Field Types

There are a number of field types that are supported in the BambooHR system. The API attempts to balance the conflicting goals of providing the raw data for these fields in a machine-readable format while simultaneously requiring as few API lookup calls as possible to accomplish a given task.

To eliminate the need for additional API requests, some data will be passed using human-readable plain text strings. Locale-specific settings will be ignored in the API in order to provide a consistent machine-readable format. All values are case insensitive.

Field Types	Description
date	A complete date with a four-digit year. Format: yyyy-mm-dd Example: "2010-03-19"
text	Any valid UTF-8 sequence of characters. Example: "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am."
ssn	A standard United States Social Security number, with dashes. Example: "123-45-6789"
phone	A plain text string with a phone number, no formatting is enforced. Example: "1-866-387-9595"
gender	The plain text name of the gender. Example: "Male" or "Female"
currency	A simple quantity value without thousands separators or currency signs using a period as a decimal point. Example: "27000.00" To add a currency code that is different from the company default, specify the code using the currency tag. Example: “payRate”: { “value”: “27000.00”, “currency”: “EUR”}
checkbox	"yes" or "checkbox" will mark the checkbox checked and everything else will default to unchecked Example: "yes", "checkbox", "no"
country	The name of the country. Must exist in the BambooHR country list. Example: "Australia", "United States", etc.
state	The full name of the state/province. Example: "Florida"
marital_status	Plain text status of marriage. Example: "Single" or "Married"
status	The employee's employment status as used to filter employees in BambooHR. Example: "Active" or "Inactive"
pay_type	One of several predefined options for the unit of pay. Example: "Hourly", "Salary", "Commission", "Exception Hourly", "Monthly", "Piece Rate", "Contract" or "Daily"
employee	A reference to another employee expressed as preferred name-space-last name. Example: "Robert Smith"
timestamp	The UTC time that an event occurred. Format: ####-##-##T##:##:##+##:## Example: "2012-10-17T20:27:17+00:00"
textarea	A larger section of text that can include line feed characters. Example: "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
list	The exact text for an option from a list. Example: "Marketing"
email	An email address. Example: "[email protected]"
bool	A boolean value, true or false. Example: "true"
employee_access	Enabled or Disabled Example: "Enabled"