Paylocity Reporting in OBIEE with the Paylocity JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Paylocity is a standard database driver that can integrate real-time access to Paylocity data into your Java-based reporting server. This article shows how to deploy the driver to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) and create reports on Paylocity data that reflect any changes.

Deploy the JDBC Driver

Follow the steps below to add the JDBC driver to WebLogic's classpath.

For WebLogic 12.2.1, simply place the driver JAR and .lic file into DOMAIN_HOME\lib; for example, ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\MY_DOMAIN\lib. These files will be added to the server classpath at startup.

You can also manually add the driver to the classpath: This is required for earlier versions. Prepend the following to PRE_CLASSPATH in setDomainEnv.cmd (Windows) or setDomainEnv.sh (Unix). This script is located in the bin subfolder of the folder for that domain. For example: ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\MY_DOMAIN\bin.

set PRE_CLASSPATH=your-installation-directory\lib\cdata.jdbc.paylocity.jar;%PRE_CLASSPATH%

Restart all servers; for example, run the stop and start commands in DOMAIN_HOME\bitools\bin.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Paylocity

After deploying the JDBC driver, you can create a JDBC data source from BI Publisher.

1. Log into BI Publisher, at the URL http://localhost:9502/analytics, for example, and click Administration -> Manage BI Publisher.
2. Click JDBC Connection -> Add Data Source.
3. Enter the following information:
   • Data Source Name: Enter the name that users will create connections to in their reports.
   • Driver Type: Select Other.
   • Database DriverClass: Enter the driver class, cdata.jdbc.paylocity.PaylocityDriver.
   • Connection String: Enter the JDBC URL.

     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.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.paylocity.jar
     

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

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     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.

     A typical JDBC URL is below:

     jdbc:paylocity:OAuthClientID=YourClientId;OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret;RSAPublicKey=YourRSAPubKey;Key=YourKey;IV=YourIV;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

   • Username: Enter the username.
   • Password: Enter the password.
4. In the Security section, select the allowed user roles. 👁 The required settings for a JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Create Real-Time Paylocity Reports

You can now create reports and analyses based on real-time Paylocity data. Follow the steps below to use the standard report wizard to create an interactive report that reflects any changes to Paylocity data.

1. On the global header, click New -> Data Model.
2. On the Diagram tab, select SQL query in the menu.
3. Enter a name for the query and in the Data Source menu select the Paylocity JDBC data source you created.
4. Select standard SQL and enter a query like the following:

   SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Employee WHERE EmployeeId = '1234'

   👁 The SQL query to be used to create the data set for the report's data model. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
5. Click View Data to generate the sample data to be used as you build your report.
6. Select the number of rows to include in the sample data, click View, and then click Save As Sample Data.
7. Click Create Report -> Use Data Model.
8. Select Guide Me and on the Select Layout page select the report objects you want to include. In this example we select Chart and Table.
9. Drop a numeric column like LastName onto the Drop Value Here box on the y-axis. Drop a dimension column like FirstName onto the Drop Label Here box on the x-axis. 👁 The dimensions and measures for a chart. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
10. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the Paylocity data. 👁 An interactive, refresh-on-demand report. (Salesforce is shown.)