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Attendance operationsPublished 6 September 2026 · Updated 6 September 2026 · 2 min read

Employee IDs, payroll IDs and safer workforce imports

Keep customer identity, legacy worker codes and payroll references distinct when staging CSV or Excel workforce data.

By Attendify Vision · Product-led guidance with sources and labeled examples.

Give each identifier a purpose

Attendify has a globally unique system-generated worker code for legacy identity. It also accepts a customer external employee ID, unique within the company and matched case-insensitively. A payroll ID is a separate reference for named ERP-oriented exports.

A customer’s existing employee number may also be its payroll number, but that is a mapping decision—not a reason to treat the fields as interchangeable everywhere.

Scroll the table sideways to read all columns.

IdentifierExampleRole
Company codeDEMOTenant context in onboarding
External employee ID0017Customer identity and repeat-import match
Legacy worker codeDEMO-1042System-generated global worker identity
Payroll IDP0017Receiving payroll identity

All values are fictional. Preserve leading zeros by treating identifiers as text.

Preview the reconciliation

The importer compares staged rows with existing workers using external IDs. Inspect whether each row creates, updates, skips or errors. Names alone should not be relied on to identify repeat-import matches.

A file with both A17 and a17 needs review because the identity is case-insensitive. A row without an external ID cannot be assumed to update the right existing worker on the next import. An unknown site can leave the staged worker without a site assignment.

Test a small input before a real roster

Use a sample containing one existing ID with a changed name, a duplicate ID, an unknown site and a missing payroll ID. Inspect the diff, warnings and resulting assignments. Check recognized and ignored columns so important input is not silently assumed supported.

The import supports CSV/XLSX worker staging. It is not an automatic migration of all historical attendance, contracts, organization relationships or payroll configuration.

Connect identity to the first shift

A worker uses company code plus customer ID or legacy code during onboarding, then the remembered device/PIN flow. Confirm the site exists and is assigned before expecting the normal site attendance capture to work.

A missing payroll ID may not prevent ordinary attendance but can exclude the worker from a named ERP export. Check that distinction before payroll cutoff rather than discovering it when the file is already generated.

See workforce import behavior, new-site onboarding and payroll export mapping.

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