Use the Connect Server to Access BambooHR Data in Microsoft Power Pivot

This article will explain how to use the Connect Server to provide BambooHR data as OData services and then consume the data in Microsoft Excel's Power Pivot business intelligence tool. Follow the steps below to retrieve BambooHR data in Power Pivot.

Connect to BambooHR from Power Pivot

To work with live BambooHR data in Power Pivot, we need to connect to BambooHR from Connect Server, provide user access to the new virtual database, and create OData endpoints for the BambooHR data.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a User to connect to BambooHR from Power Pivot through Connect Server.

1. Click Users -> Add
2. Configure a User
3. Click Save Changes and make note of the Authtoken for the new user

Connect to BambooHR from Connect Server

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

1. Open 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 (SELECT is all that is required for Reveal).

Add BambooHR OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to BambooHR, create OData Endpoints for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the BambooHR database
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple domains from an application, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in OData -> Settings.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Import BambooHR Tables in Power Pivot

Follow the steps below to import tables that can be refreshed on demand:

1. In Excel, click Data -> Get Data -> From Other Sources -> From OData Feed
2. Fill out the OData feed URL (e.g. http://localhost:8080/odata.rsc)
3. On the next screen, select Basic and configure the username and password. Password should be your auth token.

4. Select the tables that you would like to import into Excel

5. After selecting your table(s) and clicking Load, you should see the data appear in an Excel spreadsheet

6. Now, click the Power Pivot tab on the ribbon, and then select Add to Data Model. This can now work with your BambooHR data in Power Pivot.

Free Trial & More Information

If you are interested in connecting to your BambooHR data (or data from any of our other supported data sources) from Power Pivot, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Server today! For more information on Connect Server and to see what other data sources we support, refer to our CData Connect page.