Import Workday Data into the Power BI Service for Visualizations

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get access to Workday data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Workday in CData Connect Cloud, publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service and then create reports on Workday data in the Power BI service.

Configure Workday Connectivity for Power BI Service

Connectivity to Workday from Power BI Service is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Workday data from Power BI Service, we start by creating and configuring a Workday connection.

(Optional) Add a New Connect Cloud User

As needed, create Users to connect to Workday through Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the Users page and click Invite Users
2. Enter the new user's email address and click Send to invite the user
3. You can review and edit users from the Users page

Connect to Workday from Connect Cloud

CData Connect Cloud uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Workday" from the Add Connection panel
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 Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Workday Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Workday data from the Power BI service.

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

Once you connect to Workday in Connect Cloud, you can create a dataset in Power BI desktop and publish the dataset to the Power BI service.

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect Cloud and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud account
3. After signing in, click "Connect"
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your Workday data from Power BI

6. Define any relationships between the selected entities on the Relationships tab.
7. Click Publish (from the Home menu) and select a Workspace.

Build Reports and Dashboards on Workday Data in the Power BI Service

Now that you have published a dataset to the Power BI service, you can create new reports and dashboards based on the published data:

1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
2. Click Workspaces and select a workspace.
3. Click Create and select Report.
4. Select the published dataset for the report.
5. Choose fields and visualizations to add to your report.

Live Access to Workday Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Workday data from the Power BI service. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Workday data.

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Cloud.