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Quick Summary: Map Entra’s employeeHireDate to the SCIM locale attribute in your SkillsDB enterprise application, then turn on Use custom mapping for career initiation date on each career automation and choose locale. New users get the hire date as their career initiation date when the career is assigned. To populate users who are already provisioned, run Restart provisioning in Entra.

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Overview

A career’s initiation date records when a person started in that career. It anchors training timelines and the “Started” date shown on the career. When a career automation assigns a career, it assigns the career without an initiation date unless you map one. Microsoft Entra ID holds a hire date for each user as the Employee hire date property (employeeHireDate). SkillsDB receives SCIM events through Stytch, and Stytch does not pass employeeHireDate through. The workaround is to carry the hire date in a SCIM attribute that Stytch does pass through and that SkillsDB does not otherwise use. The locale attribute is the recommended choice because the default Entra provisioning configuration does not map anything to it. This page covers the whole flow:
  • The attribute mapping to add in your Entra enterprise application
  • The setting to turn on in each SkillsDB career automation
  • How newly provisioned users receive the date
  • How to populate users who were provisioned before the mapping existed
  • How to verify the result in the SCIM event log
Only the enterprise application for SkillsDB is changed. The mapping does not affect any other application in your Entra tenant.

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Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:
  • Permission level: Microsoft Entra administrator access to the SkillsDB enterprise application, and SkillsDB administrator access
  • Setup requirement: An active SCIM connection between Entra and SkillsDB (see SCIM Setup)
  • Setup requirement: At least one custom SCIM group with a career automation (see SCIM Career Automations)
  • Setup requirement: The Employee hire date property filled in on the Entra users you want to cover

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How to map the hire date in Entra

Add one attribute mapping to the provisioning configuration of the SkillsDB enterprise application.
1

Open the attribute mappings

In the Microsoft Entra admin center, navigate to Enterprise applications, select the SkillsDB application, and select Provisioning under Manage.Select Edit attribute mappings, expand Mappings, and select Provision Microsoft Entra ID Users.
2

Add the mapping

Below the customappsso Attributes table, select Add New Mapping.Set the fields as follows:Select Ok.
3

Save

Select Save at the top of the attribute mapping page and confirm.
From the next provisioning cycle, every user that Entra sends to SkillsDB carries their hire date in the locale attribute, in a date format SkillsDB accepts.
Note: Saving a new mapping does not resend users who have not changed. Entra only sends users whose attributes changed since the last cycle. See How to populate users who are already provisioned below.

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How to turn on the mapping in SkillsDB

The mapping is a setting on each career automation. Turn it on for every automation whose careers should carry the hire date.
1

Open the SSO & SCIM settings

Navigate to Company > Settings, find the SSO & SCIM row, and select Configure.
2

Edit the group

In the Custom SCIM Groups table, select the Edit Group (pencil) icon on the group whose automation should set the date.
3

Turn on the custom mapping

In the Career Automations section, on the automation row, select Use custom mapping for career initiation date. In the Select SCIM attribute dropdown that appears, choose locale.
4

Save

Select Save Changes. Turning on the mapping does not present the initial activation choice again and does not assign careers to anyone.
Repeat for each group and automation. The setting is per automation: an automation without it continues to assign its career without an initiation date.
Tip: Turn on the SkillsDB setting before you add the Entra mapping. Then every user provisioned after the Entra mapping goes live gets the date at the moment their career is assigned. If you do it the other way round, the date is filled in on each user’s next SCIM event instead.

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What happens for newly provisioned users

When both the Entra mapping and the SkillsDB setting are in place, no further action is needed for new users. When Entra provisions a user into a group with a career automation, SkillsDB assigns the career and sets its initiation date to the hire date in the same step. The SCIM event log records a Career Assigned event whose description ends with “initiation date 2024-03-15 from SCIM attribute “Locale"". If the user’s hire date arrives in a later SCIM event than the one that assigned the career, SkillsDB fills the initiation date in when that later event arrives and records an Initiation Date Set event. If the locale value is empty or is not a valid date, SkillsDB assigns the career without an initiation date. The Career Assigned event description then ends with “no valid initiation date in SCIM attribute “Locale"". The assignment itself is never blocked by a missing or invalid date.

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How to populate users who are already provisioned

Users provisioned before the Entra mapping existed have no hire date stored in SkillsDB. Entra has to send their attributes again. There are two ways to trigger that.

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Test with one user first

1

Provision one user on demand

In the Entra enterprise application, select Provisioning > Provision on demand, pick a user who holds a career assigned by the automation, and select Provision.
2

Check the event log

In SkillsDB, open the SCIM Event Log and filter by the user’s group. An Initiation Date Set event for that user must appear, with the hire date in its description.
3

Check the career

Navigate to Library > Careers, open the career, and select Assigned People. The user’s Initiation Date column must show the hire date.

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Resend every user

1

Restart provisioning

In the Entra enterprise application, select Provisioning > Overview, then select Restart provisioning and confirm.
2

Wait for the cycle to complete

The restart runs a full initial cycle over every user assigned to the application and sends each user’s current attributes, including the hire date. The cycle takes from a few minutes to several hours depending on the number of users.
3

Verify in the event log

Open the SCIM Event Log and filter by event type Initiation Date Set. One event per populated career appears.

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Which careers are populated

As each resent user reaches SkillsDB, the stored hire date is applied to that user’s careers under these rules: Running the restart again does not overwrite initiation dates: careers already holding a date are left as they are. The restart does change other data, though.
Restart provisioning resends every user, and each resent user is a full update of their SkillsDB record. Before you restart, know that for every user it resends:
  • Fields that SCIM never carries are cleared: Employment Type, Home Number, Gender, Notes, Company, the free-text City field, Website / Resume Link, Attachments, the profile picture, Login Username, Next Available Date, and the employment type expiry date. See SCIM Setup for the full rule.
  • A user an administrator deactivated by hand in SkillsDB is reactivated if they are still active in Entra. See Azure Sync Considerations.
To fill in hire dates for only a few users, use Provision on demand for those users instead of a full restart.

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Common Questions

Yes. Any of the eleven attributes listed under Stored attributes for career automations works, as long as nothing else in your Entra configuration maps to it. Use the same attribute in the Entra mapping and in the Select SCIM attribute dropdown. locale is recommended because the default Entra provisioning configuration leaves it unmapped.
No. SkillsDB does not read the SCIM locale attribute for anything except this mapping. The value is stored only so a career automation can read it, and it is not shown on the person’s profile.
Either the Employee hire date property is empty for that user in Entra, or the value that arrived was not a valid date. Open the SCIM Event Log and read the user’s Career Assigned event: its description says “no valid initiation date in SCIM attribute “Locale"" in both cases. Fill in the hire date in Entra and use Provision on demand for that user; SkillsDB then fills the date in and records an Initiation Date Set event.
SkillsDB never overwrites an initiation date that is already set, and it only fills dates on careers that the automation itself assigned. If the user’s career already shows a date, or the career was assigned manually or by import, the hire date is not applied. An administrator can change the date on the career’s Assigned People page instead.
A plain date such as 2024-03-15, or a timestamp with a timezone such as 2024-03-15T00:00:00Z. A direct mapping of employeeHireDate produces a value in one of these forms. Any other value is ignored and the career is assigned without an initiation date. The date is read in UTC.

SCIM Career Automations

Configure the automations that assign careers and carry the initiation date setting.

SCIM Setup

The Entra provisioning configuration and the attributes SkillsDB stores.

SCIM Event Log

Verify Career Assigned and Initiation Date Set events.

Azure Sync Considerations

Other Entra limitations and when to restart provisioning.

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Need More Help?

If the hire date is not reaching SkillsDB after a restart, reach out to your organization’s SkillsDB administrator or contact SkillsDB Support.