Access Workday Data in PHP through Connect Server

You can use CData Connect Server to access Workday data from SQL Server clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to create a virtual SQL Server database for Workday and connect to Workday data in real time through PHP's standard SQL Server interface, i.e. sqlsrv_connect.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Workday, allowing you to easily build reports from live Workday data in PHP — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, PHP 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 Workday, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Workday data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Workday 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 "Workday" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Workday.

   To connect, there are three pieces of information required: Authentication, API URL, and WSDL URL.

   Authentication

   To authenticate, specify your User and Password. Note that you must append your Tenant to your User separated by an '@' character. For instance, if you normally log in with 'geraldg' and your Tenant is 'mycompany_mc1', then your User should be specified as 'geraldg@mycompany_mc1'.

   API URL

   The API URL may be specified either directly via APIURL, or it may be constructed from the Tenant, Service, and Host. The APIURL is constructed in the following format: <Host>/ccx/service/<Tenant>/<Service>.

   WSDL URL

   The WSDLURL may be specified in its entirety, or may be constructed from the Service and WSDLVersion connection properties. The WSDLURL is constructed in the following format: https://community.workday.com/sites/default/files/file-hosting/productionapi/<Service>/<WSDLVersion>/<Service>.wsdl

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 Workday data from PHP.

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual SQL Server database:

• Server name/Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running.
• Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized in Connect Server.
• Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
• Database Name: Specify the name of the virtual database you created for Workday.
• Port: Specify the port the service is running on, port 1433 in this example.

sqlsrv_connect

<?php
$serverName = "connect_server_url, 1433"; //Connect Server Address, portNumber (default is 1433)
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"Workday1", "UID"=>"userName", "PWD"=>"password");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);

if( $conn ) {
     echo "Connection established.<br>";
}else{
     echo "Connection could not be established.<br>";
     die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}
?>

PDO

<?php
<?php
$user = my_connect_user
$pass = my_connect_pass

$pdo = new PDO("sqlsrv:Server=connect_server_url,1433;Database=Workday1", $user , $pass);

?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

1. Query the table; for example, Workers. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
3. Close the connection.

sqlsrv_connect

$result = $sqlsrv_connect->query("SELECT Worker_Reference_WID, Legal_Name_Last_Name FROM Workers WHERE Legal_Name_Last_Name = 'Morgan'");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$sqlsrv_connect->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT Worker_Reference_WID, Legal_Name_Last_Name FROM Workers WHERE Legal_Name_Last_Name = 'Morgan'");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

SQL Server Access to Workday Data using PHP

You have retrieved live Workday Data using PHP. Now, you can easily access data sources and more — all without replicating Workday data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.