Hi Pareek, 

I hope you are well. 

The frequency at which an API refreshes is determined by the API itself, this is likely something your IT team can advise further on. 

It sounds like you updated the employee at 12.30pm but your API didn’t refresh until 1.15pm, which is why it shows as last updated then. I would likely guess your API is refreshing hourly at quarter past but wouldn’t be able to confirm for sure. 

I hope this helps! 

Zoe :) 

Hi @People Person  , Thank you for reply.  But we’re trying to retrieve updated employees using List Employees API from Personio every 15 minutes using the updated_since filter. However, we encountered an issue where an employee terminated at 12:30 PM still appears in the results for requests with updated_since timestamps after 12:30 PM, even up to 1:30 PM.

Ideally, if I set updated_since to a time after 12:30 PM, this employee should no longer appear, as no further updates were made. Could you clarify the expected behavior for the updated_since filter, particularly around the timing and frequency of refreshes? Also, could you confirm if there’s a delay in data reflection, and if so, how long it typically takes for changes to propagate fully?

Hi Everyone,

I posted a question regarding the updated_since filter behavior in the Personio API earlier and would appreciate any help or insights if anyone has faced a similar issue or knows about the expected data propagation time.

If anyone has any experience with this, your input would be really valuable!

Thanks again in advance!

Hi ​@pareek,

Are you considering that this is in UTC? To add more context: updated_since filter uses the UTC time, which means, even though it is currently 4:55 in Germany, for example, the UTC time is currently 3:55 as Germany is in UTC+1. Does this fit in the experience you re having?

I hope this helps! If you have further questions, please let me know! 

Wishing you a great rest of the day! 

Best,

Zulema

Hi ​@Zulema T ,

Thank you for the earlier responses. I’d like to follow up as we’re still facing the issue, even after confirming timezone alignment with UTC.

To recap:

• We terminated an employee at 12:30 PM UTC and set the termination date to the previous day, ensuring the termination took effect immediately.
• We fetch updates every 15 minutes using the updated_since filter in the List Employees API.
• Despite this, the employee continues to appear in the API results for requests with updated_since timestamps beyond 12:30 PM UTC, even up to 1:30 PM UTC.

Here’s what we’ve verified:

1. The timestamps are correctly aligned with UTC.
2. No further changes were made to the employee record after 12:30 PM UTC.

We’d like further clarification on:

1. Expected API behavior: Should terminated employees appear in the response beyond the timestamp of their last update?
2. Known delays: Is there a standard propagation delay for updates to reflect fully in API results?

I want to ensure that my integration behaves as expected and avoids processing outdated data. Your guidance or additional troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Community,
Does anyone have any information regarding the above issue?

Tagging ​@Nathan Jolly as he might be able to help here!  

Hi Community,
Does anyone else have any information regarding the above issue?

Hi ​@pareek,

Sorry for my late response here! And thanks for your follow-up! 

The Community is here to support you with any topic and inquiry. Nevertheless, if the topic you publish requires to check specific data on your account, as it looks like there are some inconsistencies in the timestamp, a support ticket is the correct request form. Through a support ticket, we will be able to log in into your account, check the settings together with you, and also verify if the topic might involve a system error. Also, they will be able to check if there is an ongoing issue or known delays.

You can contact the Support team via Help & Feedback. Be aware that only Account Owners can contact our support team. In case you are not registered as such, please contact your colleagues in the role, or add this information in your account. You can find out how here.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can support you with! 

I wish you a lovely afternoon! 

Best,

Zulema

Hi ​@pareek, 

Very interesting use case 

Can you please confirm that if you’re setting your filter after 1:30 UTC, you still retrieve the person you terminated ?  
Are you combining the update_since query parameter with another one ? 
Also can you please give us the full API command and usecase you’re trying to solve ? 

Thank you, 
Nathan

Hi ​@Nathan Jolly,

We terminated an employee at 12:30 PM UTC and set the termination date to the previous day, ensuring the termination took effect immediately.

We fetch updates every 15 minutes using the updated_since filter in the List Employees API.

Despite this, the employee continues to appear in the API results for requests with updated_since timestamps beyond 12:30 PM UTC, even up to 1:30 PM UTC.

The API we use is:
https://api.personio.de/v1/company/employees?updated_since=2022-12-24T08:12:30

We are only using “updated_since” filter without combining it with another filter in our API.

The use case we want to solve is that when we terminate an employee, then we want updated response immediately, but we are getting the old response for ~1.5 hour.

Hi Pareek, 

Thanks for your answer. 

I’m still not sure what you want to achieve. Do you want to get the name of the person who was terminated ? Or the list of all employees except the one that was terminated ? 
Because currently you will only retrieve all employees that have been updated since the timestamp you are writting. 
How are you updating the timestamp ? Is it a variable ? 

One hint depending on your answers, you should combine your filter with the “status”  attribute. 
Your API would look something like : https://api.personio.de/v1/company/employees?attributes ]=status&updated_since=2022-12-24T08:12:30 depending on what you want to achieve. 

Thanks, 
Nathan

Hi everyone, 

let me try to shed some light on this topic with the following explanation—I hope it helps clarify things!

It’s possible that inconsistencies may occur when using the updated_since filter for updates that happened via the UI instead of the public API. We have forwarded this feedback to the respective product team, who have acknowledged the need to address these inconsistencies. While we currently don’t have a concrete timeline to share, the product team will be working on fixing these inconsistencies in the future.

Best,
Christoph

Hi ​@pareek, 

could you solve this question with help of the comments? Please don’t forget to choose a “best answer” so that other users can see it at first glance.

Thanks!
Lucie