A person's record comes from one or more sources, and each single detail is kept by exactly one of them. The rule applies to everyone who maintains people, that is the Organisation Admin, the Access Manager and the Credential Manager. It shows under People on a person's page, on the Information tab.
Also called: data source, master data, HR sync, people sync.
portierX calls every system that people records come from a source. Each source holds a person under its own ID.
Source | How the records arrive | The person's ID in this source |
|---|---|---|
Hand entry | You add a person under People or change them on their page. A CSV or Excel file you import yourself counts as hand entry too. | The Person ID from your import file, when the file carries one. |
HR file | Your HR system drops a file of your staff, and portierX reads it. An Organisation Admin sets the HR file up under Integrations. | The personnel number the HR system sends, under the name your organisation uses for it, such as KID. |
Access control system | SALTO, dormakaba MATRIX, ASSA ABLOY eCLIQ and Interflex hand their users to portierX when they sync. | The user ID in the access control system. |
Microsoft Entra ID is not a source of people. Provisioning over SCIM creates users, that is logins with a role, and no people.
An ID counts only within its source. While a source holds a person, no other person carries the same ID from that source. On the Information tab, under the heading Person information, each source has a line with its name and the ID it holds the person under.
At Nordwerk Industries the HR department supplies the HR file. The SALTO system at Werk Nord knows the same staff under user IDs of its own. Anna Brandt is in both, so her Information tab shows two lines: the HR file with her KID and the SALTO connection with her user ID. Her end date and her org unit are kept by the HR file. Her mobile number was entered by hand.
Each detail has a fixed order of sources. The detail is kept by the highest-ranked source that holds the person and supplies the detail. When no source supplies it, hand entry keeps it.
Detail | Order, highest first |
|---|---|
First name, last name, email, person type, status, start date, end date, position, org unit, manager | HR file, then hand entry, then access control system |
Mobile number | Hand entry, then access control system |
Company | Hand entry only |
The HR file supplies only the details whose columns are in its mapping. Hand entry keeps every other detail.
An access control system supplies first name, last name, email and mobile number. It keeps them only for people it created itself, and only until someone changes them by hand.
Only the source that keeps a detail writes its value. portierX does not take a different value from any other source. When the SALTO system sends Anna Brandt with a different last name from the HR file, the last name from the HR file stays.
A field the HR file keeps is read-only on the Information tab. The note on the field names the source, and a note above the fields sums up which details it keeps. Change those details in the HR system. An import does not write them either, as Import people from a spreadsheet shows.
End date and status are the exception. Even when the HR file keeps them, you can always end a person earlier or set a stricter status, from Active to Paused or Offboarded. A later end date or a less strict status has to come from the HR file.
An earlier end you set stands. When the HR file then sends a later date, portierX does not take it. A date from the HR file that falls before yours is taken.
Each source looks a person up by its own ID first.
The HR file: when portierX does not know the ID, it proposes a person with the same email address who carries no ID from the HR file. An Organisation Admin confirms the proposal. With no match, the HR file creates the person.
An access control system: the first time a user comes across, portierX links them to the one person who has the same email address and carries no ID from that system. When several people have that address, or the one person already carries an ID from the system, portierX links nobody and creates nobody. With no match, portierX creates the person.
Your own import file: how the import matches rows is in Import people from a spreadsheet.
When a person's record in a source ends, that source's details pass to hand entry. The values stay as they are and can be changed by hand again.
Each detail of a person is kept by exactly one source.
An earlier end and a stricter status can always be set by hand, even when the HR file keeps the end date and the status.
Only hand entry sets the company.
The HR file sets no mobile number, no company and no groups.
Within a source, an ID belongs to exactly one person.
Microsoft Entra ID creates users, not people.
