Overview

Developer resources cover the primitives you use to extend Rippling for your own company, bringing in external data, building custom apps, automating workflows, and connecting AI clients to Rippling.

This section is for Rippling customers and builders working inside a company account. If you're building an integration for the Rippling App Shop, see App Shop Integrations. For the public REST API reference, see API.

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Where to start

If you want to…	Start here
Understand how platform primitives combine into an end-to-end solution	Custom solutions
Build custom solutions using recommended best practices and design principles	Best practices
Decide when to use a transformation, function, or workflow	Rippling primitives
Build an end-to-end solution using Rippling platform primitives	ATS to draft hire
Work with Rippling's data model and objects	Data Model
Use a shared account for a team, service, or AI agent	Service accounts
Group people dynamically for workflows and policies	Supergroups
Bring external data into Rippling	Pipelines
Clean, join, and reshape data with SQL	Transformations
Look up SQL functions and syntax	SQL
Analyze data in the Reports and Dashboards app	Reports
Surface reports on the Rippling home page	Dashboards
Write and run serverless JavaScript in Rippling	Functions
Build a custom app or UI in Rippling	Custom Apps
Automate processes with triggers and actions	Workflows
See which changes wait for approval	Approvals
Send custom object events to an external system	Webhooks
Build and publish apps from the terminal	Rippling CLI
Build with the JavaScript SDK	Rippling SDK
Connect an AI client to Rippling	Rippling MCP

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Learn more

Custom solutions

Learn how Rippling's platform primitives work together—from ingesting and storing data to automating actions and surfacing them in apps, reports, and dashboards.

• Custom solutions — How the primitives fit together
• Rippling primitives — Decide when to use a function, transformation, or workflow
• Best practices — Design reliable, scalable custom solutions
• Solution guides
  • ATS to draft hire — Turn accepted ATS offers into draft hires with pipelines, custom objects, transformations, workflows, and functions
  • POS to Time & Attendance — Bring point-of-sale punches into Rippling Time & Attendance with a pipeline, a SQL transformation, a function, and a nightly workflow
  • Kudos employee recognition — Recognize teammates with custom objects, a custom app, functions, a validation, and a workflow
  • OEWS market data — Pull BLS wage statistics into Rippling with custom settings, functions, custom objects, and a custom app

Data Model

Use Rippling's standardized data model, including custom objects.

• Get started — How data is modeled in Rippling
• Object types — Standard, custom, and other object types
• Custom objects — Store custom datasets in Rippling
  • Limits — Limits that apply to custom objects
  • Data modeling — Plan objects, fields, and relationships
  • Fields — Default, basic, name, owner, formula, and summary fields
  • Lookups — Relate custom objects to each other and to Rippling objects
  • API names and IDs — API names and unique record IDs
  • Rules and validations — Automate values and block invalid saves
  • Record layouts — Blocks, reports, and dynamic views
• Permissions — What data people can see and change
  • People data classifications — Personal vs. employment data, and sensitivity classifications
  • Assign people data access — Default access and how to grant more
  • Object permissions — Profiles for custom, live, and big objects
• Data lineage — Trace dependencies across pipelines and transformations

Pipelines

Bring external data into Rippling with custom pipelines.

• Get started with pipelines — Ingest data into the Rippling data model
• Set up a custom pipeline — Build a custom API pipeline
• Permissions for pipelines — Who can create, view, manage, and use pipeline data
• Pipeline sync management guide — Incremental and full sync, history, and errors
• Pipeline FAQs — Maintenance, security, multi-account, and Rippling AI

Transformations

Write SQL against Rippling data and publish the results as objects.

• Get started — Create and publish transformations
• Refresh schedules — Control how often transformation results update

SQL

Look up SQL syntax, functions, and keywords used in transformations.

• SQL reference glossary — Entry point for each function, keyword, and operator in the SQL nav

Reports

Analyze employee, app, custom, and imported data in the Reports and Dashboards app.

• Get started with reports — How reports work, time frames, and how data refreshes
• Joins in reports — Join types, keys, and automatic joins
• Write a custom SQL query in a report — One SQL query that adds fields, then joins them to the report
• Filters and time frames in reports — Data as of, filters, and parameters
• Charts and grouping in reports — Aggregation, chart types, and currency conversion
• Configure drilldown reports — Fields, filters, and formatting behind an aggregated value
• Apply formatting to numbers or dates — Display formats for numbers, currencies, and dates
• Report permissions — Who can create reports and which data they can include
• Share and download reports — Visibility, access, downloads, and ownership

Dashboards

Group reports into analytics dashboards on the Rippling home page.

• Get started with dashboards — What dashboards are and how they relate to reports
• Overview of dashboard filters — Dashboard-wide and report-specific filters
• Use filters in AI dashboards — Filters Rippling AI adds, and how to add or remove them
• Dashboard sharing and permissions — Visibility, edit access, and transferring ownership

Functions

Write JavaScript that Rippling saves, deploys, versions, and runs for you.

• Get started — Create and deploy functions
• Developer app — Tools in the Developer app
• Permissions — Which permission each Developer tool requires
• API tokens and permissions — Manage REST API tokens and permission profiles
• Custom settings — Save reusable configuration and secrets for functions
• Invoking functions — Call functions from apps, workflows, and the API
• Hello world — Walk through a complete function

Custom Apps

Build custom apps on the Rippling platform, including no-code and developer options.

• Get started — Build custom apps in Rippling
• Access — App, page, and data permissions
• Table views — Customize tables in a custom app
• Automation — Validations, rules, approvals, workflows, and functions
• Blocks and dynamic content — Add dynamic content blocks to pages in Rippling
• Function pages — Build coded pages with Rippling functions
  • Hello world — Return an SDUI spec from a function
  • Server round-trips — Handle user actions on the server
  • State & data binding — Bind UI to function state
  • Components — SDUI components you can use
  • Reference — Function page API reference

Workflows

Automate processes that run when something happens in Rippling, on a schedule, or from an external system.

• Get started — Triggers, steps, and how workflows fit with other platform primitives
• Permissions — What data can trigger a workflow, and what step recipients can see
• Triggers — Trigger types, schedules, and basic vs. advanced workflows
• Filter conditions — Filter conditions and aggregations
• Variables — Trigger variables, step output, and custom variables
• Steps — Query, APIs, custom objects, true/false branches, SFTP, and other steps
• Call an API — Send a request to a third-party API or webhook from a workflow
• Trigger from a webhook — An external system starts a workflow with a POST
• Statuses — Draft, inactive, and active
• Limits — Timeouts, query size, bulk iteration, and other caps
• Troubleshooting — Failed runs, unexpected triggers, and API errors

Approvals

Decide who must approve a change before it takes effect.

• Get started with approvals — Conditions, Supergroups, approvers, and approval steps
• How multiple approval policies work together in Rippling — Policy order and a single request with multiple steps
• Approvals for custom objects — Record create, update, delete, and user-initiated policies

Users and groups

Share access across a team or define a group that stays current as people change.

• Service accounts — Create an account for a team, service, or AI agent with stable permissions
• Supergroups — Build a group from Rippling attributes that updates when those attributes change

Webhooks

Sync real-time custom object events to an external system.

• Webhooks — Subscribe to create, update, and delete events

Rippling CLI

Build and publish Developer Program apps from the terminal.

Access to the Rippling CLI is gated behind the Developer Program, which is currently in a closed beta.

• Get started — Install the CLI, sign in, and create a project
• Install and maintain — Update the CLI, enable shell completion, and uninstall it
• Developer Program — Sign in, apply for access, and manage contexts
• Developer sandboxes — Create isolated environments for building and testing
• Projects & metadata — Create a local project and deploy it
• Functions — Deploy function code and manage function resources
• Agents — Run agent evaluations, install skills, and search CLI guidance
• Packages — Create a package, publish a version, and install it
• Listings — Create an App Shop listing and publish it
• Platform APIs — Call platform APIs that have no workflow command

Rippling SDK

Call the Rippling REST API from JavaScript or TypeScript.

• Get started — Install the SDK, authenticate, and make a REST request
• Hello world — Create a custom object record with the SDK
• Common tasks — Common SDK tasks with examples
• API reference — SDK methods for the REST API

Rippling MCP

Connect AI clients to Rippling through a governed Model Context Protocol interface.

• Overview — How Rippling MCP works
• Setup — Connect an AI client
• Tools — Approved actions available through MCP
• Troubleshooting — Diagnose access and policy issues