Key takeaways
- BambooHR shows no size figure: an admin counts employees ever on file with a custom report that includes inactive employees, and time entries with the Timesheet Entries report.
- Each report exports from its More menu as CSV, Excel or PDF and covers only its own fields, so a full copy is a set of reports; employee documents are downloaded one employee at a time.
- The API's Get Report by ID returns saved custom reports as JSON, up to 1,000 records per page, and the older Get Company Report request is deprecated.
- You don't need to export anything to apply: have your employees-ever count, years of history and active employee count ready, and HR records are usually kept out of scope or anonymized by the data vendor before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is BambooHR data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
BambooHR data is the record of every person a company has employed: hire dates, job titles, managers, time off and the date each person left. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) are interested because the records show, often across a decade, how a company builds teams and how long people stay in each role. HR records are also among the most sensitive a company holds, so what leaves the company is decided with the data vendor and a lawyer.
What BambooHR records
BambooHR is human resources (HR) software, the system in which a company keeps its employee files. Each employee has a profile that holds their job information, such as the hire date, the job title and the manager. The profile also holds their time off requests and, if the company uses BambooHR's time tracking, the hours they logged. When someone leaves, the profile stays in the system as an inactive employee with a termination date.
An administrator pulls this information out of BambooHR with reports, which are saved lists of employees and the fields to show for each one. A report can list a hundred employees with five fields or the whole company with thirty.
Why HR history teaches an AI model something
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. A company's HR history is a long series of dated events: a hire, a promotion, a change of manager, a block of time off, a departure. Read together, they show how long people stay in each role, when teams grow, and how time off clusters through the year.
That is a record of how a workforce is managed, and it exists nowhere on the public internet. AI labs and data vendors treat it as one source among several, and our guide AI training data: why AI companies want your company's data explains how labs use records of work.
How BambooHR fits into a dataset, and why it needs extra care
A BambooHR export is usually one of several sources in a company's dataset, next to email, documents and tickets. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to. The price covers the whole dataset, not each source on its own, and what your data is worth explains what moves it.
Employee records are personal data about your staff, and privacy laws treat them with more care than most business records. Our guide on whether it is legal to sell company data notes that HR files are usually excluded from these deals outright. The rest of this page helps you size the records so that you and the data vendor can decide which of them, if any, are in scope.
02
Where does BambooHR show how much data you have?
The short answer
BambooHR shows no data-size figure. You measure it by counting records with a report: a custom report that lists every employee, including inactive ones, gives the number of employees ever on file, and the Timesheet Entries report gives the number of time entries if you use time tracking. Run the reports as the Account Owner or an admin whose access covers every employee.
How to count your records
The steps below are done by the Account Owner or an HR administrator in BambooHR's web app. The report export steps match BambooHR's product update on exporting reports.
- Sign in as the Account Owner or as an admin whose access level covers every employee and every field.
- Open Reports. Saved custom reports are listed under Custom Reports, which has a My Reports tab and a Company Reports tab.
- Create a custom report with the employee number, status, hire date and termination date. Set it to include inactive employees, run it and write down the number of rows. That is the number of employees ever on file.
- If your company tracks time in BambooHR, also run the Timesheet Entries report across your whole history and note how many entries it lists.
Who can see the numbers
Report access follows each person's BambooHR access level. Someone who is not an admin sees only the reports they saved themselves in My Reports, and a report shows only the employees and fields their access allows, so a count from a restricted account will be too low.
| Who runs the report | What the count covers |
|---|---|
| Account Owner | Every employee and field in the account. |
| Admin with access to all employees | Every employee the access level covers. Use this kind of account for the count. |
| Employee or manager without full access | Only their own saved reports, limited to the people and fields they can see. Not enough for a total. |
Why a count can come out too low
A report counts only the rows that pass its own filters. If the report leaves out inactive employees, the count shows today's workforce and misses everyone who has left, so check the status filter before you write the number down.
03
What should you know about your BambooHR data before you apply?
The short answer
Have three facts ready: the number of employees ever on file, how many years the records cover, and how many active employees you have today. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which sources hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. You don't need to export anything to find them.
The number of records
For BambooHR the unit is records, and the number to use is the employees ever on file from your all-employees report. If you use time tracking or time off, add the number of time entries or time off requests in your notes, because they show how much activity the records describe.
The years of history
The years of history start at the earliest hire date on file. If you moved to BambooHR later and never loaded older staff, start from the day your company began using BambooHR instead.
The number of seats
For BambooHR, the seat count is the number of active employees in the system today. Former employees count toward the records but not toward seats.
What you don't need to do first
Applying shares no data with anyone, and you don't need to export or clean anything first. The data vendor anonymizes records before any AI lab sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export your full BambooHR history?
The short answer
An admin opens each report, chooses More in the upper right corner and downloads it as CSV, Excel or PDF. A report holds only the fields you put in it, so a full copy is a set of reports. For a complete copy of the account, the Account Owner follows BambooHR's Help Center guide to exporting employee data or asks BambooHR support for the current full-export option. Large or repeated pulls go through the BambooHR API, which returns up to 1,000 records per page.
Export a report from the app
- Open Reports and open the standard or custom report you want, with every field and with inactive employees included.
- Choose More in the upper right corner and pick the file format. CSV or Excel is best for counting and for handing to a data vendor, and PDF is also offered; for a PDF BambooHR asks for a paper size and orientation first.
- Repeat for each report in your set. Excel exports of standard reports include the unique employee number, which lets a person's rows in different reports be matched.
BambooHR also changed its Timesheet Entries export so that the employee number and name appear on every row of the CSV and Excel files, not only the first row of each employee, as the product update describes.
Get a complete copy of the account
We could not confirm a single export-everything button in BambooHR's public documentation. For a complete copy, the Account Owner follows BambooHR's Help Center guide to exporting employee and candidate data, or asks BambooHR support which full-export option is current for your account. Ask for the format, what it includes and how long it takes.
Use the API for large or repeated pulls
An API is a way for one program to ask another for data. BambooHR's API can run a saved custom report with its Get Report by ID request and return the rows as JSON, a plain-text data format, in pages of up to 500 records by default and 1,000 at most. The caller needs an API connection with the report scope, and the call fails with a permission error if that account cannot view the report.
The record total in the response counts only the rows left after the report's own filters, not every employee in the account. BambooHR has deprecated the older Get Company Report request that returned CSV, PDF, XLS, XML or JSON, and its documentation points to Get Report by ID instead, as described in the API reference.
What a report export leaves out
A report includes only the fields it contains, so anything you did not add as a column is missing. Employee documents, such as signed forms and uploaded files, are separate and are not part of a report. On an employee's profile, an admin can open the Documents tab and use the download-all button next to the search bar to fetch that person's files, which BambooHR describes in its product update on downloading files. That works one employee at a time.
| Route | Formats | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Report, More menu | CSV, Excel, PDF | Only the fields in that report |
| API, Get Report by ID | JSON | A saved custom report, up to 1,000 records per page |
| Documents tab | Files as uploaded | One employee's documents at a time |
| Full account copy | Confirm with BambooHR | Employee and candidate data, per BambooHR's Help Center |
How long an export takes
BambooHR publishes no timing for report exports. The time depends on how many rows and columns a report has, so allow longer for a large all-employee report and keep each report's filters the same across runs.
Sources: BambooHR API reference, Get Report by ID; BambooHR product updates, Export Reports as PDF, Improved Exports for Timesheet Entries Report and Time Off Schedule Report and Adding Download All Files to Document Management. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when BambooHR data is licensed?
The short answer
The company decides which fields and which employees' records are in scope, and the data vendor replaces names and other identifying details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. Identity documents, I-9 forms and performance notes are never needed, and records too sensitive to clean safely are deleted. The company keeps ownership of its data, and the license covers defined records for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
Because a report holds only the fields you put in it, the company controls what leaves BambooHR. A report of hire dates, job titles, status and time off can be shared without salaries, home addresses, birth dates or national ID numbers. Documents are separate from reports, so ID documents, I-9 forms (the U.S. form that proves a new hire may legally work) and performance notes stay behind unless someone downloads them on purpose.
Names are replaced before a lab sees them
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears. Names, email addresses and employee numbers are replaced, and details that identify someone only in combination, such as an exact birth date, are made less precise, for example by keeping only the year. The dates that show how long each person held a role stay in order, so the record still shows the career without saying whose it is.
The vendor keeps a private mapping of stand-ins to real people while it works, so strictly the records are pseudonymized, and for a buyer they cannot be traced back. The diagram shows one employee before and after.
The method, including what is deleted outright and how you review samples, is in how company data is anonymized for AI training.
Ownership, the law and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. Employees have privacy rights in their own details, and the rules differ by country and state, so a lawyer reviews what may be included before anything moves, as the guide on whether it is legal to sell company data explains. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Do BambooHR reports include former employees?
Only when the report is set to include inactive employees. Check the status filter before you count, because a report that leaves them out shows today's workforce instead of everyone ever on file.
Can I export employee documents in bulk?
Not from a report. Documents are separate from report exports, and an admin downloads them one employee at a time with the download-all button on that employee's Documents tab. You don't need documents to apply.
Is there an API for exporting BambooHR data?
Yes. BambooHR's API runs a saved custom report and hands back JSON, at most 1,000 records per page, through a connection that holds the report scope. The older Get Company Report request is deprecated.
Do I have to export BambooHR before I apply?
No. The application shares no data. You only need your employees-ever count, your years of history and your active employee count, and a custom report gives you all three in a few minutes.
Are salaries and personal details included when BambooHR data is licensed?
Only if the company puts them in scope, and HR records are usually excluded from these deals outright. A report holds only the fields you choose, so salaries, home addresses and ID numbers can stay out, and the data vendor anonymizes whatever is shared.
Why is my BambooHR count different from the report total in the API?
The API's record total counts only the rows left after the report's own filters, so a report that excludes inactive employees or a department returns a smaller number than the whole account holds.
What is BambooHR data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
An HR export is priced as part of a whole dataset rather than on its own. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in BambooHR, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.