DataBind SAP SuccessFactors Data to the DevExpress Data Grid

The ADO.NET Provider for SAP SuccessFactors by CData incorporates conventional ADO.NET data access components compatible with third-party controls. You can adhere to the standard ADO.NET data binding procedures to establish two-way access to real-time data through UI controls. This article will demonstrate the utilization of CData components for data binding with DevExpress UI Controls (Windows Forms and Web controls), specifically binding to a chart that visualizes live data.

You can authenticate to SAP Success Factors using Basic authentication or OAuth with SAML assertion.

Basic Authentication

You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to SAP Success Factors. Note that the provider will reuse the session opened by SAP Success Factors using cookies. Which means that your credentials will be used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from SAP Success Factors will be used for authentication.

• Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
• User: set this to the username of your account.
• Password: set this to the password of your account.
• CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.

OAuth Authentication

You must provide values for the following properties, which will be used to get the access token.

• Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
• User: set this to the username of your account.
• CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
• OAuthClientId: set this to the API Key that was generated in API Center.
• OAuthClientSecret: the X.509 private key used to sign SAML assertion. The private key can be found in the certificate you downloaded in Registering your OAuth Client Application.
• InitiateOAuth: set this to GETANDREFRESH.

Windows Forms Controls

The code below shows how to populate a DevExpress chart with SAP SuccessFactors data. The SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter binds to the Series property of the chart control. The Diagram property of the control defines the x- and y-axes as the column names.

using (SAPSuccessFactorsConnection connection = new SAPSuccessFactorsConnection(
"User=username;Password=password;CompanyId=CompanyId;Url=https://api4.successfactors.com;")) {
 SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter dataAdapter = new SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter(
 "SELECT address1, zipCode FROM ExtAddressInfo WHERE city = 'Springfield'", connection);
 
 DataTable table = new DataTable();
 dataAdapter.Fill(table);
 DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series series = new DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series();
 chartControl1.Series.Add(series);
 series.DataSource = table;
 series.ValueDataMembers.AddRange(new string[] { "zipCode" });
 series.ArgumentScaleType = DevExpress.XtraCharts.ScaleType.Qualitative;
 series.ArgumentDataMember = "address1";
 series.ValueScaleType = DevExpress.XtraCharts.ScaleType.Numerical;
 chartControl1.Legend.Visibility = DevExpress.Utils.DefaultBoolean.False;
 ((DevExpress.XtraCharts.SideBySideBarSeriesView)series.View).ColorEach = true; 
}

Web Controls

The code below shows how to populate a DevExpress Web control with SAP SuccessFactors data. The SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter binds to the Series property of the chart; the Diagram property defines the x- and y-axes as the column names.

using DevExpress.XtraCharts;

using (SAPSuccessFactorsConnection connection = new SAPSuccessFactorsConnection(
"User=username;Password=password;CompanyId=CompanyId;Url=https://api4.successfactors.com;"))
{
 SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter1 = new SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter("SELECT address1, zipCode FROM ExtAddressInfo WHERE city = 'Springfield'", connection);
 DataTable table = new DataTable();
 SAPSuccessFactorsDataAdapter1.Fill(table);
 DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series series = new Series("Series1", ViewType.Bar);
 WebChartControl1.Series.Add(series);
 series.DataSource = table;
 series.ValueDataMembers.AddRange(new string[] { "zipCode" });
 series.ArgumentScaleType = ScaleType.Qualitative;
 series.ArgumentDataMember = "address1";
 series.ValueScaleType = ScaleType.Numerical;
 ((DevExpress.XtraCharts.SideBySideBarSeriesView)series.View).ColorEach = true;
}