Use the CData ODBC Driver for Paylocity in MicroStrategy Web

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData ODBC Driver for Paylocity, you gain database-like access to live Paylocity data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through adding Paylocity as external data in MicroStrategy Web and creating a simple visualization of Paylocity data.

The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Paylocity data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to Paylocity, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Paylocity and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Paylocity data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to Paylocity as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Paylocity follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments (the ODBC Driver for Paylocity must be installed on the machine hosting the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server).

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Paylocity in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Connect to and Visualize Paylocity Data using MicroStrategy Web

Once you have created a database instance in MicroStrategy Developer and connected it to a project, you can perform a data import of Paylocity data from MicroStrategy Web. Alternatively, you can create a new data source based on the ODBC Driver.^*

1. Open MicroStrategy Web and select your project.
2. Click Add External Data, select Databases, and choose Select a Table as the Import Option.
3. In the Import from Tables wizard, click to add a new data source.
   • Select DSN Data Sources
   • Set the DSN property to the previously configured DSN (CData Paylocity Sys)
   • Set the Version property to Generic DBMS
   • Set the User and Password properties (or use filler values)
   • Set the Data Source Name
4. After creating the data source, click to edit the catalog options and set the following queries and click OK.
   • SQL statement to retrieve tables available in the data source

     SELECT
       CatalogName NAME_SPACE,
       TableName TAB_NAME
     FROM
       SYS_TABLES
         

   • SQL statement to retrieve columns for the selected tables

     SELECT DISTINCT 
       CatalogName NAME_SPACE, 
       TableName TAB_NAME, 
       ColumnName COL_NAME, 
       DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, 
       Length DATA_LEN, 
       NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, 
       NumericScale DATA_SCALE 
     FROM 
       SYS_TABLECOLUMNS 
     WHERE 
       TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) 
     ORDER BY
       1,2,3
         

5. Drag a table into the pane. Note: Since we create a live connection, we can import whole tables and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products.
6. Click Finish, choose to the option to connect live, save the query, and choose the option to create a new dossier.
7. Choose a visualization, choose fields to display, and apply any filters to create a new visualization of Paylocity data. Data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to Paylocity, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the driver.
8. Once you have finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for Paylocity in MicroStrategy Web, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on Paylocity data. Read our other articles on connecting to Paylocity in MicroStrategy and connecting to Paylocity in MicroStrategy Desktop for more examples.

Note: connecting using a ODBC driver requires a 3- or 4-tier architecture.