Integration Guides 6 min read

How to Get Deputy API Access (Rostering, Timesheets and Payroll)

How Deputy API access works, the difference between a permanent token and OAuth, and what a Deputy integration to payroll or accounting involves.

Best for: Operations managers, payroll managers, business owners Practical guide for business decision-makers

Who this is for

Operations and payroll managers who want Deputy rostering and timesheet data connected to payroll, accounting or an in-house system.

Question this answers

How do I get Deputy API access and what can I connect Deputy to?

What you'll leave with

  • The difference between a permanent token and the OAuth flow
  • How to get developer access
  • What the Deputy API exposes
  • Why award interpretation is the hard part, not the API
  • When a Deputy integration needs a developer

Permanent tokens and OAuth

Deputy offers two ways in, and the right one depends on who the integration is for.

  • A permanent token, for connecting your own Deputy account to your own systems. It behaves like a long lived API key, which makes it the practical choice for internal work.
  • OAuth 2.0, for software that other businesses will connect their Deputy account to. If you are building a product, this is your path.

Most people searching for a Deputy API key want the first one. It is the lighter option and does not require building a consent flow.

A permanent token carries the permissions of the user who created it. Create it from an account with the access the integration needs and no more, rather than from the owner account out of convenience.

Getting access, step by step

  1. Confirm your Deputy plan includes API access before designing anything around it.
  2. Sign in to the Deputy developer area with an account the business controls, not an individual's personal login.
  3. Generate a permanent token for internal use, or register an application if other businesses will connect their own Deputy.
  4. Note your install URL. Deputy accounts sit on their own subdomain, and API calls go to that address rather than a single shared endpoint. This trips up first attempts regularly.
  5. Store the token securely and plan for rotation. A permanent token that lives in a spreadsheet is a problem waiting to happen.

Check the current process with Deputy before planning around it. Plan eligibility and developer tooling change. Treat this as orientation and confirm against Deputy's own documentation.

What the Deputy API lets you do

  • Employees, records, contact details and employment settings
  • Rosters and shifts, read published rosters, create and update shifts
  • Timesheets, actual hours worked, including start, stop and break data
  • Locations and areas, which matters for multi site operations
  • Leave, requests and balances
  • Sales and demand data, used to drive rostering against forecast
  • Journals and notes, the operational record around a shift

The most common request by a distance is moving approved timesheet data into payroll, and the second is bringing sales or job data in so rosters reflect actual demand.

The payroll reality nobody mentions

Before commissioning a custom Deputy to payroll integration, check the official connectors. Deputy already integrates with the major Australian payroll platforms, and if a standard connector covers your situation it will be cheaper and better supported than anything custom.

Custom work is warranted when the standard connector cannot express what your business actually does. That is usually one of:

  • Staff working across multiple locations, entities or cost centres in a single pay period
  • Cost coding that has to follow the job or venue rather than the employee's default
  • Allowances, penalties or agreements the connector does not model
  • An in-house or older payroll system with no Deputy connector at all

When to bring in a developer

Deputy tasks your team can run alone

  • Using an official Deputy connector to a mainstream payroll platform
  • Pulling roster or timesheet data into a dashboard, read only
  • Running a one-off export for a payroll audit or review
  • Testing whether the API exposes a field you need

When your pay runs need a specialist

  • Sending Deputy timesheets into a payroll system with no official connector

    Award interpretation has to be modelled explicitly and tested against real pay runs.

  • Cost coding hours across multiple venues, entities or jobs

    One employee working two locations in a day is the case that breaks naive mappings.

  • Driving rosters from live sales or job data

    Requires a reliable feed from the other system and rules for what happens when it is late.

  • Syncing employees two ways between Deputy and an HR system

    Onboarding, termination and rehire are the edge cases that matter most.

  • Building reporting across Deputy, payroll and accounting together

    Three systems with three definitions of a period, a cost centre and an employee.

Deputy is a capable platform with a clean API. When these projects get difficult it is almost never the integration itself. It is the payroll rules underneath, which is why we scope that part first and price it honestly rather than discovering it during the build.

Key takeaways

  • For your own account, a permanent token is usually the simplest route
  • OAuth is for integrations other businesses will connect their Deputy to
  • The API covers employees, rosters, timesheets, locations, leave and sales data
  • Deputy already has official connectors to the major payroll platforms, check those first
  • Award interpretation, not the API, is what makes payroll integrations expensive to get wrong
DeputyAPI IntegrationIntegrationsPayroll

Meet the person

Written by the person who does the work

This guide comes from real projects. If it raises a question about your own system, you can ask the founder directly.

HELLO PEOPLE designs, builds and looks after AI, software, app and data solutions for Australian businesses, with senior expertise on every project and a scope agreed before work starts. For an integration, that means every record lands where it should and both systems agree.

Since 2007, HELLO PEOPLE has delivered more than 100 projects from Perth for small and medium businesses across Australia: custom software and apps, system integrations, data migrations, reporting and dashboards, and AI that works inside the systems a business already runs.

I lead every engagement myself. I trained in accounting before moving into IT, hold accounting and IT professional qualifications and an MBA, and bring more than 20 years of experience across sales, service delivery, inventory and compliance. I am also a PhD candidate in AI at Curtin University, researching retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), so the technology is always judged by what it does for the business.

  • An old-fashioned service

    Small and boutique. The person who scopes your integration is the person who builds it, and the same person watches the first live syncs.

  • Quick responses

    No ticket queue and no account manager in between. You hear back within one business day, usually sooner.

  • A long-term partner

    The integration is the start, not the end. When you need the next system, integration or report, you call the same person, who already knows your business.

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Kasun Wijayamanna, Founder Kasun Wijayamanna
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