enter a calculated field ID instead, and Kinfolk checks that it exists.

  3. If you cannot find the field, first check that Kinfolk has permission to read it in your HR system (for example, that the field is included in the integration system user's access). If access is correct and the field still does not appear, contact Kinfolk support so we can investigate.

  4. Check the Name. It starts as the HR system field's name, and it's the name your team will see in filters, tags and templates. Change it if your team knows the field by another name.

  5. Under How should the values read?, choose Same as HR system to keep values exactly as your HR system sends them, or Give them labels to give each value a friendlier name. Values you leave without a label keep their original value.

  6. Under When the HR system sends nothing, choose Keep the value already in Kinfolk (best when an empty value means nobody has filled it in yet) or Clear the value in Kinfolk (best when the employee should no longer have a value when the HR system sends a blank).

  7. Check the Mapping preview. Choose A sample of employees to see real values from a few random employees, or My record to see your own value.

  8. Click Save mapping.

How to fill in values with an employee sync

A new mapping has no values until employees are synced. To fill them in now, click Sync employees on the Field mappings page and confirm. Kinfolk refreshes every employee's mapped fields from your HR system and shows progress, for example "Syncing employees: 1,235 / 1,250".

You can cancel a sync while it runs. If you cancel partway through, employees already processed have been updated and the remaining employees are left as they were.

A full sync takes a while, so finish adding your mappings first. Any mapping you add afterwards needs another sync. If you do not run a full sync, values are picked up employee by employee the next time Kinfolk receives an update for that employee from your HR system.

How to edit a field mapping

Click a mapping's row, or choose Edit from its actions menu. You can change which HR system field it reads, its value labels and what happens when the HR system sends nothing. Audience filters that use the field keep working after an edit, and the new values arrive with the next sync or the next update for each employee.

Mappings marked Managed by Kinfolk show View instead of Edit. Kinfolk uses these when a field needs custom logic that the field mapper cannot support, for example fields that require organization-specific transformation such as cost centers. Contact support if one of these needs to change.

How to delete a field mapping

  1. Choose Delete from the mapping's actions menu.

  2. Kinfolk checks where the field is used. If a saved filter or form still uses it, they're listed and you can't delete the mapping until you update them.

  3. If nothing is listed, confirm to delete the mapping.

Deleting a mapping stops Kinfolk from pulling that field from your HR system from that point on. Kinfolk does not remove the field's existing values from employees who already have them. Anything that still uses the field can keep working from those last saved values, but new hires and future employee updates will not get a new value for that field unless you create the mapping again.

Kinfolk checks saved filters and forms before deletion and blocks deletion if one still uses the field. It cannot check every possible place the field might have been used, such as inline filters, template builder logic or workflows. Before deleting, review and update any other places that depend on the field.

Callouts

  • Only Superadmins can see and change field mappings.

  • New and changed mappings fill in values with the next employee sync, so run Sync employees if you need them now.

  • If you do not run a full sync, a mapped field updates for an employee the next time Kinfolk receives an HRIS update for that employee.

  • Clear the value in Kinfolk removes an employee's value when the HR system sends nothing, so filters on that field stop including them.

  • You can't delete a mapping while a saved filter or form uses its field.

  • Deleting a mapping stops future pulls for that field, but it does not clear existing values already saved on employees.

  • Mappings marked Managed by Kinfolk can only be changed by Kinfolk support.