Zoho People and Google Workspace Integration: SSO, Provisioning, and HR Data Sync

HR teams manage the employee lifecycle in Zoho People: onboarding, leaves, performance reviews, and offboarding. IT teams manage digital identities and access in Google Workspace: email accounts, Drive access, app permissions, and directory records. When these two systems are not integrated, onboarding a new employee involves parallel processes — someone in HR creates the Zoho People record while someone in IT manually provisions the Google account. The same duplication happens at offboarding. Connecting Zoho People to Google Workspace automates provisioning and deprovisioning, keeps directory data consistent, enables Single Sign-On, and brings leave visibility into Google Calendar.

What the Integration Enables

The Zoho People and Google Workspace integration covers four main capability areas:

• Single Sign-On (SSO): Employees use their Google account credentials to log into Zoho People, eliminating a separate password.
• Automated provisioning: A new employee in Zoho People triggers automatic Google account creation with the correct email format, organizational unit, and group membership.
• Directory sync: Employee data maintained in Zoho People (name, title, department, manager, phone) stays in sync with Google Directory without manual updates.
• Leave calendar sync: Approved leaves from Zoho People appear as events in a shared Google Calendar for manager visibility.

Setting Up SAML SSO Between Zoho People and Google Workspace

SAML SSO makes Google Workspace the identity provider (IdP) and Zoho People the service provider (SP). Employees authenticate once through Google and access Zoho People without a separate login.

1. In Google Admin Console, go to Apps > Web and mobile apps > Add app > Add custom SAML app.
2. Name the app “Zoho People” and download the IdP metadata (XML file containing Google’s SSO URL, entity ID, and certificate).
3. In Zoho People, go to Settings > Active Directory/LDAP > SAML Authentication.
4. Upload the Google IdP metadata file. Zoho People parses the SSO URL and certificate automatically.
5. Copy the Zoho People ACS URL (Assertion Consumer Service) and Entity ID from Zoho People’s SAML settings.
6. Return to Google Admin Console and paste the ACS URL and Entity ID into the custom SAML app configuration.
7. Map the Google Workspace email attribute to Zoho People’s expected email field in the attribute mapping section.
8. Assign the SAML app to the relevant organizational units in Google Admin Console.
9. Test SSO by logging in to Zoho People via the Google login button.

Automating Google Account Provisioning on Employee Onboarding

Automated provisioning removes manual IT steps from the onboarding process. The flow uses Zoho Flow or a custom script that calls the Google Workspace Admin SDK:

1. A new employee record is created in Zoho People (trigger).
2. Zoho Flow detects the new record and retrieves the employee’s name, department, and start date.
3. The flow calls the Google Admin SDK Directory API (users.insert endpoint) to create the Google account.
4. The account is created in the correct Google Workspace organizational unit (matching the Zoho People department).
5. The flow adds the user to relevant Google Groups (for example, all-staff@company.com, department-specific groups).
6. A welcome email is sent to the employee’s new Google address with login instructions.

The employee has a Google account ready before their start date, with no manual IT ticket required.

Deprovisioning Google Access on Offboarding

Offboarding is higher risk than onboarding from a security perspective. When an employee leaves, their Google account must be suspended promptly to prevent unauthorized access. The automated flow:

1. Employee’s Zoho People status changes to Terminated or Resignation Accepted (trigger).
2. Zoho Flow calls Google Admin SDK to suspend the user account immediately.
3. Drive files owned by the departing employee are transferred to their manager using the Drive API.
4. The user is removed from all Google Groups.
5. A summary notification is sent to the IT admin confirming the deprovisioning steps completed.

Syncing Employee Directory Data to Google

Google Directory is used in Gmail autocomplete, Google Meet, Google Chat, and Google Contacts. Keeping it accurate reduces confusion from outdated job titles, wrong departments, or missing phone numbers.

Fields to sync from Zoho People to Google Directory:

Schedule this sync daily or trigger it on field changes in Zoho People to keep Google Directory current.

Syncing Approved Leaves to Google Calendar

Managers and team leads who live in Google Calendar benefit from seeing team leaves without logging into Zoho People. The setup:

1. Create a shared Google Calendar named “Team Leaves” or per-department calendars.
2. In Zoho People, configure the Google Calendar integration in Settings > Integrations > Google Calendar.
3. Authenticate with your Google account and select the target calendar.
4. Configure which leave types to export (annual leave, sick leave, etc.) and the event format (employee name + leave type).
5. Approved leave requests in Zoho People create calendar events automatically. Cancelled leaves remove the event.

For more on Zoho People capabilities, visit our Zoho services page. Teams also using Zoho Creator for custom HR apps can benefit from reading our Zoho Creator and Google Workspace integration guide.

For a full overview of all available options, explore our complete guide to Zoho integrations.