ETL Paylocity in Oracle Data Integrator

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to read and write to Paylocity: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for Paylocity connects real-time Paylocity data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with Paylocity just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the Paylocity APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article covers a JDBC-based ETL -- Paylocity to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Paylocity entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR (cdata.jdbc.paylocity.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.paylocity.lic), located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

• UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
• UNIX/Linux with Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib and $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
• Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
• Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\odi\oracledi\userlib and %APPDATA%\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of Paylocity data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Paylocity data and create mappings based on Paylocity tables.

1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects. 👁 Create a New Model
   
2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter Paylocity.
   • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
   • Logical Schema: Enter Paylocity.
   • Context: Select Global.
   👁 Configuring the Model
   
3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter Paylocity.
   • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
   • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.paylocity.PaylocityDriver
   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

     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.)
     

     Below is a typical connection string:

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

   👁 Configuring the Data Server
   
4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
   • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
   • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for Paylocity, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Paylocity.
   • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Paylocity, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Paylocity.
   👁 Configuring the Physical Schema
   
5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Paylocity tables. 👁 Reverse Engineer the Model
   

Edit and Save Paylocity Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with Paylocity data in ODI. To edit and save Paylocity data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click Data. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the data. Click Save Changes when you are finished making changes. 👁 Viewing the data.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Paylocity. You will load Employee entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

   Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

   sqlplus / as sysdba
   

2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the Employee table in Paylocity:

   CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_EMPLOYEE (LASTNAME NUMBER(20,0),FirstName VARCHAR2(255));
   

3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_EMPLOYEE table is added to the model.
5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
6. Drag the TRG_EMPLOYEE table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
7. Drag the Employee table from the Paylocity model onto the mapping.
8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click EMPLOYEE_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
10. In the EMPLOYEE_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab. 👁 SQL-based access to Paylocity enables you to use standard database-to-database knowledge modules.
    

You can then run the mapping to load Paylocity data into Oracle.