Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Workday Driver to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

Workday Icon Workday JDBC Driver

Rapidly create and deploy powerful Java applications that integrate with Workday.

ETL Workday in Oracle Data Integrator



This article shows how to transfer Workday data into a data warehouse using Oracle Data Integrator.

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to connect to Workday: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for Workday connects real-time Workday data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with Workday just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the Workday APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article walks through a JDBC-based ETL -- Workday to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Workday entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR and .lic file, located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

  • UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
  • UNIX/Linux with Agent: $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
  • Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
  • Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of Workday data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Workday data and create mappings based on Workday tables.

  1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects.
  2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter Workday.
    • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
    • Logical Schema: Enter Workday.
    • Context: Select Global.
  3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter Workday.
    • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
    • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.workday.WorkdayDriver
    • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

      To connect, there are three pieces of information required: Authentication, API URL, and WSDL URL.

      Authentication

      To authenticate, specify your User and Password. Note that you must append your Tenant to your User separated by an '@' character. For instance, if you normally log in with 'geraldg' and your Tenant is 'mycompany_mc1', then your User should be specified as 'geraldg@mycompany_mc1'.

      API URL

      The API URL may be specified either directly via APIURL, or it may be constructed from the Tenant, Service, and Host. The APIURL is constructed in the following format: <Host>/ccx/service/<Tenant>/<Service>.

      WSDL URL

      The WSDLURL may be specified in its entirety, or may be constructed from the Service and WSDLVersion connection properties. The WSDLURL is constructed in the following format: https://community.workday.com/sites/default/files/file-hosting/productionapi/<Service>/<WSDLVersion>/<Service>.wsdl

      Built-in Connection String Designer

      For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Workday JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

      java -jar cdata.jdbc.workday.jar

      Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

      Below is a typical connection string:

      jdbc:workday:User=myuser;Password=mypassword;Tenant=mycompany_gm1;Host=https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com
  4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
    • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
    • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for Workday, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Workday.
    • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Workday, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Workday.
  5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Workday tables.

Edit and Save Workday Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with Workday data in ODI. To view Workday data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click View data.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Workday. You will load Workers entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

  1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

    Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

    sqlplus / as sysdba
  2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the Workers table in Workday: CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_WORKERS (LEGAL_NAME_LAST_NAME NUMBER(20,0),Worker_Reference_WID VARCHAR2(255));
  3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
  4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_WORKERS table is added to the model.
  5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
  6. Drag the TRG_WORKERS table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
  7. Drag the Workers table from the Workday model onto the mapping.
  8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
  9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click WORKERS_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
  10. In the WORKERS_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.

You can then run the mapping to load Workday data into Oracle.