An HR Administrator's Guide to Carrier Connections

The article outlines the process for managing carrier connections within BambooHR's Benefits Administration. It details how to access the Carriers dashboard, review carrier statuses, request new connections, and track progress. Users can monitor connection statuses such as "Not Connected," "Pending," and "Connected." The article emphasizes the importance of ensuring all required data is complete before initiating a connection request. It also specifies eligible plan types for connections and provides guidance on resolving data discrepancies that may arise. Users are encouraged to utilize the dashboard effectively to maintain accurate data synchronization with carriers. For further assistance, a FAQ guide is available.

  • Jul 8, 2026
  • Knowledge

Title
An HR Administrator's Guide to Carrier Connections
Article Text
Benefits Administration is only included as an add-on.

Purpose: We offer a direct, automated process in sending enrollment data to your carriers from BambooHR through an integration we have developed with a third-party data processing partner. This help guide walks through how to view carriers, initiate new connections, and monitor connection progress directly from the Carriers dashboard in BambooHR.

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Table of Contents

Still sending enrollment data to carriers manually? With BambooHR® Benefits Administration, you can reduce manual work by automatically syncing benefit and employee data with supported carriers when eligible. Learn how BambooHR® Benefits Administration can support your team.

Eligibility: Before requesting a new carrier connection, please review our list of carrier partners to ensure you meet the eligibility criteria (varies by carrier). You can only request a connection with supported carriers from your Carriers dashboard.

Plan Types: At this time, new carrier connections are limited to the following insurance plan types: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Disability, Accident, Hospital Indemnity, Critical Illness, and Cancer. We do not currently offer connections for HSA, FSA, retirement, or other benefits like pet or legal insurance.

If you are a BambooHR Payroll customer and you would like to set up an automatic feed to your HSA, FSA, or 401k vendor, please review this help guide.

Step 1: Access your Carriers dashboard

Configuring Benefit Settings: Before using the Carriers dashboard, verify the following items in BambooHR:

  • Each benefit plan is correctly configured for its carrier, including plan IDs, coverage options, effective dates, and carrier details
  • Your plan year and, where applicable, your enrollment window are set up correctly and that your employees' benefit elections are accurate and approved

This ensures BambooHR (the system) can correctly match and transmit data to your carriers when the connection is made. For detailed guidance on configuring Benefits Administration settings, please review An HR Administrator's Checklist for Benefits Administration.

To open the Carriers dashboard, click on the benefits icon in the left sidebar menu and then select View Carriers for the applicable plan year.

  • If you have already set up a plan year and added carriers: The dashboard will display your current carriers and their connection status: Connected, Pending, or Not Connected. If multiple plan years are active, you can switch between them using the Plan Year dropdown menu in the upper-right corner.
  • If you have not set up a plan year or added carriers: Add your carriers and then create a plan year. Your Carriers dashboard will populate with the carriers you have added.
    • IMPORTANT: After setting up a plan year, all required data must be complete for the specific plan year. BambooHR (the system) will take note of any missing employee and dependent demographics (SSN, address, etc.) and/or company information (ACA settings) for you to resolve. Click here to learn how to update missing data.

The Carriers dashboard is accessible to Account Owners, Full Admin users, and custom access level users with access to Settings > Benefits.

Step 2: Review carrier statuses

Each carrier in your account appears in the My Carriers section with one of the following three statuses:

StatusDescriptionAction
Not ConnectedNo existing connection between BambooHR and the carrier.You can select Request Connection to initiate a new connection request for that carrier. (Step 4 in this guide includes more details on the request process.)
Pending A connection request has been submitted and is in progress.Continue communicating updates with your carrier until the connection is confirmed. You can also review and resolve any data discrepancies if there are error messages appearing on the dashboard. (Step 7 in this guide includes more information about how to resolve data discrepancies.)
ConnectedBambooHR is automatically transmitting demographic and benefit election data to the carrier.Regularly monitor for data discrepancies to keep your data accurate and up to date. (Step 7 in this guide includes more information about how to resolve data discrepancies.)
Not Eligible for ConnectionThe carrier is not currently supported for an automated connection, or your company does not meet the eligibility criteria for that carrier.You can continue sending enrollment data manually to your carrier using CSV file exports and/or the PDF Form Builder.

Also included in the Carriers dashboard is the ability to add or update carrier information by clicking Carrier Settings in the top right corner.

Carrier statuses update automatically as requests progress. You can return to the Carriers dashboard anytime to check each carrier's current connection state.

Step 3: Request a carrier connection

Already connected? If your account already includes active carrier connections, you can skip ahead to Step 5 to learn how you can monitor your connection regularly and address any data issues that appear.

Update missing data

Before a carrier connection goes live, BambooHR validates certain employee, dependent, and plan fields to ensure all required information is complete. Click here for a full list of the data BambooHR validates and syncs with your carrier.

You can request a new connection directly from the Carriers dashboard in BambooHR. However, if the carrier is not supported by BambooHR, the Request Connection button will be deactivated for that carrier. 

For supported carriers, BambooHR automatically checks for missing data that is required before you can request a connection. The Request Connection button will not be activated until all required data is added.

If your account has missing data, one or both of the following messages will appear at the top of the Carriers dashboard with a link to review and fix it:

  1. Unmapped Employment Statuses: This banner appears if you have ACA tracking enabled but have employment statuses that still need ACA mapping. To complete ACA mapping, click Review Employment Statuses.
  2. Missing Employee Data: This banner shows how many employees are missing required details (e.g., SSN, address, date of birth), including any dependents with invalid or duplicate SSNs. Selecting Update Required Member Information will open a new page for you to make updates inline for each employee (as shown below).
  3. Missing Plan Details: This banner indicates missing plan information associated with a specific carrier and plan year. Click View Details (blue hyperlink) within the carrier's row to make direct updates.

Once all required information is completed and saved, refresh the Carriers dashboard. The Request Connection button will be activated and available to select.

You can also review and update missing data on the Plan Years tab of Settings > Benefits. Simply click Update Missing Info for the selected plan year. The Required Member Information page lists any employees or dependents missing required details as well as company-level data such as ACA settings.

If you have a carrier that is only assigned to unsupported plan types (HSA, retirement, etc), the Request Connection button will be disabled and include a tooltip explaining that the plan type is not currently supported for carrier connections. Click here to learn more about supported vs. unsupported plan types.

Submit the request

One request applies to all benefit plans under that carrier. Once you select Request Connection next to the carrier's name, you will need to complete the Connection Request form with the following details. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk:

  1. Carrier Representative
    • Name, Email, and Phone Number
  2. Additional Carrier Details
    • Carrier EIN
    • Carrier Address
    • City
    • State
    • ZIP
  3. Broker
    • If your company works with a broker, fill out the Full Name, Email, Phone Number, and Broker EIN or TIN fields. You can choose to include your them on the connection email by marking the checkbox next to "Include Broker in Request Email."
  4. Preview Email
    • Select Preview Email to review the standardized message BambooHR will send. The email content and recipients are generated automatically and cannot be edited.
  5. Send Request
    • When all required information is complete, select Send Request.

Once submitted, BambooHR automatically generates and sends a standardized, non-editable email to these recipients:

  • The logged-in administrator (you)
  • The carrier representative
  • The BambooHR Carrier Connections team
  • The broker (if included)
  • Any applicable third-party partner

You will also be redirected to the Carriers dashboard, where the carrier's status is updated to "Pending Connection."

Step 4:  Track connection progress

After submitting a connection request, you can track its progress in your Carriers dashboard.

  • Pending Connection: The connection is not yet active, and no data is transmitted automatically between BambooHR and your carrier. Your carrier remains the system of record. BambooHR's Carrier Connections team will work with you, your carrier, and broker (if included) to verify your setup details and determine whether a connection can be established.* Continue communicating benefit updates with your carrier manually until the status changes to "Connected" on your Carriers dashboard.
  • Connected: The carrier connection is live, and BambooHR begins automatically sending demographic and benefit election data to your carrier. Monitor your Carriers dashboard for any data discrepancies** that need to be resolved.

*Eligibility: Please keep in mind that connection availability varies by carrier. If you carrier does not currently support a connection or you do not meet their eligibility criteria, your team can continue sending enrollment data through CSV data file exports and/or the PDF Form Builder

**Tip: To help your team stay ahead of potential discrepancies, enable the Benefit Vendors Discrepancies email alert in BambooHR. This email alert lets admins know if there are data discrepancies between BambooHR and your carrier's system. From the alert, they can click to resolve issues and resend the corrected data to your carrier.

Step 5: Resolve data discrepancies

Only Account Owners and Full Admin users can resolve errors. Custom access level users with access to benefits will receive an error message letting them know to reach out to their HR administrator for support.

If your connection is still pending on the Carrier Connection Issues page, please continue updating benefit data in both BambooHR and your carrier's system until the Connected status appears. While pending, any data discrepancies must be resolved before the connection can go live.

Once a carrier connection is live, BambooHR will automatically sync the following data with your carrier whether entered through an enrollment window, employee profile, bulk enroll/edit, or importer according to your carrier's sync schedule and requirements. Any changes you make to the following data in BambooHR will automatically sync to your carrier. The data is synced through the enrollment window, employee profile, bulk enroll/edit, and importer. If any discrepancies appear after the connection is live, you will be able to resolve them directly in BambooHR on the Carrier Connections Issues page.

Employee DataFirst Name, Middle Name (if applicable), Last Name, Date of Birth, SSN, Gender, Address, City, State, ZIP, Employment Status, Hire Date, Termination Date (if applicable), Job Title, Salary, Pay Type, Pay Frequency
Dependent DataFirst Name, Middle Name (if applicable), Last Name, Date of Birth, Relationship, SSN, Address, City, State, ZIP, Gender
Benefit Plan SetupCarrier Name, Carrier EIN, Group Name, Plan Name, Plan ID, Start & End Dates (for all plans), Coverage Options, and Costs (for standard rate plans)
Enrollment WindowCompleted enrollment window with benefits-eligible employees’ elections

This page is accessible through the Resolve Errors button from three places:

  1. Your Carriers dashboard
  2. Settings Benefits
  3. Benefits tab in the left sidebar menu

If you have enabled the Benefit Vendors Discrepancies email alert, BambooHR will automatically alert when a mismatch is detected. The email includes a link to view the issues on the Carrier Connections Issues page in BambooHR.

The Carrier Connection Issues page highlights any differences between BambooHR and your carrier's system so you can make sure both sets of data match.

At the top of the Carrier Connections page, you will notice a status banner that reflects the overall state of your carrier connections:

  • Pending: This status is indicated by a gray banner with a message reminding you to keep updating data in both BambooHR and your carriers’ systems while you work through any discrepancies. At least one carrier connection is still in testing.
  • Connected: This status is indicated by a green label, meaning that all carriers are active and syncing data to your carriers’ systems. Discrepancies can still appear and can be resolved directly on this page.

The Carrier Connection Issues page is also organized into three tabs: Election Demographic, Missing People, and Other, which you can use to filter issues by type.

  1. Election Demographic: Shows mismatches in benefit elections or employee demographic data between BambooHR and your carrier
  2. Missing People: Lists employees who appear in your carrier’s records but do not have a profile in BambooHR
  3. Other: Includes additional variances identified by our integration partner that do not fit the other categories

The Plan Year selector appears if you have discrepancies across multiple plan years and shows a count of issues next to each one. You can also use the Filter bar to search by employee name.

Election & Demographic tab

The Election & Demographic tab lists employees (and their dependents if applicable) with mismatches in their benefit election or demographic data. Issues are automatically sorted by urgency and then alphabetically by employee last name.

  • Urgent issues must be resolved before the carrier can process coverage changes.
  • Warning issues do not block coverage but may cause billing inaccuracies.

Click View in an employee’s row to open a new window showing the BambooHR and carrier versions of the data side by side.

Review the details to find where the mismatch exists, and follow the inline messages to determine which system has the correct information and how to update the other system.

There are two possible workflows depending on which system has the correct information. If you need more time, select Skip for Now to review the next discrepancy.

  • If BambooHR is correct, update the information with your carrier. Once you have made the change click If needed, you can choose Skip for Now to return at another time. Once updated, check “I have updated my carrier’s records” and click Mark as Resolved.
  • If the carrier is correct, update the employee’s (or dependent’s) information in BambooHR and click Resolve and Update.

In the example above, the employee has a SSN discrepancy. You would need to select which system (BambooHR or carrier) has the correct SSN and then update the incorrect SSN in the other system.

After you resolve all errors for an employee, you will receive a celebratory message letting you know that the updated data has been sent to the carrier for review.

Missing People tab

The Missing People tab lists employees who appear in your carrier’s system but do not have an employee profile in BambooHR. To start resolving this issue type, hover your cursor over the employee's row and click View.

Then, determine which system’s data is correct and follow the inline messages to complete the necessary updates, as explained in the previous workflow section.

Other tab

The Other tab lists additional variances that do not fall under the other categories, and issues are sorted by carrier. To review an issue, hover your cursor over it and click View. Then, enter what you did to resolve the error. If you need further assistance, you can contact our Support team by clicking Contact Support. Once everything looks correct, click Mark as Resolved.

Have questions about carrier connections? Review our FAQ help guide.

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