Connect HR WORKS to Microsoft Copilot via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → HR WORKS, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

HR WORKS + Microsoft Copilot

Access HR WORKS, the German HR/payroll platform: employees, absences, sick leaves, remote work (home office), working times, time accounts, wage payments, personnel files, projects, applicants, organization units, holidays and cost centers via the v2 REST API.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

HRWORKS_ACCESS_KEY, HRWORKS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

Step 1 — Get credentials

1. In HR WORKS, open Administration → API and create an API key pair: an access key and a secret access key.
2. Paste the access key into HRWORKS_ACCESS_KEY and the secret access key into HRWORKS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, then install the connector.
3. Start with hrworks_list_organization_units or hrworks_list_persons to check that the key pair works.

Tokens are handled for you: HR WORKS issues tokens that last about 15 minutes. The connector exchanges your key pair for a token, renews it before it expires and logs in again after a 401, so long chats and scheduled runs keep working.

What it does: 48 tools that read employees and their master data, organization units, holidays, absences, sick leaves, remote work (home office), working times and time accounts, leave accounts, available working hours, personnel files, wage payments, travel expense reports, projects, applicants and job postings, cost centers and cost objectives. Three tools write: hrworks_create_working_times records working times or breaks, hrworks_update_working_times changes existing ones, and hrworks_delete_working_times deletes recorded ones (switched off at install). HR WORKS processes all three in the background and returns a job id, which hrworks_get_working_times_job checks. The AI confirms the people, dates and times with you before it writes. All other tools only read.

Totals and balances: hrworks_list_time_accounts returns target hours, worked hours and the overtime balance per month, and hrworks_list_leave_accounts the vacation entitlement and the approved, planned and expiring days of many people at once. hrworks_get_absences_accumulated, hrworks_get_sick_leaves_accumulated and hrworks_get_remote_work_accumulated count the days per person in a period instead of listing every entry, and hrworks_get_available_working_hours returns the hours people are available after absences, for capacity planning.

Confidential data: master data, personnel files, wage payments and sick leaves are personal, payroll and health data. Put the connector only on an MCP server used by people who may see this data, or switch those tools off.

Date ranges: absences, sick leaves, remote work, the totals and available working hours take beginDate and endDate (YYYY-MM-DD) and cover at most one year per call, or 31 days with interval=days. Working times are stricter: at most 31 days touching at most two calendar months per call, so the AI asks month by month. Travel expense reports also need beginDate and endDate.

People: most person tools take the personnel number or the HR WORKS username, and personIdentifierType or usePersonnelNumbers tell HR WORKS which one you mean. The wage payments of one person take the person's UUID, which hrworks_get_person and hrworks_list_persons_master_data return.

Already installed? The new tools reach a connector you installed earlier through its catalog update: open the connector in AnythingMCP and, under Catalog update available, check the list of new tools and click Apply update. Your credentials and any tools you added yourself stay as they are. Note also that hrworks_list_travel_expense_reports now needs beginDate and endDate, and that hrworks_list_working_times takes at most 31 days within two calendar months per call.

Sandbox: to test against the HR WORKS demo at https://api.demo-hrworks.de, change the connector's base URL and the login URL in its auth settings to the demo host.

Limits: most lists return 50 entries per page; when there are more, the AI asks for the next page. HR WORKS sets rate limits per account.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Microsoft Copilot

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Microsoft Copilot uses MCP servers through agents built in Copilot Studio: you add AnythingMCP to an agent as a tool, then publish the agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams. Copilot Studio connects from Microsoft's cloud over Streamable HTTP, which AnythingMCP supports.

1. In Copilot Studio, open your agent (or create one), go to Tools and choose Add a tool → New tool → Model Context Protocol.
2. Enter a Server name (for example AnythingMCP), a Server description that says what the connector does, and the Server URL https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID. Copilot Studio uses the description to decide when to call the server.
3. Under authentication, choose API key, set Type to Header and the header name to X-API-Key, then select Create.
4. In Add tool, choose Create a new connection, paste an MCP API key from AnythingMCP (MCP Servers → your server → API keys) and select Add to agent.
5. Try it in the agent's Test pane: ask for something that needs the HR WORKS tools.
6. Select Publish, then Channels → Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, keep Make agent available in Microsoft Copilot selected and choose Add channel. See agent in Teams installs it for you; in Microsoft 365 Copilot, type @ and pick the agent.

Prefer per-user sign-in? Choose OAuth 2.0 → Dynamic discovery instead of an API key: each user then signs in to AnythingMCP the first time the agent calls it.

Self-hosting? Use your instance's public HTTPS address instead of https://cloud.anythingmcp.com. Copilot Studio connects from Microsoft's cloud, so localhost does not work.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "Show the overtime balance of everyone in the Sales organization unit for September and October 2026."
• "How many vacation days do Anna Becker and Jonas Weber have left this year, and how many are already planned?"
• "How many working hours does the development team have available in November, week by week?"
• "Count the sick days and home office days per person in the warehouse team for the third quarter."
• "Record working time for personnel number 1042 yesterday from 8:00 to 16:30 with a break from 12:00 to 12:30, then check that HR WORKS accepted it."
• "Which payroll-relevant entries were added to Jonas Weber's personnel file this year?"

FAQ

Which Copilot is this for? Microsoft 365 Copilot at work, through agents built in Copilot Studio. The Microsoft Copilot app for personal accounts has no option to add your own MCP server.

What do I need? A work account with access to Copilot Studio (a license or a trial) to build the agent. People who use it in Microsoft 365 Copilot or Teams need access to the agent: share it with them, or ask an admin to publish it to the organization. If your organization applies data policies to Power Platform connectors, they cover MCP servers too.

The agent doesn't call the tools. Check that the header name is exactly X-API-Key and that the key belongs to the same MCP server as the URL, and make the server description specific: Copilot Studio uses it to decide when to call the server. Publish the agent again after each change; in an open chat, type "start over" to get the new version.

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