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Notice:
This integration is currently in Beta. If you'd like access please reach out to support.
What the integration does
Connecting Scale to Gusto makes it easy to send invites to your entire team, eliminating most of the logistical pain out of scheduling team photos.
Your active employees and contractors are imported as contacts in the studio you choose, and from then on Gusto tells Scale Headshots whenever someone is hired, updated, terminated or rehired.
Once you're connected:
New employees and individual contractors are added as contacts automatically.
Name and email changes in Gusto flow through to the matching contact.
New hires can be invited to your studio the moment they enter onboarding in Gusto, so a headshot is part of their first week.
People who leave are marked inactive on their last day and are never invited again. The headshots they already have are kept.
The sync runs one way and is read-only. Scale Headshots never changes employee records and never writes anything back to your Gusto account.
Before you start
You need at least one studio in Scale Headshots. The integration syncs into a single studio that you pick when you connect.
Your Scale Headshots role needs to be able to manage studios — that's Owner, Admin or Developer.
You need to be able to sign in to Gusto as an admin of the company you want to connect. Only a Gusto admin can authorize an app.
Connect Gusto
Sign in to Scale Headshots and go to Account › Integrations.
Find the Gusto card and click Connect.
Sign in to Gusto as an admin of your company, review the access Scale Headshots is asking for, and authorize it.
If your account has more than one studio, choose the Studio that people from Gusto should be added to.
Under Contact sync, choose what to bring across: Sync employees, Sync contractors, or both.
Leave Import from Gusto checked to import everyone currently active in Gusto as soon as you're connected. Uncheck it if you'd rather start with an empty roster and only pick up people who change in Gusto from now on.
If you have more than one studio and select the wrong one, you will have to disconnect the integration and connect again.
Integration settings
Sync employees and Sync contractors
Employees and contractors are separate records in Gusto, so they're separate settings here. You can sync either or both.
Only individual contractors become contacts. Business contractors are skipped, because there's no person to create a contact for.
Anyone in Gusto with no email address at all is skipped, because a contact can't be invited without one.
Turning a setting on only affects people who change in Gusto afterwards. To apply it to everyone who's already there, run an import.
Turning one off stops future updates for that group. Contacts already in your studio stay exactly as they are.
Match contacts by
If you already had contacts in your studio before connecting Gusto, Scale Headshots pairs each Gusto person with the contact that's already there instead of creating a duplicate. This setting decides which unpaired contact a Gusto person is allowed to claim:
Auto (default): matches on the person's personal email in Gusto, then their work email.
Personal email only: matches only on the personal email in Gusto.
Work email only: matches only on the work email in Gusto.
Email matching checks both the primary and the secondary email on your existing contacts, so it doesn't matter which field you'd stored a work address in. Once someone has been paired, they stay paired — a later name or email change won't split them into a second contact.
Auto-invite contacts
With this on, Scale Headshots emails a studio invite to a new hire as soon as their onboarding status in Gusto shows onboarding has begun.
Invites are only ever sent this way. Imports — the first one and any manual import — never send invites, however many people they bring across. To invite people already on your roster, use the invite tools in the studio itself.
Run an import manually
An import re-reads your whole Gusto roster: new people are added, changed details are updated, and anyone no longer active in Gusto is marked inactive. It never sends invites, so it's safe to run whenever you like — after a bulk change in Gusto, after reconnecting, or any time you'd rather not wait.
Go to Account › Integrations and click Manage on the Gusto card.
If you've changed any settings on this page, click Save first. An import uses your saved settings, so Import now stays disabled until there's nothing unsaved.
Scroll to Import contacts and click Import now.
Confirm when asked. The badge shows Queued, then Importing.
You can leave the page. When it finishes, the badge shows Completed and Last imported updates to the time it finished.
Terminations and rehires
Terminations in Gusto are usually filed in advance, so Scale Headshots keeps someone active until their last day rather than removing them the moment notice is given.
On the effective date, their contact is marked inactive: their submissions and headshots stay, they're not invited again, and they're no longer part of the active roster. If the termination is cancelled, or the person is rehired, they become active again automatically. You'll see the reason on the contact's activity: No longer active in Gusto, or Active again in Gusto.
Troubleshooting
"Gusto needs reconnecting"
If the authorization ends on Gusto's side — someone removes Scale Headshots from your company's connected apps, an admin revokes access, or the authorization expires — we can no longer read your roster. You'll see a red banner on the Manage Gusto page reading "Gusto is no longer accepting our connection. Reconnect Gusto to resume syncing.", and a warning icon on the Gusto card. Contacts already in your studio are untouched; they just stop updating.
Go to Account › Integrations and click Manage on the Gusto card.
Click Reconnect Gusto in the banner.
Sign in to Gusto as an admin and authorize Scale Headshots again.
You'll come back to Scale Headshots and the banner will clear.
Reconnecting also starts an import, which catches up on everything that changed in Gusto while the connection was down. Wait for the badge to reach Completed.
"Import incomplete"
If an import can't finish you'll see a yellow Import incomplete banner with the reason: we couldn't reach Gusto, Gusto wouldn't let us read your employee list, or some individual people couldn't be imported.
Read the message in the banner. If it says we couldn't read your employee list, the connection needs re-authorizing. Follow the reconnect steps above.
Otherwise, click Import now under Import contacts and confirm.
If it fails the same way again, get in touch with us and include your Gusto company name and roughly when the import failed.
Someone in Gusto isn't showing up
Check the relevant group is switched on to sync. Sync employees and Sync contractors are separate settings.
If the missing contact is a contractor, check they're an individual contractor in Gusto. Business contractors aren't synced.
Check they have an email address in Gusto, personal or work. Someone with neither is skipped.
Check they're still active in Gusto. Someone whose termination date has passed syncs as an inactive contact by design.
Click Import now to re-read the roster. Anyone added while the connection was down won't arrive on their own.
The connection didn't complete
If something goes wrong on the way back from Gusto, you'll land on the Integrations page with one of these messages:
"You need permission to manage studios to connect Gusto." — your role can't manage studios. Ask an Owner or Admin to connect Gusto, or to change your role.
"You no longer have access to that account." — your membership has changed. Sign out, sign back in, and try again.
"Start the connection from this page so we know which studio to sync into." — the connection was started somewhere other than the Integrations page. Always begin at Account › Integrations.
"Gusto didn't finish the connection. Please try again." — Gusto couldn't be reached at that moment. Wait a minute and click Connect again. Nothing is left half-connected.
Disconnect Gusto
Go to Account › Integrations and click Manage on the Gusto card.
Scroll to the bottom, to Disconnect Gusto.
Click Disconnect and confirm.
We ask Gusto to end the authorization (which also removes Scale Headshots from your company's connected apps in Gusto) and delete the stored connection and its settings. Syncing stops immediately. Contacts, headshots and submission history already in your studio are kept, and nothing in Gusto is changed.
To start again later, click Connect on the Gusto card. You can choose a different studio at that point.
You can also end the connection from Gusto by removing Scale Headshots from your company's connected apps. If you do that, Scale Headshots shows the Gusto needs reconnecting banner rather than disconnecting itself. Use the steps above to disconnect properly if you don't intend to reconnect.
Frequently asked questions
Does connecting Gusto change anything in my Gusto account?
No. We only read your company details and your roster. The one exception is disconnecting: we then ask Gusto to end the authorization, which removes Scale Headshots from your company's connected apps.
What information does Scale Headshots read from Gusto?
Your company name, and for each employee or individual contractor their Gusto ID, first and last name, personal and work email addresses, employment status (including termination and rehire dates) and onboarding status. Compensation, tax, banking and other payroll information is not stored.
How quickly do changes in Gusto show up?
Within moments — Gusto notifies us as changes happen, so there's no schedule to wait for. If you'd rather not wait, or think something was missed, run an import.
Does syncing from Gusto use headshot credits?
No. Connecting Gusto, importing contacts and keeping them up to date are free. Credits are used when headshots are produced.
Can I sync Gusto into more than one studio?
No. One Gusto company syncs into one studio, chosen when you connect. Disconnect and reconnect to choose a different one.
Will my existing contacts be duplicated?
Not if they can be matched. Gusto people are paired with the contacts you already have using the Match contacts by setting, and email matching checks both email fields on each contact.
Someone was terminated in Gusto but is still active in Scale Headshots. Why?
Terminations in Gusto carry an effective date and we honor it, so someone working out their notice stays active until their last day.
Are new hires emailed automatically?
Only if Auto-invite contacts is on. A studio invite is then sent when the person enters onboarding in Gusto. Imports never send invites.
Do I need to be a Gusto admin?
Yes. Authorizing the connection requires signing in to Gusto as an admin of the company. In Scale Headshots you need a role that can manage studios: Owner, Admin or Developer.
Can I connect more than one Gusto company?
One Gusto company per Scale Headshots account. If you need to sync several Gusto companies, get in touch and we'll help you set it up.
Still need help?
Start a chat with us from the Messenger in the bottom corner of your Scale Headshots dashboard, or email support@scaleheadshots.com. If it's about a sync problem, it helps to include your Gusto company name and the name and email of anyone affected, as they appear in Gusto.