Create Paylocity-Connected Applications in Appsmith

Appsmith is an open-source internal tool builder that allows teams to quickly and easily build a UI to help improve their business operations. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate access to Paylocity data for business applications. This article outlines the process of connecting to Paylocity using Connect Cloud and creating a basic application from Paylocity data within Appsmith.

CData Connect Cloud offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Paylocity, enabling the creation of business applications directly from live Paylocity data within Appsmith, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build applications, Appsmith generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Paylocity. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Paylocity data.

Configure Paylocity Connectivity for Appsmith

Connectivity to Paylocity from Appsmith is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Paylocity data from Appsmith, 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.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, we are ready to connect to Paylocity data from Appsmith.

Create an Appsmith Application from live Paylocity Data

To establish a connection from Appsmith to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server, follow these steps:

Connect to Paylocity in Appsmith

1. Log in to your Appsmith instance and create a new application.
2. In the new application, open the Data page and select Bring your data.
3. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source.
4. Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
   • Host address: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: 14333
   • Database name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Paylocity1).
   • Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
   • Password: enter the PAT you previously generated.
   
5. Click Test configuration to confirm a successful connection, then click Save to save the datasource.

Create a new query

With a connection configured to a datasource, we can add a SQL query to actually retrieve data from the data source.

1. On the screen with the new data source, click New Query.
2. This opens the Query Editor to enter a SQL query to select data. To assist with specifying a SQL query, use the Explorer of CData Connect Cloud to preview the SQL queries and the data you want to retrieve.
3. After creating the SQL query, return to the Query Editor in Appsmith and enter the SQL query, then click Run.
4. Once the query successfully runs, all that remains is to set up the Page to display the data retrieved.

Display Paylocity data

1. Open the UI tab and click New UI element.
2. Choose a new UI element to grab, then drag and place the element on the page.
3. Click Connect data on the new UI element, then select the query previously created.
4. With the data connected, it is then displayed in the UI element.

Deploy the application

With the Paylocity data connected to the UI elements in the application, we can deploy the Application. To do this, click Deploy in the top-right corner of Appsmith, then the application is opened in a seperate window displaying the Paylocity data.

Get CData Connect Cloud

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