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The Workday ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from Workday, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Workday data like you would a database - read, write, and update Workday Cash Management, Compensation, Financial Management, Payroll, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

DataBind Controls to Workday Data in C++Builder



DataBind to Workday data in C++Builder with standard components and controls.

The CData ODBC Driver for Workday makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live Workday data with standard data access components in C++Builder. This article shows how to create a simple visual component library (VCL) application in C++Builder that connects to Workday data, executes queries, and displays the results in a grid. An additional section shows how to use FireDAC components to execute commands from code.

Create a Connection to Workday Data

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.

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

You can then follow the steps below to use the Data Explorer to create a FireDAC connection to Workday.

  1. In a new VCL Forms application, expand the FireDAC node in the Data Explorer.
  2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
  3. Click Add New Connection.
  4. Enter a name for the connection.
  5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Workday.

Create VCL Applications with Connectivity to Workday Data

Follow the procedure below to start querying Workday data from a simple VCL application that displays the results of a query in a grid.

  1. Drop a TFDConnection component onto the form and set the following properties:

    • ConnectionDefName: Select the FireDAC connection to Workday.
    • Connected: Select True from the menu and, in the dialog that appears, enter your credentials.
  2. Drop a TFDQuery component onto the form and set the properties below:

    • Connection: Set this property to the TFDConnection component, if this component is not already specified.
    • SQL: Click the button in the SQL property and enter a query. For example:

      SELECT Worker_Reference_WID, Legal_Name_Last_Name FROM Workers WHERE Legal_Name_Last_Name = 'Morgan'
    • Active: Set this property to true.
  3. Drop a TDataSource component onto the form and set the following property:

    • DataSet: In the menu for this property, select the name of the TFDQuery component.
  4. Drop a TDBGrid control onto the form and set the following property:

    • DataSource: Select the name of the TDataSource.
  5. Drop a TFDGUIxWaitCursor onto the form — this is required to avoid a run-time error.

Execute Commands to Workday with FireDAC Components

You can use the TFDConnection and TFQuery components to execute queries to Workday data. This section provides Workday-specific examples of executing queries with the TFQuery component.

Connect to Workday Data

To connect to the data source, set the Connected property of the TFDConnection component to true. You can set the same properties from code:

FDConnection1->ConnectionDefName = "CData Workday ODBC Source"; FDConnection1->Connected = true;

To connect the TFDQuery component to Workday data, set the Connection property of the component. When a TFDQuery component is added at design time, its Connection property is automatically set to point to a TFDConnection on the form, as in the application above.

Create Parameterized Queries

To create a parameterized query, use the following syntax below:

FDQuery1->SQL->Text = "select * from Workers where legal_name_last_name = :Legal_Name_Last_Name"; FDQuery1->ParamByName("legal_name_last_name")->AsString = "Morgan"; query->Open();

The example above binds a string-type input parameter by name and then opens the dataset that results.

Prepare the Statement

Preparing statements is costly in system resources and time. The connection must be active and open while a statement is prepared. By default, FireDAC prepares the query to avoid recompiling the same query over and over. To disable statement preparation, set ResourceOptions.DirectExecute to True; for example, when you need to execute a query only once.

Execute a Query

To execute a query that returns a result set, such as a select query, use the Open method. The Open method executes the query, returns the result set, and opens it. The Open method will return an error if the query does not produce a result set.

FDQuery1->SQL->Text := "select * from Workers where legal_name_last_name = :Legal_Name_Last_Name"; FDQuery1.ParamByName("legal_name_last_name")->AsString = "Morgan"; FDQuery1->Open();