Work with Live UKG Pro HCM Data in Power Query

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to UKG Pro HCM data from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to UKG Pro HCM data for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for UKG Pro HCM, allowing you to easily integrate with live UKG Pro HCM data in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect AI looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to UKG Pro HCM, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return UKG Pro HCM data.

Configure UKG Pro HCM Connectivity for Power Query

Connectivity to UKG Pro HCM from Power Query is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with UKG Pro HCM data from Power Query, we start by creating and configuring a UKG Pro HCM connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "UKG Pro HCM" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to UKG Pro HCM.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the UKGProHCM Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\UKGProHCM.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for UKGProHCM (see below).

   UKGProHCM API Profile Settings

   UKG Pro HCM uses Basic authentication combined with a customer API key to authorize access to the API. To connect, you will need your UKG Pro HCM credentials and a customer API key issued by UKG.

   Set the following connection properties to authenticate:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to Basic.
   • User: Set this to your UKG Pro HCM username.
   • Password: Set this to your UKG Pro HCM password.
   • ProfileSettings: Set this to a semicolon-separated list containing:
     • Host: Your UKG Pro HCM tenant hostname (e.g., yourcompany.ultipro.com).
     • CustomerAPIKey: Your UKG customer API key. This is passed as the US-CUSTOMER-API-KEY request header on each API call.

   To obtain your customer API key, contact your UKG Pro HCM administrator or refer to the UKG Developer Portal at https://developer.ukg.com.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add UKG Pro HCM Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the 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 and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to UKG Pro HCM data from Power Query.

Working with Live UKG Pro HCM Data in Power Query

With the connection to Connect AI configured, you are ready to work with live UKG Pro HCM data in Power Query.

1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor)
2. Click New Source -> SQL Server
3. In the SQL Server database modal:
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the UKG Pro HCM connection (e.g. API1 )
   
4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
   • Set User to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected] )
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   
5. Click Connect
6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK"

At this point, you have live access to UKG Pro HCM data from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

SQL Access to UKG Pro HCM Data

Now you have a direct connection to live UKG Pro HCM data from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating UKG Pro HCM data.

To get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.