Content, Sync & Limitations - BambooHR

Content types

Company Files

Company Files are documents stored in the BambooHR Company Files library — typically handbooks, policies, forms, and other files shared with employees.

Fields synced

• Title — File display name. Indexed for full-text search; displayed as the result title.

• Body / Content — Extracted text from the downloaded file (when within the size limit). Indexed for full-text search and used for AI summaries.

• URL — Direct link to open the file in BambooHR. Used to generate the result link; not searchable.

• Created at — File creation timestamp from BambooHR. Used for the document-age filter and displayed in result metadata. BambooHR does not provide a last-modified timestamp for Company Files.

• Author / Owner — Display name of the uploader as returned by BambooHR. Displayed in result metadata. BambooHR does not expose a stable uploader email on Company Files, so author email is not indexed.

• File name — Original file name. Indexed for search and autocomplete.

• File type — Extension and MIME type derived from the file name. Used for file-type facets in search.

• Category — Parent Company Files category name. Indexed and available as a search facet; also used by File Category filters.

• Size — File size in bytes. Used for size limits; not typically shown as a primary search field.

Applicable filters

Only files shared with employees are indexed. That gate always applies before download.

Sync frequency

Incremental sync

Captures: new shared files, metadata changes (rename, size, category, share state), deletions or files leaving scope, and un shares.

After the initial full sync, the connector runs incremental syncs every hour. Each incremental sync re-lists Company Files and downloads only files whose metadata changed since the last run. Deletions and files that fall out of filters are removed from the index at each incremental sync.

BambooHR does not provide a file modification timestamp or change feed. If file content is replaced without changing name or size, incremental sync may not detect the change. The weekly full sync re-downloads in-scope files and corrects that drift.

Full sync

A full sync re-indexes all in-scope Company Files from BambooHR, including downloading every in-scope file. It runs automatically on first setup, then every week, and can be triggered manually from the connector Status page. Full syncs on larger libraries may take longer because each shared file in scope is downloaded. Incremental syncs resume automatically once the full sync completes.

User sync

User sync pulls active BambooHR employees when document-level security is enabled, resolves each employee's email (Work Email first, then Home Email if Work Email is empty), and updates the identity data used for search trimming. It runs every hour on a separate schedule. If an employee becomes inactive in BambooHR, the change is reflected in Simpplr search after the next permission sync completes.

Known limitations

• Only Company Files with share-with-employees enabled are indexed. Files that are visible to some BambooHR roles but not shared with employees do not appear in search.

• BambooHR does not expose per-file ACLs beyond the share flag. When document-level security is on, indexed shared files are visible to all synced BambooHR employees. Use Audiences if you need a narrower audience in Simpplr when document-level security is off.

• New Company Files categories are not granted automatically on an existing custom access level. After creating a category in BambooHR, add it to the connector's access level or those files stay invisible to the connector.

• An active BambooHR employee with neither Work Email nor Home Email readable by the service account is not synced as an identity, so document-level security does not grant them access.

• No file modification timestamp — silent content replacement at the same name and size may stay stale until the next weekly full sync.

• Files larger than 10 MB: content not extracted, metadata only — files remain findable by title and category.

• Employee directory profiles, employee files, custom reports, training records, benefits records, and time-off data are not indexed.

• Text within images and scanned PDFs is not extracted or searchable.

• File Category filter values must match BambooHR category names exactly (case-sensitive). A mistyped name matches nothing for that rule.

• The Company Files listing is returned as a single response from BambooHR. Very large libraries may take longer to sync; library size at scale has limited live-tenant verification.

Content replacements without metadata changes

BambooHR Company Files do not expose a last-modified timestamp. Incremental sync compares listing metadata (such as name, size, category, and share state). If someone replaces a file’s bytes without changing those fields, search content may not refresh until the next full sync. If freshness of replaced PDFs matters for your tenant, run Sync now (full) after major handbook updates, or rely on the weekly full sync.