Integrate Live BambooHR Data into Custom Business Apps Built in Power Apps

Power Apps is a service for building and using custom business apps that connect to your data and work across the web and mobile — without the time and expense of custom software development. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to BambooHR data from the apps you build using Power Apps. This article shows how to connect to Connect Server from Power Apps and build an app based on live BambooHR data.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL interface for BambooHR, allowing you to easily integrate with live BambooHR data in Power Apps — without replicating the data. CData Connect Server looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Apps and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to BambooHR, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return BambooHR data.

Create a Virtual SQL 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.

Connecting to CData Connect Server

To use Connect Server to integrate BambooHR data into your Power Apps, you need a new SQL Server connection:

1. Log in to Power Apps
2. Click Data -> Connections -> New connection
3. Select SQL Server
4. In the connection wizard:
   
   
   • Choose to connect directly
   • Set SQL server name to the address of your Connect Server instance (CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Set SQL database name to the name of the virtual BambooHR database you created earlier (like bamboohrdb)
   • Set the Username and Password and click Create

Building a Data-Centric App for BambooHR Data

With the connection to Connect Server configured, you are ready to integrate live BambooHR data into the apps you build in Power Apps.

1. Log in to Power Apps
2. Click Create, hover over "Start from data" and click Make this app
3. Select the SQL Server connection you created
4. Search for or choose a table to work with
5. Click Connect
6. Customize the newly created app just like you would any other, including changing the layout and setting the fields exposed in BrowseScreen, DetailScreen, and EditScreen

At this point, you have an app with read access to live BambooHR data that you can save and publish for use within your organization.

SQL Access to BambooHR Data from Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live BambooHR data from Microsoft Power Apps. You can create more connections and apps to drive business — all without replicating BambooHR data.

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