Welcome to BambooBridge, a thoughtfully engineered desktop companion for organizations that run on BambooHR. While the official BambooHR installer serves as the gateway to the platform, BambooBridge extends that experience into a locally-aware, productivity-enhancing layer that streamlines how HR teams interact with employee records, payroll summaries, and compliance workflows.

This repository houses the complete source code, documentation, and asset pipeline for the BambooBridge application. It is not a replacement for BambooHR itself, but rather a bridge — a lightweight, responsive, and language-aware tool that sits alongside your existing BambooHR instance to provide faster access, offline-capable viewing of cached reports, and intelligent notifications.

Designed for HR professionals who value speed, clarity, and control. BambooBridge transforms routine data interactions into fluid, context-rich operations — without requiring browser tabs, VPN reconnections, or repetitive logins.

Human resources teams today juggle multiple interfaces: the core HRIS, payroll portals, time-off trackers, and compliance dashboards. BambooBridge consolidates the most frequently used BambooHR functions into a single, locally-installed application that respects your data sovereignty and adapts to your workflow language.

Built with a modular architecture, BambooBridge supports:

• Real-time synchronization with your BambooHR account (read-only for sensitive fields)
• Multilingual interface — currently available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese
• Responsive UI that scales from a 13-inch laptop to a 32-inch ultrawide monitor
• 24/7 offline access to the last synchronized employee directory and organizational chart
• Custom report templates that render locally without reloading the full HRIS

The application does not store passwords or API keys in plain text. All credentials are encrypted via OS-level keychain APIs, ensuring that your BambooHR session remains secure.

Access the full employee roster with advanced filtering by department, location, employment status, or custom fields. BambooBridge caches the directory structure locally, allowing you to search and browse even when network connectivity is intermittent.

View summary payroll data — including pay periods, PTO balances, and compensation tiers — without navigating away from your current view. The snapshot module pulls aggregated data from your BambooHR reports and presents it in a clean, card-based layout.

Automatically sync employee anniversaries, certification expirations, and review deadlines into a visual timeline. The compliance calendar uses color-coded indicators to flag upcoming events, overdue items, and completed milestones.

Receive desktop alerts for time-off approvals, new hire arrivals, and policy updates. Notifications are non-intrusive and can be silenced during focus hours. All notification history is searchable within the app.

Switch between five supported languages from the settings panel. Localization extends beyond labels: date formats, currency symbols, and number separators adjust automatically to match the selected locale.

All synchronized data is stored in an encrypted SQLite database on your local machine. The cache respects BambooHR’s data permissions — only fields your role has access to are stored. You can clear the cache at any time with a single click.

To begin using BambooBridge, obtain the latest stable release for your operating system. The application package includes the executable, a local data store template, and configuration files for the initial setup.

Upon first launch, you will be prompted to authenticate with your BambooHR subdomain and an API key generated from your account settings. BambooBridge does not transmit your API key to any third party — it is stored only on your device for encrypted communication with BambooHR’s API.

After authentication, the initial synchronization begins automatically. Depending on the size of your organization and network speed, this process typically completes within 60 to 120 seconds. Once finished, the main dashboard appears with your employee directory preloaded.

BambooBridge follows a three-layer architecture:

• Presentation Layer: Built with a custom HTML/CSS/JavaScript renderer using Electron’s Chromium engine, providing native window management and desktop notifications.
• Business Logic Layer: A lightweight Node.js backend handles API rate limiting, data transformation, and local cache management. All HTTP requests to BambooHR are logged for auditability.
• Data Layer: Encrypted SQLite database with a schema that mirrors BambooHR’s core objects (employees, departments, locations, time-off entries). Indexes are pre-built for frequently queried fields to ensure sub-second search results.

The application runs entirely in user space with no background services or system-level hooks. When closed, BambooBridge releases all memory and network resources.

• Data encryption: All locally cached data is encrypted using AES-256-GCM. The encryption key is derived from your OS user account credentials via the platform keychain.
• Network traffic: All communication with BambooHR occurs over TLS 1.3. BambooBridge does not introduce any intermediate proxies or relay servers.
• No telemetry: The application does not collect usage statistics, crash reports, or analytics. Every operation is performed locally unless explicitly triggered by the user.
• API key handling: The API key is never written to a log file or transmitted outside the app. It is held in memory only during authentication and sync operations.

Does BambooBridge modify my BambooHR data? No. The application operates in read-only mode for all employee records, payroll data, and time-off entries. Certain actions — such as submitting a time-off request — are redirected to the BambooHR web interface.

Can I use BambooBridge without an internet connection? Yes, once the initial sync is complete, the employee directory, organizational chart, and compliance calendar are available offline. Payroll snapshots and notifications require connectivity to refresh.

Is BambooBridge affiliated with BambooHR? This is an independent, community-developed tool built using BambooHR’s public API. It is not officially endorsed or maintained by BambooHR LLC. Users are encouraged to review BambooHR’s API terms of service before deploying this application in production environments.

The roadmap is subject to change based on community feedback and API availability. Feature requests are tracked in the Discussions tab of this repository.

Contributions that align with the project’s scope — improving data visualization, extending localization, or optimizing cache performance — are welcome. Please review the contributing guidelines before submitting a pull request.

All contributions must respect the read-only nature of the BambooHR API integration. Proposals that attempt to introduce write-back functionality for sensitive fields will not be accepted.

This project is distributed under the MIT License. You are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, provided that the original copyright notice and this permission notice are included in all copies or substantial portions of the software.

View the full license file here: MIT License

BambooBridge is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The authors and contributors are not responsible for any data loss, security breaches, or compliance violations that may arise from the use of this software. Users are responsible for verifying that their use of BambooBridge complies with their organization’s data governance policies and BambooHR’s API terms of service.

The application is not designed to replace the official BambooHR interface for critical operations such as payroll processing, benefits administration, or legal compliance reporting. Always verify sensitive data directly within the BambooHR web application.