Access Live Paylocity Data in SAS JMP via ODBC

You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Paylocity to integrate live data into your statistical analysis with SAS JMP. The driver proxies your queries directly to the Paylocity API, ensuring that your analysis reflects any changes to the data. The CData ODBC Driver supports the standard SQL used by JMP in the background as you design reports.

The Paylocity API supports bidirectional access. This article shows how to access Paylocity data into a report and create data visualization. It also shows how to use SQL to query and manipulate Paylocity data from the JMP Query Builder.

Access Paylocity Data as an ODBC Data Source

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.

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.

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.

Import Paylocity Data with the Query Builder

After you have created the Paylocity DSN, you can use SQL to invoke the capabilities of the Paylocity API. Follow the steps below to execute some supported queries in the Query Builder:

1. In SAS JMP, click File -> Database -> Query Builder. The Select Database Connection dialog is displayed.
2. Click New Connection.
3. On the Machine Data Source tab, select the ODBC DSN you configured and then click Next. 👁 Select the ODBC DSN you configured. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
4. The Select Tables for Query dialog is displayed and in the Available Tables section, select a table and click Primary. After choosing the primary table, click Build Query to open the Query Builder. 👁 Select the Primary table for the Query. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
5. As you drag Available Columns to the Included Columns tab, the underlying SQL query is updated and you can view the generated SQL Query in the SQL tab. 👁 The generated query in the Query Builder. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Click Run Query to display the data. 👁 The results of a query in the Query Builder. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
7. To refresh the results with the current data, right-click Update from Database and click Run Script.

Manipulate Paylocity Data

You can execute data manipulation queries from JSL scripts such as the one below. To execute a script, click New Script in the toolbar. To connect, specify the DSN. You can then use the standard SQL syntax:

Open Database( "DSN=CData Paylocity Source;",
"INSERT INTO Employee
(EmployeeId)
VALUES ('1234');");

Visualize Paylocity Data

After importing, you can use the Graph Builder to create graphs visually. To open the Graph Builder, click the Graph Builder button in the toolbar.

1. Drag a dimension column onto the x axis. For example, FirstName.
2. Drag a measure column onto the y axis. For example, LastName.
3. Select a chart type. For example, a bar chart. 👁 Configuration of a basic chart. (Salesforce is shown.)