Analyze Workday Data in R

Create data visualizations and use high-performance statistical functions to analyze Workday data in Microsoft R Open.

Access Workday data with pure R script and standard SQL. You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Workday and the RODBC package to work with remote Workday data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Workday data and visualize Workday data in R.

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

Install R

You can complement the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open (MRO).

Connect to Workday as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Workday follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

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.

API	ConnectionType Value
WQL	WQL
Reports as a Service	Reports
REST	REST
SOAP	SOAP

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.

When you configure the DSN, 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.

Windows

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.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Workday in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini


[CData Workday Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Workday
Description = My Description
User = myuser
Password = mypassword
Tenant = mycompany_gm1
BaseURL = https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com
ConnectionType = WQL

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Load the RODBC Package

To use the driver, download the RODBC package. In RStudio, click Tools -> Install Packages and enter RODBC in the Packages box.

After installing the RODBC package, the following line loads the package:


library(RODBC)

Note: This article uses RODBC version 1.3-12. Using Microsoft R Open, you can test with the same version, using the checkpoint capabilities of Microsoft's MRAN repository. The checkpoint command enables you to install packages from a snapshot of the CRAN repository, hosted on the MRAN repository. The snapshot taken Jan. 1, 2016 contains version 1.3-12.


library(checkpoint)
checkpoint("2016-01-01")

Connect to Workday Data as an ODBC Data Source

You can connect to a DSN in R with the following line:


conn <- odbcConnect("CData Workday Source")

Schema Discovery

The driver models Workday APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:


sqlTables(conn)

Execute SQL Queries

Use the sqlQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Workday API.


workers <- sqlQuery(conn, "SELECT Worker_Reference_WID, Legal_Name_Last_Name FROM Workers WHERE Legal_Name_Last_Name = 'Morgan'", believeNRows=FALSE, rows_at_time=1)

You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:


View(workers)

Plot Workday Data

You can now analyze Workday data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:


par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2))
barplot(workers$Legal_Name_Last_Name, main="Workday Workers", names.arg = workers$Worker_Reference_WID, horiz=TRUE)

A basic bar plot. (Salesforce is shown.)

Ready to get started?

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

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Learn more:

Workday ODBC Driver

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.

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