Viva Glint HRIS Data Imports: Microsoft 365 Admin Center Setup and November 2026 GA Target

That date is a plan, not a ship date. Microsoft's roadmap says all information is subject to change. Still, a good deal of the plumbing is already documented, and parts of it are in some tenants now. Here is what the roadmap entry means, who can use the feature today, and how to set it up without spending an afternoon wondering why Glint is missing from a dropdown.

What's actually changing​

The feature runs on Organizational data in Microsoft 365. Microsoft describes it as one place to import and manage employee attributes such as names, job titles, departments, locations and manager relationships, for use across Microsoft 365 and Viva. Microsoft Learn says the service enables rapid ingestion of organizational/HR data through connectors from multiple HRIS systems using a single unified ingestion point.

The connectors Microsoft documents are:

• Workday
• SAP SuccessFactors
• Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS)
• API-based import
• CSV and other manual file uploads

Glint has long had its own ways to load data. Microsoft's Glint guidance still lists a bulk upload on the People page, and an SFTP feed so that regular imports of employee data can keep HRIS data in sync. The third option is for customers with Organizational Data in Microsoft 365 enabled, employee data can be centrally managed and shared across Microsoft 365 and Viva experiences, including Viva Glint. So this is an extra route. Nobody is taking your SFTP feed away.

Summary: One HR feed, set up once in the Microsoft 365 admin center, can serve Glint as well as other Microsoft 365 and Viva services. Glint's own upload methods stay.

How we got here​

This has been coming for more than a year. In 2025, Microsoft moved Viva Insights organizational data uploads out of the Advanced Analytics app. Starting October 1, 2025, all organizational data imports and management will move to the Microsoft 365 admin center, and the change rolled out in waves.

The same overhaul added attribute mapping and access controls, new connectors and a new admin role. According to M365 Admin (handsontek), it unifies ingestion for Viva Insights and Viva Glint, supports parallel data sources, requires no new licenses except for Viva Insights/Glint features.

In February 2026, Microsoft's Viva Glint team called the integration a preview. The team said it establishes a consistent, governed data foundation that supports trusted insights today and prepares organizations for future Copilot experiences. The new roadmap entry is the next step from that preview to a dated general-availability target.

Microsoft's Glint guide for planning data work with stakeholders already assumes this setup is common. It notes that your organization may already have an HRIS connector set up in Organizational data in Microsoft 365 that can provide people data directly to Viva Glint through existing connectors. Is it worth checking for an existing Workday connection before you build another one? Yes.

Who can use it today​

Before you promise anything to HR, check the eligibility limits. Microsoft Learn's Glint documentation, last updated July 15, 2026, says:

• The integration is being released in phases.
• It currently works for tenants with a single Viva Glint instance that are not in a GCC environment.
• New Glint customers have Organizational data in Microsoft 365 turned on by default.
• Existing customers that already have employee data in Glint must finish a one-time onboarding that maps Organizational data attributes to Glint attributes.
• If the onboarding banner doesn't appear on Glint's People page, the feature hasn't reached your tenant yet.

The roadmap entry covers the Worldwide multi-tenant cloud only. Government cloud customers shouldn't read the November date as applying to them.

Prerequisites checklist​

1. Role: You need the Organizational Data Source Administrator role. A Global Administrator assigns it, and Glint service admins can be given it too. Microsoft notes that any pre-existing app-specific admin roles aren't automatically converted to the organizational data source admin role. You need to assign the role.
2. Glint onboarding: Existing customers finish the one-time mapping wizard from the People page banner.
3. Glint toggle: In Glint, General settings > Technical configuration > Organizational data imports must be Yes. Finishing onboarding turns it on automatically. Until onboarding is done, it stays at No.
4. Licensing: The ingestion platform needs no new license, but per handsontek, a Viva Insights and Viva Glint license is required to access the extended features.

Step by step: connecting HR data to Glint​

Microsoft Learn documents this path in the Microsoft 365 admin center:

1. Confirm you have the Organizational Data Source Administrator role.
2. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.
3. Go to Setup > Migration and imports, scroll to the bottom, and select Organizational data in Microsoft 365.
4. Select Data connections. You may need to choose + New import.
5. Pick a connector type. Microsoft's walkthrough uses CSV as its example.
6. On Choose apps & services, select Viva Glint.
7. Prepare and import your data using the templates offered.
8. Map reserved attributes. Match imported columns to Microsoft's predefined attributes. Any imported column you don't map becomes a custom attribute and can't be renamed.
9. Choose attribute access. Pick which attributes go to which app. Glint only receives attributes that are explicitly shared with it.
10. Review & confirm, then select Begin validation. If validation passes, the import is processed.
11. Select Done and keep an eye on progress from Data connections.

What success looks like: On Data connections, the processed files show a completed status, and the employee records show up in Glint. Glint also audits each import. Every audit event includes the original file Glint received, any advisories, and a processed file that counts rows ingested, ignored and skipped.

Connector differences you need to plan around​

The connectors don't all support the same import types. That matters, because a full import replaces the whole imported employee population. Anyone left out of a full import may become inactive in Glint. An incremental import only adds new employees or updates records that changed.

The table shows two traps:

• Workday is full-import only. If your Workday extract is filtered, say to one business unit for a pilot, everyone outside that filter could be marked inactive in Glint. That's a bad surprise in the middle of a survey cycle.
• ADLS is incremental only. That's fine for daily changes, but it won't clean out people who have left unless your data marks them inactive.

Other limits: imports top out at 2 GB, and processing can take anything from a few minutes to three hours, depending on file size and connector. Leave plenty of time before survey launch deadlines.

Attribute mapping: where most problems start​

From a sysadmin's point of view, most failures will come from here.

• Required fields: Glint needs Email Address, First Name, Last Name, Status and Employee ID. Your Glint schema may require more. For example, any attribute used to derive another value has to appear in every later import.
• Status is not the field you'd guess. Microsoft_GlintEmploymentStatus maps to Glint's Status attribute and only accepts ACTIVE or INACTIVE. The similar-looking Microsoft_EmploymentStatus is not imported into Glint at the moment.
• Other reserved attributes Glint currently ignores: Microsoft_Phone, Microsoft_SecondaryJobTitle, Microsoft_HourlyRate, Microsoft_WeeklyBadgeOnsiteDays and Microsoft_UserSkillNames.
• Custom attributes are case-sensitive. A custom attribute only imports if Glint already has an attribute with exactly the same name, capital letters included. "Cost Center" won't match "Cost center". Unmatched attributes are dropped, with an advisory in the post-upload error messages. If the attribute is new, create it in Glint first.
• Naming: During onboarding, Glint may ask you to rename existing attributes that break the naming rules. Update any SFTP files or scripts that still use the old names.
• Manager hierarchy: If Glint's reporting hierarchy should stay separate from the Profile or Entra manager hierarchy, don't map Microsoft_ManagerID to the Glint attribute used to derive the manager hierarchy.

There's a governance angle too. Microsoft's Organizational data documentation separates public attributes, which are made available to the Microsoft 365 profile and can be accessed by all of the tenant's users and any Microsoft 365 apps, from confidential ones you can limit to specific apps. Before you tick every checkbox under attribute access, decide with HR and privacy teams which fields should be visible across the whole tenant.

Troubleshooting quick reference​

• Glint isn't listed under Choose apps & services: The Organizational data imports toggle in Glint is off, or schema setup and onboarding aren't finished.
• No onboarding banner in Glint: The phased rollout hasn't reached your tenant, or you're outside the single-instance, non-GCC limits.
• A custom field never appears: Check the name and capitalization, confirm the attribute exists in Glint, and confirm it's shared with Glint under attribute access.
• A reserved field never appears: Check that it's mapped to a Glint attribute and isn't on the not-currently-imported list.
• Employees went inactive unexpectedly: Check whether a full import ran with a partial dataset.
• Missing rows: The service filters out invalid records during processing, and Glint never sees them. Check the skipped and ignored counts in the processed audit file.

The verdict​

This doesn't change what Glint can do. It changes how you run it. For organizations already sending Workday or SuccessFactors data to Viva Insights through the Microsoft 365 admin center, one governed feed instead of a separate Glint SFTP job is a clear improvement, with less to break at 2 a.m. The downside is more central control in the hands of whoever holds the Organizational Data Source Administrator role, and more ways a mapping mistake can spread to other services.

Recommended prep before November:

1. Assign the role now.
2. Check for existing connectors before building new ones.
3. Check that custom attribute names match Glint exactly.
4. Test with incremental or CSV imports before pointing a full-only connector at production.

Treat November 2026 as a target until Microsoft confirms general availability.