Explore Workforce planning API
Understand the basic concepts of workforce planning in Bob and how to utilize it with the Public API
Overview
The Workforce Planning module in Bob allows you to plan your staffing needs and provides visibility into your current and future workforce.
The Workforce Planning API provides developers with robust tools to access positions, position openings, and budgets programmatically. It enables seamless integration with solutions like ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) to track vacancies and FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) tools to plan budgets for current and future workforce needs.
Note:
If you have not purchased Workforce planning, you will not have access to this feature. To learn more, see Workforce planning ↗.
To learn more about workforce planning in Bob, see Getting started with Workforce planning ↗.
Key concepts
Positions
Positions are a core entity of the Workforce Planning (WFP) module, enabling you to allocate budgets and assign specific roles to positions for your workforce's current and future needs. Roles are defined in the Job Catalog, and positions are created to fulfill these roles.
A position’s status can be filled, filled soon, vacant, vacant soon, or canceled. Each position includes various attributes such as department, site, employment type, and manager.
To learn more about the position fields, see the Workforce planning glossary ↗.
Position openings
Position openings are always linked to a Position in Bob. They allow organizations to plan multiple hiring scenarios under the same position, such as maternity leave replacements or organizational growth, without duplicating positions. Each opening can have its recruitment status, expected start date, and opening name.
To learn more, see Position management ↗.
Position budgets
Position budgets are always linked to a Position in Bob. They allow tracking of the financial allocation for specific roles within the organization. Budget attributes include the budget date which marks when the funding starts for the position, currency, base salary, and variable pay.
To learn more, see Set up position costs ↗.
Jobs and the Job Catalog
A company’s Job Catalog contains a comprehensive list of all job types. Once you’ve set up your Job Catalog, you can associate Jobs with Positions. From this catalog, each position is linked to a specific job, ensuring consistency in role definitions and simplifying workforce management. This is where organizations map their jobs with job descriptions, functions, and levels to get to know the state of your talent.
Using the API, you can retrieve the Job name linked to a position. However, the API currently does not provide a way to read the job details from the catalog.
Common use cases
The Workforce planning API can be used for the following scenarios:
- Poll on vacant position openings
When using an external hiring system, which is not part of Bob, use the API to retrieve a filtered list of vacant position openings to include them in your hiring process, ensuring timely hiring. - Plan workforce changes
Read open positions and link the data to BI systems to enhance insight by data. - Budget planning and alignment
Access position budget data to align workforce planning with financial forecasting.
Workforce Planning endpoints
The WFP API provides functionality to access positions, position opening and position budgets:
| Use Case | Public API Endpoint | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Metadata | Get all positions fields Get all positions openings fields Get all position budget fields | Get a list of all fields related to positions, position openings or budgets. |
| Positions | Read company positions | Retrieve positions filtered by attributes like status or site or fetch details for a specific position |
| Position opening | Read company positions openings | Retrieve position openings filtered by recruitment status or start date |
| Position Budget | Read company positions budgets | Retrieve position budget data for specific departments or roles |
Best practices
Permission Configuration
Ensure the API Service user has permissions under:
System Settings > Account > Permission Groups > Workforce Planning
Verify the Service user has access to:
- View, edit, and create positions.
- Manage budget and recruitment statuses.
To learn more, see Set up permissions for Workforce planning ↗.
Use the human-readable flag
Each property can be returned from the API as a backend-id value or as a human-readable string, which is how it will look like in Bob’s UI. Use the humanReadable flag to include both representations for more clarity.
How to fetch position budgets
Budgets are linked to positions, so you first need to fetch the position with the budget field, which holds the budget backend ID, and then query the budget details using the ID.
For detailed endpoint descriptions and examples, see the Workforce planning API Reference.
Updated 12 days ago