Integrate Workday Data in the Pentaho Report Designer



Publish reports based on Workday data in the Pentaho BI tool.

The CData JDBC driver for Workday data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Workday data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Workday data in Pentaho.

About Workday Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Workday. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Access the tables and datasets you create in Prism Analytics Data Catalog, working with the native Workday data hub without compromising the fidelity of your Workday system.
  • Access Workday Reports-as-a-Service to surface data from departmental datasets not available from Prism and datasets larger than Prism allows.
  • Access base data objects with WQL, REST, or SOAP, getting more granular, detailed access but with the potential need for Workday admins or IT to help craft queries.

Users frequently integrate Workday with analytics tools such as Tableau, Power BI, and Excel, and leverage our tools to replicate Workday data to databases or data warehouses. Access is secured at the user level, based on the authenticated user's identity and role.

For more information on configuring Workday to work with CData, refer to our Knowledge Base articles: Comprehensive Workday Connectivity through Workday WQL and Reports-as-a-Service & Workday + CData: Connection & Integration Best Practices.


Getting Started


Connect and Create a Report

  1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
  2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.
  3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new Workday connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

    • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:workday: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

      To connect to Workday, users need to find the Tenant and BaseURL and then select their API type.

      Obtaining the BaseURL and Tenant

      To obtain the BaseURL and Tenant properties, log into Workday and search for "View API Clients." On this screen, you'll find the Workday REST API Endpoint, a URL that includes both the BaseURL and Tenant.

      The format of the REST API Endpoint is: https://domain.com/subdirectories/mycompany, where:

      • https://domain.com/subdirectories/ is the BaseURL.
      • mycompany (the portion of the url after the very last slash) is the Tenant.
      For example, in the REST API endpoint https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com/ccx/api/v1/mycompany, the BaseURL is https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com and the Tenant is mycompany.

      Using ConnectionType to Select the API

      The value you use for the ConnectionType property determines which Workday API you use. See our Community Article for more information on Workday connectivity options and best practices.

      APIConnectionType Value
      WQLWQL
      Reports as a ServiceReports
      RESTREST
      SOAPSOAP

      Authentication

      Your method of authentication depends on which API you are using.

      • WQL, Reports as a Service, REST: Use OAuth authentication.
      • SOAP: Use Basic or OAuth authentication.

      See the Help documentation for more information on configuring OAuth with Workday.

      Built-in Connection String Designer

      For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Workday JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

      java -jar cdata.jdbc.workday.jar

      Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

      When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

      Below is a typical JDBC URL:

      jdbc:workday:User=myuser;Password=mypassword;Tenant=mycompany_gm1;BaseURL=https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com;ConnectionType=WQL;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
    • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.workday.WorkdayDriver.
    • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
    • Password: The password to authenticate with.

Add Workday Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Workday data.

  1. Add the Workday source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

  2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

    SELECT Worker_Reference_WID, Legal_Name_Last_Name FROM Workers WHERE Legal_Name_Last_Name = 'Morgan'
  3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the Workers table.
  4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Workday Driver to get started:

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