How to create SAP SuccessFactors federated tables in MySQL

You can use the SQL Gateway to configure a MySQL remoting service and set up federated tables for SAP SuccessFactors data. The service is a daemon process that provides a MySQL interface to the CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors: After you have started the service, you can create a server and tables using the FEDERATED Storage Engine in MySQL. You can then work with SAP SuccessFactors data just as you would local MySQL tables.

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

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.

Configure the SQL Gateway

See the SQL Gateway Overview to set up connectivity to SAP SuccessFactors data as a virtual MySQL database. You will configure a MySQL remoting service that listens for MySQL requests from clients. The service can be configured in the SQL Gateway UI.

Create a FEDERATED Server and Tables for SAP SuccessFactors Data

After you have configured and started the service, create a FEDERATED server to simplify the process of creating FEDERATED tables:

Create a FEDERATED Server

The following statement will create a FEDERATED server based on the ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors. Note that the username and password of the FEDERATED server must match a user account you defined on the Users tab of the SQL Gateway.

CREATE SERVER fedSAPSuccessFactors
FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER mysql
OPTIONS (USER 'sql_gateway_user', PASSWORD 'sql_gateway_passwd', HOST 'sql_gateway_host', PORT ####, DATABASE 'CData SAPSuccessFactors Sys');

Create a FEDERATED Table

To create a FEDERATED table using our newly created server, use the CONNECTION keyword and pass the name of the FEDERATED server and the remote table (ExtAddressInfo). Refer to the following template for the statement to create a FEDERATED table:

CREATE TABLE fed_extaddressinfo (
  ...,
  address1  TYPE(LEN),
  zipcode  TYPE(LEN),
  ...,
)
ENGINE=FEDERATED
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
CONNECTION='fedSAPSuccessFactors/extaddressinfo';

NOTE: The table schema for the FEDERATED table must match the remote table schema exactly. You can always connect directly to the MySQL remoting service using any MySQL client and run a SHOW CREATE TABLE query to get the table schema.

Execute Queries

You can now execute queries to the SAP SuccessFactors FEDERATED tables from any tool that can connect to MySQL, which is particularly useful if you need to JOIN data from a local table with data from SAP SuccessFactors. Refer to the following example:

SELECT 
  fed_extaddressinfo.address1, 
  local_table.custom_field 
FROM 
  local_table 
JOIN 
  fed_extaddressinfo 
ON 
  local_table.foreign_address1 = fed_extaddressinfo.address1;