Payroll data via Google Sheets

If you can't connect directly to your payroll provider, the next best thing is to connect Causal up to a google sheet with your payroll information (where you push data to from your payroll provider, or where you keep your own running database). Here's how:

• Create a google sheet with your relevant data: Here is a template that you can use, and fill in your own data (note: you must keep the column headers and format the exact same). The first tab is a list of your Employees and their relevant dimension mappings (to Titles/Departments etc), Start/End dates, and their Latest Annual Salary. Only use the second tab of the template if you want to include month-by-month payroll actuals by Employee.

• Head to your Data page on Causal, and hit New data source at the top, then Google Sheets.
• Connect your Google Sheets account if you haven't already.
• Select the google sheet you created in step 1, and select the Table format for the Employee List tab. (If you choose to use the Payroll actuals tab, that will be Time-Series format).

Once connected, you'll want to sort that data, then pull it into your Headcount (or other applicable) model. We have a Headcount template you can use here, if you don't have a Headcount model yet.

• In the Data page, you should now see your payroll data.
• If you click on the data source, you should see all of the data items being pulled in, and if you click the dimensions tab, you can link these to existing dimensions (or create new dimensions if you do not have any yet).

• Once the dimensions and data are in Causal, you can go into the Headcount model, and:
  • Link the dimensions to the headcount model (e.g. Employee, Title, Department)
  • Link variables to data items (e.g. Start Date)