Import Paylocity 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 AI, you get access to Paylocity data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Paylocity in CData Connect AI, publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service and then create reports on Paylocity data in the Power BI service.

Configure Paylocity Connectivity for Power BI Service

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

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Paylocity" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Paylocity.

   Set the following to establish a connection to Paylocity:

   • RSAPublicKey: Set this to the RSA Key associated with your Paylocity, if the RSA Encryption is enabled in the Paylocity account.

     This property is required for executing Insert and Update statements, and it is not required if the feature is disabled.

   • UseSandbox: Set to true if you are using sandbox account.
   • CustomFieldsCategory: Set this to the Customfields category. This is required when IncludeCustomFields is set to true. The default value for this property is PayrollAndHR.
   • Key: The AES symmetric key(base 64 encoded) encrypted with the Paylocity Public Key. It is the key used to encrypt the content.

     Paylocity will decrypt the AES key using RSA decryption.
     It is an optional property if the IV value not provided, The driver will generate a key internally.

   • IV: The AES IV (base 64 encoded) used when encrypting the content. It is an optional property if the Key value not provided, The driver will generate an IV internally.

   Connect Using OAuth Authentication

   You must use OAuth to authenticate with Paylocity. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Paylocity using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the Help documentation.

   The Pay Entry API

   The Pay Entry API is completely separate from the rest of the Paylocity API. It uses a separate Client ID and Secret, and must be explicitly requested from Paylocity for access to be granted for an account. The Pay Entry API allows you to automatically submit payroll information for individual employees, and little else. Due to the extremely limited nature of what is offered by the Pay Entry API, we have elected not to give it a separate schema, but it may be enabled via the UsePayEntryAPI connection property.

   Please be aware that when setting UsePayEntryAPI to true, you may only use the CreatePayEntryImportBatch & MergePayEntryImportBatchgtable stored procedures, the InputTimeEntry table, and the OAuth stored procedures. Attempts to use other features of the product will result in an error. You must also store your OAuthAccessToken separately, which often means setting a different OAuthSettingsLocation when using this connection property. 👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   

4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Paylocity Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

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

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

Once you connect to Paylocity in Connect AI, 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 AI and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect AI account 👁 Authenticating with Connect AI
   
3. After signing in, click "Connect" 👁 Connecting to Connect AI
   
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog 👁 The available tables. (Salesforce tables are shown)
   
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your Paylocity 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 Paylocity 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. 👁 Select a dataset
   
5. Choose fields and visualizations to add to your report. 👁 Visualizing Paylocity data in the Power BI service
   

Live Access to Paylocity Data from Cloud Applications

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

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