Build SAP SuccessFactors-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to SAP SuccessFactors data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for SAP SuccessFactors and build visualizations from SAP SuccessFactors data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for SAP SuccessFactors, allowing you to easily build reports from live SAP SuccessFactors data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to SAP SuccessFactors, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested SAP SuccessFactors data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for SAP SuccessFactors Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "SAP SuccessFactors" from Available Data Sources.
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 Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to SAP SuccessFactors data from Redash.

Visualize SAP SuccessFactors Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual SAP SuccessFactors database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. SAP SuccessFactors (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for SAP SuccessFactors (e.g. SAPSuccessFactors1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our SAP SuccessFactors data.

Create a SAP SuccessFactors Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT address1, zipCode FROM ExtAddressInfo WHERE city = 'Springfield'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load SAP SuccessFactors data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from SAP SuccessFactors data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to SAP SuccessFactors Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to SAP SuccessFactors data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.