Access BambooHR Data in PHP through Connect Server



Connect to BambooHR through the standard SQL Server libraries in PHP.

You can use CData Connect Server to access BambooHR data from SQL Server clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to create a virtual SQL Server database for BambooHR and connect to BambooHR data in real time through PHP's standard SQL Server interface, i.e. sqlsrv_connect.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for BambooHR, allowing you to easily build reports from live BambooHR data in PHP — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, PHP generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to BambooHR, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested BambooHR data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for BambooHR Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

  1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
  2. Select "BambooHR" from Available Data Sources.
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to BambooHR.

    Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the BambooHR Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\bamboohr.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for BambooHR (see below).

    BambooHR API Profile Settings

    In order to authenticate to BambooHR, you'll need to provide your API Key. To generate an API key, log in and click your name in the upper right-hand corner of any page to get to the user context menu. If you have sufficient permissions, there will be an "API Keys" option in that menu to go to the page, where you can create a new API Key. Additionally, you will need to set the Domain, found in the domain name of your BambooHR account. For example if your BambooHR account is acmeinc.bamboohr.com, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'. Set both the API Key and Domain in the ProfileSettings property to connect.

  4. Click Save Changes
  5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to BambooHR data from PHP.

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual SQL Server database:

  • Server name/Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running.
  • Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized in Connect Server.
  • Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
  • Database Name: Specify the name of the virtual database you created for BambooHR.
  • Port: Specify the port the service is running on, port 1433 in this example.

sqlsrv_connect

<?php
$serverName = "connect_server_url, 1433"; //Connect Server Address, portNumber (default is 1433)
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"API1", "UID"=>"userName", "PWD"=>"password");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);

if( $conn ) {
     echo "Connection established.<br>";
}else{
     echo "Connection could not be established.<br>";
     die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}
?>

PDO

<?php
<?php
$user = my_connect_user
$pass = my_connect_pass

$pdo = new PDO("sqlsrv:Server=connect_server_url,1433;Database=API1", $user , $pass);

?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

  1. Query the table; for example, Employees. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
  2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
  3. Close the connection.

sqlsrv_connect

$result = $sqlsrv_connect->query("SELECT Id, DisplayName FROM Employees WHERE Department = 'Sales'");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$sqlsrv_connect->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT Id, DisplayName FROM Employees WHERE Department = 'Sales'");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

SQL Server Access to BambooHR Data using PHP

You have retrieved live BambooHR Data using PHP. Now, you can easily access data sources and more — all without replicating BambooHR data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.

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