Migrate from Tribune to BambooHR

Subscriber records are the primary identity object in Tribune's data model and map directly to BambooHR Employee profiles. We translate subscriber name fields to BambooHR firstName and lastName, email to workEmail, phone to workPhone, and address to BambooHR's address fields. Any subscriber record without an email address is flagged for manual enrichment before import because BambooHR requires a unique email per employee. We use subscriber ID as a reference attribute for reconciliation but do not map it as BambooHR employee ID because BambooHR assigns its own IDs at insert time.

Tribune operates 77 daily and over 150 weekly publication titles, each representing a subscription grouping. We map publication titles to BambooHR Department records using a bulk pre-create step before employee import. Because BambooHR Department is a flat table with name-only fields, we lose any publication hierarchy (regional grouping, syndication arm) in the translation. If the customer requires publication-level grouping, we create a parallel custom field publication_group__c and use a spreadsheet-derived lookup during scoping.

Tribune subscription tiers (print-only, digital-only, bundled) and tier pricing have no direct BambooHR equivalent because BambooHR does not model subscription plans. We create a custom picklist field employment_status__c on the BambooHR Employee object before migration and map tier names to appropriate employment status values (e.g., print_subscriber maps to full_time, digital_subscriber maps to contractor if a contractor model exists, bundled maps to full_time). The tier price migrates as a custom text field tier_rate__c for reference, not as a numeric field because BambooHR has no place to store subscription price data on an employee record.

Print delivery addresses stored per-subscriber map to BambooHR Employee address fields with a 1:1 field-to-field translation. Tribune's support for seasonal or temporary address changes requires a flag for any record with active temporary forwarding instructions. We set a BambooHR custom field has_temp_address__c as true for flagged records and append the forwarding address in a notes field. BambooHR does not have a native temporary address model, so forwarding context is preserved as text.

Digital subscribers receive portal credentials for online content access. We map the credential-to-subscriber linkage as a custom text field portal_access__c on the BambooHR Employee record, noting which access tier the subscriber holds (e.g., metered, premium, archive). Full credential migration (usernames and passwords) is not performed because passwords are hashed and cannot be exported. Access tier is preserved as a reference value for the customer's IT team to provision equivalently tiered access in BambooHR's employee portal.

Tribune subscription preferences include delivery frequency (daily, weekends, selected days), format preferences, and notification opt-ins. We map delivery frequency to a custom picklist field delivery_frequency__c and format preferences to a custom text field format_pref__c. Notification opt-ins translate to BambooHR's employee announcements and alert preferences where equivalent; where no equivalent exists, we preserve opt-in status as a custom field opt_in__c with a boolean value.

Auto-renewal flags on Tribune subscription records have no equivalent in BambooHR's employee data model. We exclude auto-renewal configuration from the field mapping because BambooHR does not model subscription billing on employee records. During scoping, we deliver a written inventory of all records with auto-renewal enabled and promotional effective dates so the customer's billing team can audit which migrated subscribers will trigger automatic charge events in the source system before or after cutover. This inventory is a structured CSV delivered alongside the migration.

Tribune billing records include payment method type, billing frequency, transaction history, and auto-renewal status. Payment card data is tokenized or masked at source and cannot be migrated. We preserve payment method type (ACH, card, invoice) and billing cadence as text custom fields payment_method__c and billing_frequency__c. Transaction history migrates as a structured notes attachment (not as line items) because BambooHR has no billing object. Customers needing full billing history in BambooHR must configure a separate billing or accounting integration post-migration.

The many-to-many relationship between subscribers and publication titles in Tribune maps to the Employee-Department lookup in BambooHR. We resolve the lookup at migration time by pre-creating Department records from publication titles, then setting the departmentId on each Employee record during insert. Employees subscribed to multiple publications receive a primary department assignment based on the most-recent or highest-tier subscription; secondary publication linkages are preserved in a custom text field secondary_departments__c as a comma-separated list for the HR admin to disambiguate in BambooHR.

Tribune does not contain HRMS objects such as Departments, Job Titles, Employment Status, Manager hierarchy, Benefits, or Time-Off balances. We create these structures in BambooHR as part of the migration setup: Departments are seeded from publication titles, a default Job Title is set for all migrated employees, and Employment Status is derived from subscription tier mapping. Manager relationships do not exist in Tribune and are not created. Time-Off balances are set to zero at migration with a note in the employee file that balances begin accruing from the BambooHR go-live date. Benefits enrollment is out of scope and must be configured by the customer's HR admin post-migration.