How to create Workday federated tables in MySQL

You can use the SQL Gateway to configure a MySQL remoting service and set up federated tables for Workday data. The service is a daemon process that provides a MySQL interface to the CData ODBC Driver for Workday: After you have started the service, you can create a server and tables using the FEDERATED Storage Engine in MySQL. You can then work with Workday data just as you would local MySQL tables.

Getting Started

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Connect to Workday Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

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.

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.

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.

Configure the SQL Gateway

See the SQL Gateway Overview to set up connectivity to Workday data as a virtual MySQL database. You will configure a MySQL remoting service that listens for MySQL requests from clients. The service can be configured in the SQL Gateway UI.

Create a FEDERATED Server and Tables for Workday Data

After you have configured and started the service, create a FEDERATED server to simplify the process of creating FEDERATED tables:

Create a FEDERATED Server

The following statement will create a FEDERATED server based on the ODBC Driver for Workday. Note that the username and password of the FEDERATED server must match a user account you defined on the Users tab of the SQL Gateway.

CREATE SERVER fedWorkday
FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER mysql
OPTIONS (USER 'sql_gateway_user', PASSWORD 'sql_gateway_passwd', HOST 'sql_gateway_host', PORT ####, DATABASE 'CData Workday Sys');

Create a FEDERATED Table

To create a FEDERATED table using our newly created server, use the CONNECTION keyword and pass the name of the FEDERATED server and the remote table (Workers). Refer to the following template for the statement to create a FEDERATED table:

CREATE TABLE fed_workers (
  ...,
  worker_reference_wid  TYPE(LEN),
  legal_name_last_name  TYPE(LEN),
  ...,
)
ENGINE=FEDERATED
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
CONNECTION='fedWorkday/workers';

NOTE: The table schema for the FEDERATED table must match the remote table schema exactly. You can always connect directly to the MySQL remoting service using any MySQL client and run a SHOW CREATE TABLE query to get the table schema.

Execute Queries

You can now execute queries to the Workday FEDERATED tables from any tool that can connect to MySQL, which is particularly useful if you need to JOIN data from a local table with data from Workday. Refer to the following example:

SELECT 
  fed_workers.worker_reference_wid, 
  local_table.custom_field 
FROM 
  local_table 
JOIN 
  fed_workers 
ON 
  local_table.foreign_worker_reference_wid = fed_workers.worker_reference_wid;