Access Live Paylocity Data in Excel 365 Online (Excel for the web)

Microsoft Excel for the web represents a cloud-native iteration of Microsoft Excel. When integrated with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate access to Paylocity data directly from within Excel. This access facilitates data analysis, collaborative work, calculations, and more. This article provides a step-by-step guide on connecting to Paylocity within your Connect Cloud instance and accessing live Paylocity data in Excel for the web spreadsheets, whether for viewing or updating purposes.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Paylocity, allowing you to easily access live Paylocity data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect Cloud Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Paylocity, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Paylocity data.

Configure Paylocity Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Paylocity from Excel is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Paylocity data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a Paylocity connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Paylocity" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Paylocity.

   Set the following to establish a connection to Paylocity:

   • RSAPublicKey: Set this to the RSA Key associated with your Paylocity, if the RSA Encryption is enabled in the Paylocity account.

     This property is required for executing Insert and Update statements, and it is not required if the feature is disabled.

   • UseSandbox: Set to true if you are using sandbox account.
   • CustomFieldsCategory: Set this to the Customfields category. This is required when IncludeCustomFields is set to true. The default value for this property is PayrollAndHR.
   • Key: The AES symmetric key(base 64 encoded) encrypted with the Paylocity Public Key. It is the key used to encrypt the content.

     Paylocity will decrypt the AES key using RSA decryption.
     It is an optional property if the IV value not provided, The driver will generate a key internally.

   • IV: The AES IV (base 64 encoded) used when encrypting the content. It is an optional property if the Key value not provided, The driver will generate an IV internally.

   Connect Using OAuth Authentication

   You must use OAuth to authenticate with Paylocity. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Paylocity using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the Help documentation.

   The Pay Entry API

   The Pay Entry API is completely separate from the rest of the Paylocity API. It uses a separate Client ID and Secret, and must be explicitly requested from Paylocity for access to be granted for an account. The Pay Entry API allows you to automatically submit payroll information for individual employees, and little else. Due to the extremely limited nature of what is offered by the Pay Entry API, we have elected not to give it a separate schema, but it may be enabled via the UsePayEntryAPI connection property.

   Please be aware that when setting UsePayEntryAPI to true, you may only use the CreatePayEntryImportBatch & MergePayEntryImportBatchgtable stored procedures, the InputTimeEntry table, and the OAuth stored procedures. Attempts to use other features of the product will result in an error. You must also store your OAuthAccessToken separately, which often means setting a different OAuthSettingsLocation when using this connection property.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Paylocity Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Paylocity data from Excel for the web.

Access Live Paylocity Data in Excel for the web

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Excel to access live Paylocity data.

1. Log into Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Office Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for CData Connect Cloud Add-In and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect Cloud Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
6. In the CData Connect Cloud panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. Paylocity1), Table (e.g. Employee), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Update Paylocity Data from Excel

In addition to viewing Paylocity data in Excel, CData Connect Cloud also lets you update and delete Paylocity data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to Paylocity (your changes will be in red)
2. In the CData Connect Cloud Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected")
4. Click Execute to push the updates to Paylocity

A notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to Paylocity Data from Cloud Applications

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Paylocity data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.