How to Create Power BI Visual Reports with Real-Time SAP SuccessFactors Data



Use CData Power BI Connectors to visualize SAP SuccessFactors data in Power BI.

CData Power BI Connectors provide self-service integration with Microsoft Power BI. The CData Power BI Connector for SAP SuccessFactors links your Power BI reports to real-time SAP SuccessFactors data. You can monitor SAP SuccessFactors data through dashboards and ensure that your analysis reflects SAP SuccessFactors data in real time by scheduling refreshes or refreshing on demand. This article details how to use the Power BI Connector to create real-time visualizations of SAP SuccessFactors data in Microsoft Power BI Desktop.

If you are interested in publishing reports on SAP SuccessFactors data to PowerBI.com, refer to our other Knowledge Base article.

Collaborative Query Processing

The CData Power BI Connectors offer unmatched performance for interacting with live SAP SuccessFactors data in Power BI due to optimized data processing built into the connector. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power BI to SAP SuccessFactors, the connector pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to SAP SuccessFactors 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 SAP SuccessFactors data using native Power BI data types.

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors as a Power BI Data Source

Installing the Power BI Connector creates a DSN (data source name) called CData Power BI SAP SuccessFactors. This the name of the DSN that Power BI uses to request a connection to the data source. Configure the DSN by filling in the required connection properties.

You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure the DSN: From the Start menu, enter "ODBC Data Sources" and select the CData PowerBI REST DSN. Ensure that you run the version of the ODBC Administrator that corresponds to the bitness of your Power BI Desktop installation (32-bit or 64-bit). You can also use run the ConfigureODBC.exe tool located in the installation folder for the connector.

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.

How to Query SAP SuccessFactors Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull SAP SuccessFactors data into the report:

  1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Other -> CData SAPSuccessFactors.
  2. Select CData PowerBI SAP SuccessFactors in the Data Source Name menu and select a data connectivity mode:
    Select Import if you want to import a copy of the data into your project. You can refresh this data on demand.
    Select DirectQuery if you want to work with the remote data.
  3. Select tables in the Navigator dialog.
  4. In the Query Editor, you can customize your dataset by filtering, sorting, and summarizing SAP SuccessFactors columns. Click Edit to open the query editor. Right-click a row to filter the rows. Right-click a column header to perform actions like the following:

    • Change column data types
    • Remove a column
    • Group by columns

    Power BI detects each column's data type from the SAP SuccessFactors metadata retrieved by the connector.

    Power BI records your modifications to the query in the Applied Steps section, adjusting the underlying data retrieval query that is executed to the remote SAP SuccessFactors data. When you click Close and Apply, Power BI executes the data retrieval query.

    Otherwise, click Load to pull the data into Power BI.

How to Create Data Visualizations in Power BI

After pulling the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Follow the steps below to create a pie chart:

  1. Select the pie chart icon in the Visualizations pane.
  2. Select a dimension in the Fields pane: for example, address1.
  3. Select a measure in the Fields pane: for example, zipCode.

You can change sort options by clicking the ellipsis (...) button for the chart. Options to select the sort column and change the sort order are displayed.

You can use both highlighting and filtering to focus on data. Filtering removes unfocused data from visualizations; highlighting dims unfocused data. You can highlight fields by clicking them:

You can apply filters at the page level, at the report level, or to a single visualization by dragging fields onto the Filters pane. To filter on the field's value, select one of the values that are displayed in the Filters pane.

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

At this point, you will have a Power BI report built on top of live SAP SuccessFactors data. Learn more about the CData Power BI Connectors for SAP SuccessFactors and download a free trial from the CData Power BI Connector for SAP SuccessFactors page. Let our Support Team know if you have any questions.

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Download a free trial of the SAP SuccessFactors Power BI Connector to get started:

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The fastest and easiest way to connect Power BI to SAP SuccessFactors data. Includes comprehensive high-performance data access, real-time integration, extensive metadata discovery, and robust SQL-92 support.