How to map and exchange eligibility data from your payroll partner
Map & exchange eligibility-related fields from your payroll partner to Employee Navigator. Once enabled, our system will automatically recognize changes to these fields for employees, which will be auto-applied for new hires, and can be reviewed and approved on your homepage for existing employees — keeping eligibility data accurate without manual entry.
1.What are Cost Centers?
Cost Centers are a payroll system's equivalent of Employee Navigator's class structures and employment types. HR uses these in payroll to classify employees, but those same classifications often need to drive benefit eligibility in our system.
For example: a payroll Employment Type classification of "Regular Full Time" may also tell EN that someone is eligible for benefits, or a classification of "Location – Washington, D.C." may drive how employees are grouped for reporting purposes within a Department in EN.
The simple way to think about it
This isn't really about "benefit class". It's about aligning eligibility classifications between two systems.
2.Fields exchanged by partner
The fields available to map depend on your payroll partner. Each partner exposes a different set of cost center / employment classification fields. Select your partner below to see what's exchanged. If you don't see your partner listed, then they do not support exchanging this data just yet.
ADP supports three product lines, each exposing slightly different fields. Note that ADP does not pass effective dates for these fields — all changes route through pending profile changes for review.
| ADP Field | Available In |
|---|---|
| Worker Category | ADP Workforce Now · ADP WFN Next Generation |
| Department | ADP RUN · ADP Workforce Now · ADP WFN Next Generation |
| Business Unit | ADP Workforce Now · ADP WFN Next Generation |
| Location | ADP Workforce Now · ADP WFN Next Generation |
Where HR finds these fields in ADP
Setup
→ Tools → Validation TablesFor Business Unit / Department / Location:
Employment Profile → Corporate GroupsFor Worker Category:
Employment Profile
→ Position → Worker Category
Company →
Departments
Paylocity exposes one Employment Type field plus three numbered Cost Centers. The actual names of Cost Centers 1, 2, and 3 are customer-defined — they're often labeled Department, Offices, or Job Class, but the names vary by client.
| Paylocity Field | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|
| Employment Type | The primary eligibility-driving field — recommended to map first |
| Cost Center 1 | Customer-named field (often "Department") |
| Cost Center 2 | Customer-named field (often "Offices") |
| Cost Center 3 | Customer-named field (often "Job Class") |
Where HR finds these fields in Paylocity
HR & Payroll
→ Configuration → Company Setup
General
tab → List Values → Employee Status
→ Employment Type
Cost Centers
tab → Cost Center 1, 2, or 3
Alliance HCM exposes three field types that can be mapped to any Class structure or Employment Type field in Employee Navigator.
| Alliance HCM Field | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|
| Employment Type | The primary eligibility-driving field — recommended to map first |
| Location | Often used to drive geography-based eligibility or reporting |
| Department | Used for organizational classification and benefit class drivers |
Seso Labor exposes two field types that can be mapped to any Class structure or Employment Type field in Employee Navigator.
| Seso Labor Field | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|
| Employment Type | The primary eligibility-driving field — recommended to map first |
| Cost Center | Customer-defined classification used for organizational grouping |
3.How to enable the feature & pull in your data
Three steps to go from disabled to ready-to-map. Each step below is fully interactive. Click around in the user experience to see how it works.
From your Payroll dashboard, click into your subscription card to expand it, then select Cost Center Mappings.
The feature is off by default for all live customers. Flip the toggle from "Disabled" to "Enabled" to turn it on.
Click Vendor Codes, then Refresh Codes. This sends an API request to your payroll partner to fetch all available cost center values and makes them available to map.
Click the "Refresh Codes" button to get an up-to-date list from your Payroll platform.
No codes loaded yet.
Click Refresh Codes above.
4.How to map your data to EN fields
Each payroll field can be mapped to one of the following Employee Navigator fields: Business Unit, Class, Department, Division, Employment Type, Job Classification, or Office.
The flow is: Edit a payroll field → Enable it → Map, Skip, or Block each value → Save. Try it below — every dropdown and button is live.
You can map multiple payroll fields to the same EN class structure. For example, both FT Salary and FT Hourly in payroll can roll up to a single Full Time class in EN. Useful when payroll has more granular categories than your benefits.
Don't map multiple payroll cost-center types to the same EN class. If you map Department → "Full Time," don't also map Office or Business Unit to "Full Time." Pick one source per EN field.
5.Skip vs. Block — what's the difference?
For each individual value within a payroll field, you have three choices: map it, skip it, or block it. Mapping is the default — here's when to use the other two:
Ignore one field value, keep processing the employee
EN will continue processing all changes for affected employees as normal — but will ignore that one field's value if it's sent on their record. All other demographic and deduction changes still flow through.
Reject the employee entirely from the integration
EN will completely block any employee assigned that value in payroll. We won't process changes, won't create new hires, and won't receive anything for them at all.
6.How to manage ongoing changes
Once mapping is enabled, future changes from payroll for those mapped fields will flow into EN — but they don't apply automatically. Payroll partners do not pass effective dates for these field types, so we route changes through a review queue to ensure the right person sets the correct effective date.
The effective date of a change to a field that may drive eligibility has real benefit implications. Treating "the day we received the change" as the true effective date is risky — it's hard to undo a bad date. So we put it where the right person can confirm.
Where to find & process pending changes
The approval flow has four screens. The widget below walks through all four — click through it like you would in production.
| Employee | Requested On | Changes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johnson, Sarah | Today | 1 | Review › |
| Abrams, Alex | 12/23/2025 | 2 | Review › |
| Ace, Carl | 03/11/2026 | 1 | Review › |
NOTE: If the requested change will affect benefit eligibility, you'll be automatically prompted to walk through the necessary benefit changes for the employee.
| Field | Current Value | Requested Value | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment Type | Full-Time |
What if the employee never had a value for this field?
If the field is empty in EN, the change is applied automatically — there's nothing to compare against. Only when an existing value differs from what payroll sent do we flag it for review.
7.Finding the audit trail
Every mapping decision and every employee field change is logged. There are two places to look:
Who enabled or mapped a field, and when
What changed for an individual employee
Both the request and the approval are logged. Example
timeline entries: Profile Change Requested,
Employee Structure Changed (Business Unit changed from [] to Headquarters, effective 4/1/2025),
Profile Change Approved.
8.Frequently asked questions
Is this feature required for me to use?
No. You can leave it disabled and enable it later if you change your mind.
Do I have to enable and map every payroll field type?
You do not. We highly recommend enabling and mapping only the fields that drive eligibility — for many customers, that's just Employment Type or one cost center.
Can I update these fields manually in EN once they're mapped?
You cannot. Similar to compensation, when you map a specific field type, EN locks that field to prevent manual changes — payroll becomes the single source of truth.
How do I undo a mapping decision?
Click Edit next to the field and update or remove the mapping.
What's the difference between Skip and Block again?
Skip — keep processing the employee, but ignore that one field if it comes in.
Block — reject the employee from the integration entirely; we won't process changes or create new hires for them.
Why do we have to process each change manually instead of having them apply automatically?
Payroll partners do not pass effective dates for these fields. Treating the date we receive the change as the true effective date is risky — once a bad date is applied to an eligibility-driving field, it's hard to undo. We put the change in a review queue so the right person can confirm the correct effective date before it becomes final.
If my client creates a new field in payroll, how do I pull it into EN to map?
Go to Cost Center Mappings → Vendor Codes → Refresh Codes. This re-fetches the latest values from payroll and makes them available to map.
Can I map multiple payroll values to a single EN class structure or employment type?
Yes — many-to-one mappings are supported. For example, both FT Salary and FT Hourly can map to the Full Time class in EN. This lets you consolidate granular payroll categories into a single benefits classification.
Will welcome emails be sent automatically once all required new-hire fields come through payroll?
They will not. We recommend enabling Single Sign-On with your payroll partner so employees can access EN without registering a separate login.
Will incoming changes from payroll trigger an HR Tasks email notification on the Wall feed?
Yes — if you have HR Tasks notifications configured.
Will these changes show on employee Timelines?
Absolutely. Both the request and the approval are logged on the employee's timeline along with the field's old and new values.
Will payroll still bill the customer on employees they block?
Payroll partners do not bill customers based on data in our system. When a customer purchases an integration, they enter a static count of medically-eligible employees — that number is what they're invoiced on, regardless of who's blocked in EN.
Will existing pending profile changes be removed if I disable cost center mappings later?
No. Once changes are pulled in, any pending profile changes will remain in the queue until manually processed or declined. New updates from payroll will stop, but the existing pending items don't clear automatically.
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