Visualize UKG Pro WFM Data in TIBCO Spotfire through ODBC

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
The ODBC standard has ubiquitous support and makes self-service business intelligence easy. Use the ODBC Driver to load UKG Pro WFM data into TIBCO Spotfire.

This article walks you through using the CData ODBC Driver for UKG Pro WFM in TIBCO Spotfire. You will use the data import wizard to connect to a DSN (data source name) for Salesforce and build on the sample visualizations to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to UKG Pro WFM as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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

UKGProWFM API Profile Settings

UKG Pro Workforce Management uses OAuth 2.0 with the Resource Owner Password Credentials grant (grant_type=password) to authorize access to the API. Unlike most OAuth-based profiles, this does not use a browser redirect/authorization-code step: the driver exchanges your UKG Pro WFM username, password, client ID, and client secret directly for an access token.

Set the following connection properties to authenticate:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuthPassword.
  • Host: Set this to the hostname of your UKG Pro Workforce Management datacenter/tenant (for example, yourcompany.mykronos.com). Do not include the protocol (https://) or a trailing slash.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client ID issued for your UKG Pro Workforce Management OAuth application.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret issued for your UKG Pro Workforce Management OAuth application.
  • User: Set this to your UKG Pro Workforce Management username.
  • Password: Set this to your UKG Pro Workforce Management password.

Access tokens are obtained from https://{Host}/api/authentication/access_token. Refresh tokens issued by UKG Pro Workforce Management expire after 7 days; if a refresh attempt fails because the refresh token itself has expired, the driver must re-authenticate with your User/Password credentials to obtain a new access token.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Create Visualizations of UKG Pro WFM Tables

Follow the steps below to connect to the DSN and create real-time data visualizations:

  1. Click Data -> Add Data ...
  2. Click Other -> Load data with ODBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET data provider.
  3. In the Data Source Type menu, select ODBC Data Provider and click Configure.
  4. Select the DSN. The DSN to connect to in the Add Data Tables wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
  5. Select the tables that you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses Employees. You can also specify an SQL query. The driver supports the standard SQL syntax. Tables and columns selected in the tree or specified by an SQL query. (Salesforce is shown.)
  6. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

    If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

  7. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses UserName in the Numbers section and PersonNumber in the Categories section.Recommended visualizations for the imported data table. (Salesforce is shown.)

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can zoom in on high probability opportunities by applying a filter on the page. To add a filter, click the Filter button. The available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.

A simple dashboard with a global filter. (Salesforce is shown.)

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from UKG Pro WFM with the API Driver

Connect to UKG Pro WFM