Overview

When working with employee data in iSolved’s API, work locations can be tricky to handle. The employee endpoint only provides minimal identifiers for a work location, while the legal endpoint contains the full details but no employee associations. This gap, combined with the possibility of duplicate work locations in the iSolved UI, can prevent employees from being properly mapped to their locations.

Merge has safeguards in place to prevent incorrect mappings, and this article explains how it works and what you can do to avoid issues.

Understanding Work Locations in iSolved’s API

It’s important to understand how Work Locations are returned from iSolved's API and why duplicates in the UI may prevent proper employee-to-location mapping.

Work Location Fields from Employee Endpoint

From the endpoint:

/clients/{clientId}/employees

iSolved only returns two fields related to an employee’s work location:

• workLocationCode

• workLocationDescription

While this identifies a work location at a high level, it does not provide full details such as the work location’s address. This limited information can make it challenging to uniquely identify the actual work location when duplicates exist.

Work Location Fields from Legal Endpoint

From the endpoint:

/clients/{clientId}/legals/{legalId}/workLocations

iSolved returns the complete set of work location data, including address, state, tax location code, and minimum wage rules. However, this endpoint does not list employees that belong to each work location.

This creates a gap:

• The employee endpoint provides only minimal work location identifiers.

• The legal workLocations endpoint provides full details, but without direct employee associations.

Duplicate Work Locations in the iSolved UI

Within the iSolved UI, it is possible to create multiple work locations with the same Location ID (workLocationCode) and Description (workLocationDescription).

For example:

• Main – New York, NY - 123 Street

• Main – New York, NY - 456 Street

Since both share the same Location ID and Description, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish between them programmatically.

How Merge Handles Duplicates

To prevent employees from being linked to the wrong work location, Merge has implemented safeguards:

• If duplicate work locations with the same Location ID and Description exist, Merge will not relate the employee to either location.

• Instead, the employee’s work location is set to None until the duplicates are resolved.

• Once you update the Location ID or Description to make each work location unique, Merge will automatically associate employees with their correct work location.

Best Practices to Avoid Issues

1. Ensure uniqueness – Always give each work location a unique combination of Location ID and Description.

2. Verify employee mappings – If an employee appears with no assigned work location in Merge, check for duplicates in iSolved’s Work Locations.

3. Clean up duplicates – Adjust Location IDs/Descriptions in iSolved so employees can be properly associated.