Migrate from Aperio to Bullhorn ATS & CRM

Aperio Employee records map to Bullhorn Candidate (for recruiting-relevant employee data such as internal hires, former contractors being considered for placement) and Bullhorn Contact (for HR-adjacent records such as former candidates maintained for reference). We extract name, title, department, manager, hire date, email, and phone from Aperio's employee export and load into Bullhorn's Candidate and Contact records via the Bullhorn REST API. The manager relationship is preserved as a custom Candidate or Contact field pointing to the manager's record ID, since Bullhorn does not have a native employee hierarchy object.

Aperio Department records map to Bullhorn Corporation (Company) if the organization treats departments as client entities, or to a custom Candidate and Contact field for internal org structure. Bullhorn's Corporation object is designed for external client companies rather than internal departments, so we configure a custom field department__c on Candidate and Contact and populate it from Aperio's department name during import. If the customer maintains a separate department roster, we create a Bullhorn custom object department__sp with a lookup to Candidates.

Aperio Performance Review records map to a Bullhorn custom object review_cycle__c (Front Office Growth or Enterprise tier required for custom objects). Each review maps to its cycle, the reviewee (Candidate or Contact), reviewer (Candidate or Contact), submitted ratings, and reviewer comments. We store review status, rating values, and competency scores as custom fields within the review_cycle__c object. Bullhorn ATS and ATS Growth tiers do not support custom objects; for these tiers, we store review metadata as structured notes attached to the Candidate record, which limits searchability and reporting.

Aperio Goal records map to a Bullhorn custom object goal__c. Each goal stores title, description, status, start date, due date, and weight. We reconstruct parent-child hierarchies by extracting goal_id and parent_goal_id pairs from Aperio's flat CSV export and creating a custom field parent_goal__c on the goal__c object that references the parent's Bullhorn ID. We flag circular references and orphaned child goals during the reconstruction phase. Goal__c is available on Bullhorn Front Office Growth and Enterprise tiers only.

Aperio Review Cycles (the temporal container for batches of reviews) map to a review_cycle container within the Bullhorn custom object. We extract cycle metadata including cycle name, start date, end date, status, and associated template name, and store these as fields on the review_cycle__c object. The Bullhorn custom object's ID links individual performance reviews to their parent cycle.

Aperio Review Templates define the structure of reviews including competency sections, rating scales, and mandatory fields. Bullhorn has no native review template object. We export template configurations from Aperio, document the template structure (sections, competencies, rating scales, required fields), and deliver a written template inventory to the customer's Bullhorn admin. The admin rebuilds templates using Bullhorn's custom object field structure or a supported partner tool.

Aperio Competency library records map to a Bullhorn custom object competency__c. Each competency stores the competency name, description, and rating definitions. We link competency records to review_cycle__c records via a junction object or a multi-select picklist on review_cycle__c depending on the customer's Bullhorn edition. Custom picklists are limited to 55 per custom object; we flag any competency libraries exceeding this limit.

Aperio Development Plans (growth actions tied to employees and review outcomes) map to a Bullhorn custom object development_plan__c. Each plan stores the associated employee (Candidate or Contact lookup), plan title, milestones with target dates, status, and any linked goals. We extract milestone data as structured child records within development_plan__c or as a related note series depending on Bullhorn's field capacity constraints.

Aperio Job Title records map to Bullhorn's Candidate Title field for primary job title and to a custom field job_title__c on the Candidate record for secondary or historical titles. Job titles used as criteria within Aperio review templates are preserved in the template inventory document and mapped to Bullhorn custom picklist values where applicable.

Aperio custom fields on Reviews, Goals, and Development Plans require field-by-field mapping to Bullhorn custom fields. We identify all active custom fields during scoping, export sample values, and map them by type: Aperio picklists map to Bullhorn drop-down custom fields, multi-select maps to multi-select picklist, text maps to text, date maps to date. Value sets that differ from Bullhorn defaults are flagged for the customer's admin to resolve before migration. Bullhorn's 55-field limit per custom object applies and may require consolidation for complex Aperio configurations.

Aperio's manager relationship on Employee records (manager_id referencing another Employee) does not have a native Bullhorn equivalent because Bullhorn does not have an employee hierarchy object. We store the manager relationship as a custom Candidate or Contact field (manager__c) that references the Bullhorn Candidate ID of the manager. We resolve these references after the initial Candidate import completes, using email matching as the dedupe key.

Aperio's nested goal structures flatten during CSV export to parent_goal_id fields that do not self-describe. We extract all goal_id and parent_goal_id pairs, load goals into the Bullhorn goal__c custom object, then reconstruct the hierarchy by populating the parent_goal__c lookup field with the resolved Bullhorn ID. We run a circular reference check and flag any orphaned child goals (goals whose parent_goal_id references a goal that was not exported or not migrated) for customer resolution.