Use Cases and Examples

Curious what you can accomplish with the Remote API? This page describes a few of the many problems you can solve with the API. These solutions can be custom built by your own developer team using the Remote API.

Automate employee onboarding

Save time and double entry by automatically adding a new hire to the onboarding page in Remote.

Sample scenario

Whatever your single source of truth is for new hires, whether that be an identity provider such as Okta, or an applicant tracking system, use the Remote API to automatically add a new hire to Remote. The new hire is added to the Onboarding page in Remote where your onboarding managers can invite them to complete onboarding. No more double entry of basic employee details such as name, job title, start date, and email address.

Automatically provision an Okta account

When a new employee completes onboarding through Remote, automatically provision an Okta account so they can access all the systems they need for their new role.

Sample scenario

As the IT manager, I had a very manual process for creating and provisioning Okta accounts for new hires. The People team would email me when a new hire finishes onboarding in Remote and I manually add the person to Okta. With the Remote API, I created an automation that gets the status of new hires so I can see when their onboarding has finished, and fetches key data fields such as their name, location and role. Based on this data, I automatically provision their Okta account with the appropriate access.

Update an employee’s manager

Keep people manager details consistent and up to date. Reporting structures are constantly changing. When an employee’s manager changes, automatically sync the change to Remote.

Sample scenario

As a manager, I need to approve time off and expense reimbursement requests from my direct reports in Remote. My People team keeps track of the reporting structure in Okta. Sometimes they forget to update manager details in Remote or there is a delay in making the updates. This causes confusion because my list of direct reports in Remote might not be up to date and this means I can’t approve their requests. By automatically syncing changes in the reporting structure using the API I can always see requests from my direct reports and approve them without delays so they get reimbursed more quickly.

Automatically add onboarding managers to Remote

Have a new person on your People Team? No worries, each time you have a new person join your team you can automatically create them as a user in Remote and send them an invitation.

Sample scenario

The Remote platform has a user role called Onboarding Manager. Users with this role can log in to Remote and onboard new hires. As the head of the People team, I want all of the members in my team to have a Remote login so we can onboard international new hires as quickly as possible. Thanks to an automation we created using the Remote API, when someone joins the People team they are automatically created as a user in Remote and sent an invite to create a username and password.

Sync employee details to an HRIS system

Have a single view of your entire team, regardless of their location, so you can generate insightful reports.

Sample scenario

I use BambooHR as my primary HRIS. As a member of the People team, I want to generate a report to understand the gender and age profile of my organization. I can use the Remote API to routinely pull name, gender, and age data from Remote to BambooHR so that I can generate reports that show the full data set for my entire organization.

Keep job titles accurate

Use Remote as your single source of truth for the job titles of employees hired through Remote. Use the Remote API to sync titles to other applications such as Slack or your primary HRIS system.

Sample scenario

As an account manager, I need to refer to our company directory to figure out who’s who so I can find answers for my customers. The company directory is in our primary HRIS. When there is a change in title for team members hired through Remote, the updates need to be made through Remote so Remote can amend the employment agreement. The titles in our central directory often become inaccurate over time. Fortunately, our IT Ops team used the Remote API to sync employee names and titles to the HRIS system and Slack profiles so I can easily see the current roles of my coworkers.

Create a consolidated report of compensation data

Pull the latest compensation data for your Remote employees and feed this data into your company reports.

Sample scenario

As a member of the Finance team, I need to maintain a report showing total headcount, employment type, and compensation data so we can understand how much we are spending on our workforce. This report is referenced by leadership and always needs to have the most current data. I can use the Remote API to sync the base salary of each of my employees hired through Remote so that my report shows the entire global team.

Send birthday wishes to employees

Make someone’s day by sending them a message on their birthday.

Sample scenario

As a people manager, I want to make sure that team members hired through Remote feel included and recognized. Google calendar already reminds me of most team members’ birthdays. I can use the Remote API to also get birthdays for my international team members and add them to the team calendar.

Take this a step further by automatically celebrating birthdays in Slack so you never ever forget someone’s special day.

Similarly, use the Remote API to get an employee’s start date so you can celebrate their work anniversaries.

Send an automated welcome email for new hires

It’s official, your new team member has finished onboarding! How about sending them a welcome email with everything they need to know for their first day?

Sample scenario

As a member of the People team, I want to send a welcome email to all new hires with information about their first day. With the Remote API we can get the start date and use it to automatically send a welcome email.

Send Slack reminders to Tech Ops for new hires and create automated tasks

Use the API to integrate with slack for new hire alerts to managers or techops.

Sample scenario

As a member of the People team, I want to make sure new hires have access to accounts and equipment for their first day. Using the API, we can fetch the start date for new team members that are onboarding through Remote and send Slack reminders to internal teams on specific dates to ensure all is on track.

Go a step further and create automated tasks in your internal systems based on upcoming starting dates.

Send Slack alerts to the People team if onboarding tasks need attention

Avoid delayed start dates by making sure onboarding tasks are completed in a timely manner.

Sample scenario

As a member of the People team, I want to make sure new hires start as soon as possible so we can keep our teams fully staffed. With the API, I can fetch the start date as well as the status of each of the onboarding tasks the new hire needs to complete. Using this data, we can create Slack alerts for the People team so they can remind new hires about outstanding tasks.

Add employees to an equity management system

As new employees are activated in Remote, save time and data entry by automatically adding them to your equity management system.

Sample scenario

As the benefits manager, I need to make sure that all new employees are added to Carta so that we can grant them stock options. I need to manually get employee details from Remote and enter them in Carta. Thanks to the Remote API, my TechOps team has automated this so that any newly activated employees in Remote automatically sync to Carta as long as they match certain conditions such as a specific country.

Additional resources

This is just a sampling of ways you can leverage the Remote API. To explore the full list of API endpoints and fields, see our Remote API Reference documentation.

Need help with the API? Contact us at api-support@remote.com.