Analyze SAP SuccessFactors Data in Cognos Analytics

Cognos Analytics, powered by IBM Watson®, empowers users to cleanse and establish connections with their data while creating visualizations. When integrated with CData Connect Cloud, users gain immediate, real-time connectivity between cloud-based data sources and Cognos Analytics, facilitating data management, visualization, analytics, and more. This article provides step-by-step guidance on connecting to SAP SuccessFactors via CData Connect Cloud and subsequently analyzing SAP SuccessFactors data within Cognos Analytics.

NOTE: These instructions require Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 or higher

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for SAP SuccessFactors, enabling users to perform real-time analysis on SAP SuccessFactors data within Cognos without the need to replicate data to a natively supported database. Equipped with built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to SAP SuccessFactors. This harnesses server-side processing to promptly provide the requested SAP SuccessFactors data.

Configure SAP SuccessFactors Connectivity for Cognos Analytics

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

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

   You can authenticate to SAP Success Factors using Basic authentication or OAuth with SAML assertion.

   Basic Authentication

   You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to SAP Success Factors. Note that the provider will reuse the session opened by SAP Success Factors using cookies. Which means that your credentials will be used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from SAP Success Factors will be used for authentication.

   • Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
   • User: set this to the username of your account.
   • Password: set this to the password of your account.
   • CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.

   OAuth Authentication

   You must provide values for the following properties, which will be used to get the access token.

   • Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
   • User: set this to the username of your account.
   • CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
   • OAuthClientId: set this to the API Key that was generated in API Center.
   • OAuthClientSecret: the X.509 private key used to sign SAML assertion. The private key can be found in the certificate you downloaded in Registering your OAuth Client Application.
   • InitiateOAuth: set this to GETANDREFRESH.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAP SuccessFactors Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your 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, you are ready to connect to SAP SuccessFactors data from Cognos Analytics.

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors from Cognos Analytics

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Cognos Analytics to analyze live SAP SuccessFactors data.

Download the CData Connect Cloud JDBC Driver

1. Download and install the CData Connect Cloud JDBC Driver: https://www.cdata.com/cloud/clients/download.aspx#jdbc.
2. Copy the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar) from the installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib) to the "drivers" folder in your Cognos Analytics installation directory.

Configure the Connection to CData Connect Cloud

1. Open IBM Cognos and navigate to Manage > Data server connections.
2. Click the icon to add a data server.
3. Select CData Connect Cloud.
4. Set JDBC URL to the appropriate connection string. For example: jdbc:connect://AuthScheme=Basic;
5. Set Driver class name to "cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver"
6. Create and store authenticate credentials by selecting an authentication method
   • Set Username to your CData Connect Cloud username (e.g., user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT you previously generated.
7. Click Test connection to confirm that the connection succeeds.

At this point, you are ready to analyze and visualize SAP SuccessFactors data in Cognos Analytics. For more information about using Cognos Analytics, please refer to the Cognos Analytics documentation.

Live Access to SAP SuccessFactors Data for Analytics

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live SAP SuccessFactors data from Cognos Analytics. You can create new visualizations, build reports, and more — without replicating SAP SuccessFactors data.

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